Post by redonihunter in My game hasn't been indexed for 7 days even though the page quality is excellent

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I’ve read all the threads and all the discussions about indexing, but I still can’t understand why games that have no gameplay, no description, no screenshots — basically nothing — get indexed immediately, while I’ve been waiting for a week

I doubt that. Else you would know that 7 days is nothing and that support will not answer such requests and if they do, that it will be more than 4 days. You also did not read the community message board rules.

So why can’t itch offer proper moderation?

That costs money.

Also, Itch does not see it is a priority to advertise games. Your page is fully operational. Itch believes developers should do their own promotion. For that you do not need to be indexed. Indexing is low priority. Things like malware, ddos attacks, pay out issues are a bit more important.

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Pizberry20 hours ago

Else you would know that 7 days is nothing and that support will not answer such requests and if they do, that it will be more than 4 days.

This is the first time I've encountered this in a year on this platform. I've read all the questions on this topic, and if everything was fine, I wouldn't have written this post here. Regarding support: you can write about indexing after one day, but I wrote after four. But you know, that's not fair lol. Go to your recent games now and you'll see garbage that's practically unformatted, yet it's indexed. How is that even possible? I had the same problem with Football Championship; the page wasn't very well formatted, but it was indexed right away

You also did not read the community message board rules.

Let's read the rules: "If you still need to create a topic about it, then please write in your post that you've read the docs and you still have a question, otherwise we'll close your topic."

Well, I have questions and grievances, which is why I wrote this long post (by the standards of other posts on this topic)

That costs money

Look, I don't care that it costs money. I'm a user of this platform, and as a user, I shouldn't care; I need to focus on my business. You can see this concern on the screens right now. Besides, treating this system well just because "it costs money" is stupid. I don't like it, and I've described its shortcomings here. My main complaint is: why does ICH immediately publish garbage without providing any information? No, let's put it this way: why is this garbage here? Even the information about this system states: "Indexing is generally available to all developers, assuming your account is in good standing and you aren’t abusing or creating low-quality pages" From this sentence, I understand that indexing is necessary for virus scanning and finding high-quality projects. In the post, you can see examples of pages without low quality

Things like malware, ddos attacks, pay out issues are a bit more important.

I agree with you on this, it is actually very important, but......

Itch does not see it is a priority to advertise games. Your page is fully operational. Itch believes developers should do their own promotion. For that you do not need to be indexed. Indexing is low priority.

Then explain why recommendations are even necessary if, in your opinion, they have no impact? Itch.io isn't just a place where you upload and forget about it; it's a platform similar to Steam. If it weren't, there wouldn't be developer blogs (there would only be updates, for example), no "recent games" or "new and popular" tabs (why? The developer needs to promote the game!), and no tags (just pages for games that have been published). All the factors (in a different sense) I've described allow Itch users to find something new outside of Steam, and all sorts of YouTubers can find new content there. Itch is an alternative to Steam for those who don't want to pay $100 or simply can't. You know, I'd accept this argument if we were talking about GameJolt, another competitor. There are practically no recommendations there; I've never had more than 20 views there. And GameJolt itself isn't very popular, as it has less opportunity to connect with its audience. I'd like to add that Itch has a CTR metric that directly impacts the platform, which is odd for a platform that "Itch does not see it is a priority to advertise games.." So, Itch shouldn't advertise my game, I'm not asking for that, I'm asking for my game to be visible to platform users among all the garbage from "recent games."

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redonihunter11 hours ago

The docs are outdated. Itch could avoid a lot of threads like this by updating their docs. I honestly do not know, why they do not just do this. It is frustrating to read the same thread every day. They could even reduce tickets, by giving realistic expectations. You only wrote so early, because of the wording in the docs.

Look, I don't care that it costs money.

You wanted an explanation, did you not.

They have automatic systems to take workload from staff to save money. Some games are put into a waiting queue for staff, some games are indexed right away. What influences this is secret. Do not bother to ask. No one with authority will tell.

From this sentence, I understand that indexing is necessary for virus scanning and finding high-quality projects.

That's not the reason. And some of this might have been lost in translation, as it makes no sense, the way it is written.

Malware is scanned for already indexed projects too and even an update can get you delisted temporarily or quarantined. A side effect of quarantine is being taken off the index for the duration of the quarantine and some mistake quarantine for an indexing problem.

And they do not index games to look for quality projects. Or look for low quality ones to intentionally not index. It is guidelines. Not terms of service. It is a standard of project page they would like to see. But they will not bar amateurs and inept developers from being indexed, just because they fail to have a cover image or the project is "low quality".

you can see examples of pages without low quality

Please use a better translator page. Or translate it back and forth and see for yourself. It is awful to read and some of what you write makes just no sense at all.

Then explain why recommendations are even necessary

I do not understand what you are talking about. Translation issues again, I guess.

I just repeated the overal tone from leafo according to my memory. If you see leafo talk about this in threads about indexing, you will notice that being indexed is seen low priority and developers are encouraged to do promotion themselves.

While I do not want to be condesending, it might be seen as such, and I want to apologize in advance. Sorry for being blunt and maybe hurtful:

You gained 7 followers for your 3 games in a year while being indexed. Being indexed or not does not matter in the slightest for your success. You do not have commercial success. And if you manage to be successfull in the future, it will not be, because you were indexed on Itch and visible for literally half a day on the first page of recent games.

And for your promotion, it does not matter, if the game is indexed or not. You will promote a direct link. Like on your youtube video, discord or tiktok.

Anyway, docs are misleading for years now. It does not take days, if you have to wait, but weeks, and sometimes over a month. That causes a lot of irritation.

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