You know what else impacts the site's popularity?
Commebt sections that are filled with botspam, sockpuppeting and malicious links.
Itch.io *has to* take steps to filter these things out, and usibg automated filters is industry standard for a reason.
The problems here are a) itch.io's filters being a bit shit and b) itch.io not providing human review of automated decisions in a timely fashion.