Post by PantheonXStudios in Question about "Recently Updated" list indexing logic for Major Updates

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Thank you for sharing your perspective. Regarding the information about the cooldown and indexing, I came across these observations in several net searchs, developer discussions and community threads. While I understand they aren't official platform documentation, they seemed to be the consensus for many projects, but I appreciate you clarifying that the process is manual.

And just to clarify: I am fully aware that this is a community space and not official tech support. But I’m here to gather insights from experienced people. While I wouldn't turn down any guidance from a moderator if they happen to see this, my primary goal is simply to understand how the community navigates these deployment phases.

To address your concerns about our update frequency: I completely agree that "Major Update" should be reserved for significant content and mechanic overhauls. We aren't pushing hotfixes or minor tweaks under this label. If you take a look at our devlogs, you’ll see that every update we’ve labeled as 'Major' involves extensive new assets, fully rebuilt combat engines, and significant gameplay expansions which is exactly why we consider them major milestones for the project. We take the development process very seriously and aim to provide substantial value to our players with each release.

As for the title and URL suggestion, that is actually a great point. You’re right that cluttering the URL with version numbers isn't ideal for long term sharing and branding. I will definitely take that on board and refine our approach for future updates. Thanks for the constructive tip!

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redonihunter18 days ago(+1)

I am fully aware that this is a community space and not official tech support

Sorry. A lot of threads here are made, that do not give the impression, that people realize this detail.

The blue moderators are community moderators. They moderate the community we are talking in now. They do not have technical insights into the inner workings of Itch. Apart from having experience with the platform and things like "devlogs are manually approved" being knowledge that gets repeated a lot in threads like this one. It's even in the sticky

https://itch.io/t/4120453/unofficial-search-and-indexing-faq

"So how can I get back at the top of New Releases?"

See at the bottom of the Search & Browse FAQ. Short version: make a devlog post marked as Major Release or Update. It will be reviewed by itch.io staff, and if approved it will put your game back up there.

If that is 100% accurate under the hood is another question, but the effect is observeable as a user, if you happen to watch the recent pages for your favorite tags. It might or might not be, that some of the bigger games get a devlog appproved every month or every other month. And smaller games less often. And my guess is, new games are low priority, as they will be actual new for quite some time.

Since it is repeated so often and is observeable as a player, I was just curious where people would claim otherwise.

On the clutter in the name issue. If your game would get famous and people would seek it by name, Itch's actual search is literal title search. Any clutter will devalue the relevance of the words. But for now, people will discover it by tags. And if they look at recent on their favorite tags, it will appear for quite some time. So maybe doublecheck, if your tags are fitting for the platform. For example, you can ditch the indie tag - there are not really many non indie games on Itch. Just look what similar games use as tags.

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PantheonXStudios18 days ago (1 edit)

Thanks for the clarification and the link to the FAQ! It’s really helpful to have that distinction between community and staff moderation confirmed. I’ve seen those discussions floating around, but having a clear reference point like that settles the ambiguity.

It makes perfect sense that larger, established projects might have a different flow compared to smaller ones, and your point about the search algorithm favoring literal title matches rather than cluttered titles is a great piece of advice. I’ll definitely clean up our titling to prioritize searchability over versioning.

Your feedback on the tags is also appreciated, I’ll be doing a fresh audit of our tags this weekend to make sure we're reaching the right audience without the "noise" of overly generic ones.

Thanks again for taking the time to share your insight and the link.

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