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My game can't be searched in your website

A topic by Winking Entertainment created Nov 12, 2018 Views: 1,385 Replies: 15
Viewing posts 1 to 7
(1 edit)

Hello, as the title showed, after waiting for a weekend, one of my games still couldn’t be searched by your search bar (by typing keyword, not choose tags). I am not sure whether the reason is that my published game is still in development with devlog updates only so far . So, by taking your advice from received email, I also upload the video as a downloadable file, but the search bar of itch.io still doesn’t work. (But I could search another game we published,)

I know that your website has lots of published games, and it is hard for everyone to see one specific game. But still hope you could take some time to look into this issue. I would really appreciate that.

Thanks

Pinned ReplyAdmin

Since your project currently isn't playable then it's not indexed on our browse & search pages, it will only show up on collecions, profile pages, and https://itch.io/devlogs. Once your game has some files it will automatically be indexed on our browse & search pages. We'll be updating our search page in the near future to handle projects that only have devlogs in the near future. Thanks, and sorry for the confusion.

Thanks for the reply, that is really helpful.  

Hello, thanks for the answer. 

I am just curious that even though I uploaded the file and set the type of file to be executable, seems the state didn't change immediately. 

I know that I don't have playable content so far, but we really want to share our development for everyone to know more about us  before our game released.  

We will upload our game content as soon as possible, hope there is a way for our game to be searched in your website.

(By the way, where can I apply for more space to upload a executable file over 1GB?  The demo is planned to be over 1GB)

Thanks.

Moderator

I assume you mean Heroine Anthem Zero, since HalfLight was just published. Problem is, games need at least one executable to download before they show up in searches. (Used to be, any file worked, but now each file has a type.) Sorry about that.

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Thanks for the reply. 

But I am curious that why HalfLight could be searched?

 When I published HalfLight, I didn't upload an executable file. (I uploaded a video instead)

Then, I could search HalfLight in the search bar immediately.


So seems the mechanism of searching is not based on the executable file. 

I check both publishing setting  of my games, there are no differences. 

(except I didn't set the link of the trailer for Heroine Anthem Zero...maybe this is a problem?)


I also searched and checked other games, their games are searchable and  are published  successfully with only pdf/doc files  instead of an executable file.

If there is any other way to fix this issue, that would be great. Thanks

Moderator

Indeed? Then I'm not sure. The search system is complex, and sometimes works differently from what people expect. Try waiting a few more days. And definitely add a file for download.

Admin

Any file uploaded will change it's state, but I don't recommend uploading non-game files as a way to work around it, since most people going through the browse pages are going there to find things they can play. Other projects may use pdfs or other files for specific reasons.

Deleted 6 years ago
(1 edit) (+1)

I have waited for almost two weeks and upload a file for download.

Is there any admin could do me a favour or answer specifically?

Two weeks? O_o I have the same thing.  I published the game with executable files and in fact the game is not released on the site. I hope it will be fixed soon. I do not want to wait two weeks or more.  I hope the admin will answer you. And me too :P

Admin(+1)

I don't see any issues with your page, it should be showing up correctly. New sellers on our platform may have a delay of about a day before their page shows up on our search & browse pages, but the pages are always immediately available through your profile, any collections, and direct URL.

My game is fully playable and released and I can't find it when I type in even 5 of my keywords. It will come up when I type in the full title, but otherwise it is very hard to search. What do you have to do to make a game searchable.

Moderator (1 edit)

If your game comes up when searching for the full title, then everything is working as intended. A partial search however, e.g. for the word "space", is going to return a LOT of games, and yours will be lost among them. And to find it by a tag, use tag filtering, not the search box. Trouble is, you have a misspelled tag ("astroids"), and one that's nobody's going to look for because it's just your game's title ("treacherous-space"). It's best to select suggestions from the list when entering tags.

Thank you for your fast reply. I fixed the spelling of asteroids. But even when I typed in every single key word except the title of the game, the game did not come up. "2d action fast passed free retro science fiction space "space shooter" asteroids" even that and the game does not appear. It is not lost in the other games. I looked over every game that came up and my game was not one of them.

I think I see my mistake now. When I use a search box I don't get nearly as many results as when I use a tag.

Moderator

Yes. For one thing, search results cut off after a point. Tag-filtered lists don't. And as I pointed up above, tags can't be found from the search box.

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