Post by Neonfire Studio in Is it possible to bump my project to the top of Recent?

Viewing post in Is it possible to bump my project to the top of Recent?

Hey, thanks so much for the reply, I really appreciate you taking the time to explain that. I understand it properly now. It makes sense that Recent isn’t really where discovery happens, and that it’s more about overall quality, marketing, and sometimes just luck. I guess I was too focused on that one section without realizing how fast it moves and how much is getting uploaded all the time.

I’ll shift my focus toward promoting outside itch.io and trying to build activity that might help my project show up in Popular.

If I can ask an off-topic but related question: will my future games also be held for manual review before they appear in search and tags, or will that process be automatic now? Just trying to understand what to expect next time.

Thanks again for the help, this gave me a much clearer idea of how to approach things going forward.

Like Reply

lyn-marie excelsiaAdmin70 days ago(+1)

All uploads are put through our queue in order to ensure consistent legitimacy overall, but you should typically be put through in a few days!

Like Reply

Neonfire Studio70 days ago (2 edits)

Hey, thanks again for all your help! I’m just curious, I’ve noticed that some games seem to get indexed almost instantly after upload. Is that because of account trust level or something else? And is there any way I can work toward that?

I know most of my earlier games didn’t meet all the requirements to get indexed (since they were just for jams and missing things like screenshots). If I upload 1–2 proper games and maybe remove those old ones, would that help improve my account or speed up future indexing?

Like Reply

lyn-marie excelsiaAdmin69 days ago(+1)

Our queue organizes games and what order they get put through the queue by a variety of factors, such as risk level and past history of their account. It's also entirely possible that some games end up getting indexed faster simply because a staff member was online and received the game in their queue as they were working. As highlighted earlier, the recent releases section is a very small part of itch's overall "algorithmic discovery" aspect of promotion. That being said, generally the more work you put into having a full page (video, screenshots, detailed descriptions, page design) will showcase a higher degree of quality on your page which can lead to quicker indexing, but there is no exact science to when projects do or don't get indexed and how quickly or slowly that happens, as we have to go through hundreds of games a day, and the rate at which users upload new content is noticeably higher.

Like Reply

Neonfire Studio69 days ago

Thanks for explaining so clearly. Much appreciated!

Like Reply