When I search my addon from the Addons manager page, it never appears in the results.
While when I do the same by visiting the mozilla addon’s site, it shows up as first thing.
Can you tell me why this is happening?
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One of the disadvantages of choosing a preliminary review instead of full review is that your add-on will not show up in search results on the add-on manager page.
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Is this true? Hopefully someone else can chime in.
I always thought that prelim review does make it show in search results. I just tested a search of my prelim addons and they are showing.
Aside: Major props to you, seeing a question asker (you) now become an answer-er. 
Searching in the AMO website includes preliminary reviewed add-ons in the results, searching in the browser’s about:addons page does not show any preliminarily reviewed add-ons in the results.
It is what we meant when we said “add-on manager page” instead of “AMO”.
Oh I see, that’s some cool info. Is this written/documented anywhere?
It is, but I discovered it by chance when I tried to search it in the add-on manager page, like OP did. Only after that I looked up for some information related to this and I found the following:
http://www.ghacks.net/2013/08/29/mozilla-limits-firefoxs-add-ons-manager-search-results-fully-reviewed-add-ons/
Now that I think of it, the documentation listing the disadvantages of applying for a preliminary review instead of full review are quite hard to find, with the following being one of the top search results, from 2011 (notice no mention yet of preliminary reviews not showing up in add-on manager searches):
Add-ons with Preliminary Review approval appear on the site as Experimental, can’t be featured, and get lower search rankings. Like Public add-ons, they have automatic updates enabled.
And the official documentation, not so much visible probably because it might be a page that has been created relatively recently:
Preliminary Review Criteria: This review level is recommended for Add-ons that are still in an experimental phase. Add-ons that meet these criteria, but not the Full Review Criteria, are listed on AMO with lower search rankings. These Add-ons are not available from the Add-on Manager and are not eligible for promotion.
EDIT: Wrong link: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/AMO/Policy/Reviews#Preliminary_Review
Correct link:
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Awesome research, thanks, let’s talk to the amo editors and see if we can make this more accessible.
Can’t do anything from the google searches, the page has to become more relevant with use. Probably provide more links to the review details whenever mentioned on the network will help a ton, it would avoid confusion (the 2011 article does not mention search exclusion) and it would allow centralized information, no fragmentation which can induce users in error.
Starting right from the add-on dashboard, the review type each add-on has been assigned with could lead the user to the official documentation. Currently it leads the user to the add-on versions’ page, which is of absolutely no use for the purpose of clicking on the review type label.
I have the same problem, despite the fact that my addon has been fully reviewed. Is this topic the right place to resolve it or should I file some bug report or request?
I’ve found the cause and has to close my issue: the whole thing is the addons manager’s search cache. However, it would be interesting to know about its lifetime.
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Interesting find. Did you get it to work by hitting Ctrl + F5? How did you realize it was cache?
As the problem was gone with new profile, I decided that the reason was caching.
It is not an issue, it is by design. Preliminary reviewed add-ons will not show up in search results when using the search field in about:addons Firefox search page. Apply for a Full review if you wish to improve your addon’s visibility.
This is the poster-child of poor design. I go to addons.mozilla.org on my phone to search for an addon. It says zero results. I go to google, search for the exact same addon and it comes up. I click on it and it takes me to the exact form which seconds ago told me no such addon existed. Tell me, someone please, how is this experience at all useful for me and who knows how many millions of others? This is, I think, what happens when programmers listen to each other instead of to users. “Oh, but you should do it this way…” A search box should not lie to the user.
If I go to https://addons.mozilla.org/ in Firefox for Android, it redirects to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/ and this filters the results for platform compatibility. Maybe it would be helpful to have a breadcrumb navigation aid or other link if you want to search extensions for other platforms.
You’re right, it changed to en-US/android and did not find the addon which I have actually installed now in Firefox. It’s hilarious. I have an addon installed which mozilla tells me doesn’t exist. However, using your post as inspiration, if I change my user agent to desktop I am redirected to addons.mozilla.org and Bypass Paywalls Clean comes up immediately. What a joke. A bad one.