Hello,

I would like to ask about the indexing status of my game page.

My game has not been indexed for more than six months. In various support threads I keep seeing the advice to wait, and that indexing usually takes around a month, but in my case it has already been significantly longer.

During this time I can clearly see many other games getting indexed, while my page still does not appear in search or browsing results.

There is no prohibited content in my game, and nothing that would violate the platform rules or even come close to it.

All of my external sources (community, social media, etc.) direct users to the itch.io page, but since the page is not indexed, it effectively feels like a shadow ban from the moment the page was created.

Could you please clarify:

• Is indexing still expected to happen?
• Is there something wrong with my page that prevents it from being indexed?

Thank you for your time.

Your game has been marked for additional review by itch.io staff. I have no way of knowing why that hasn't happened yet.

Why do people keep using that term shadow ban for things that are not shadow bans?! A shadow ban is, if you would see the game in the index, but everyone else would not. If no one sees the game, including you, it is a regular ban. Or rather a removal from index. If your game was actually banned, it would be suspended or removed.

Is there something wrong with my page that prevents it from being indexed?

Yes. It is quarantined. Quarantined games are not indexed, while they are in quarantine.

If that is going on for longer, maybe your game keeps getting into quarantine again and again.

Oh, and "contacting support" happens by email. Not by creating a topic in the public community message board. If you are unable to contact support, that would mean, you cannot send an email. Read the rules of the message board.

But to answer something, before your contact actual support: they will not tell you, what is wrong. They will not tell you, when it is indexed or answer similar questions.

This is a guess: several factors contribute to the system heavily thinking your account is hacked. That means they will investigate this at some point, by whatever means they use for such tasks. It should not take half a year for that, but my other guess is, that your game was sent in quarantine several times and got bumped at the end of the waiting queue.

My advice, since no one told you about quarantine: do what the warning tells you and activate 2 factor auth and otherwise act like you normallly act and ignore the quarantine. You are doing very well for an unindexed game with that particular nieche topic.