The docs are outdated.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.