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[BUG / HELP REQUEST] Random De-Indexing & Visibility Issue (support ticket #266559)

A topic by CrimsonDelightGames created Mar 28, 2025 Views: 453 Replies: 14

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CrimsonDelightGames166 days ago (7 edits) (+2)

Our team recently noticed our game and its NSFW versions have been de-indexed and aren't showing up in search, nor via tags.

This account of ours here on Itch has been active for years, and is in good standing. We've never had complaints from players, and have even gone out of our way to provide keys across different game versions of our game when asked by customers who made a purchase here on Itch. This recent de-indexing has nuked our store presence and killed all visibility we've worked so hard to build, and we weren't even informed that our content was effectively hidden from the platform. Not only that, but even our devlogs are invisible now!

We do publish 18+ content, but it's properly flagged and marked, as per Itch's instructions.

Whatever automated system Itch has recently added is causing headaches to multiple devs, if this support forum and the threads here are any indication. Certain devs abuse the indexing system by deleting and remaking their content and game pages over and over again, but the automated system lets them slide by... meanwhile we've had the same game and a handful of its versions whose pages haven't been remade since they've gone live. Our uploads are clean and don't contain viruses/loggers/malware, and we do our best to push out frequent updates every 2-3 weeks. We publish high-quality content with hand-painted art, and detailed devlogs for our supporters here on Itch, but all of that hinges on our ability to engage with users - which has now been destroyed by this automated shadowban.

We understand the Itch platform gets a ton of spam/malware that needs to be dealt with, but implementing this sort of randomized dragnet and shadowban system will only harm legitimate developers who are trying to connect with players.

With all that in mind, we kindly ask that a staff member or mod manually reviews our case and re-indexes our game pages:

https://crimsondelightgames.itch.io/tales-of-legendary-lust-aphrodisia

https://crimsondelightgames.itch.io/tales-of-legendary-lust-aphrodisia-deluxe-ed...

Thank you for reading!

Sincerely,

the CDG team

P.S./Edit: Here's our socials to prove we're a legit dev group:

hechelion166 days ago (1 edit)

I agree with what you say. But one observation: this forum is answered by the community, not the staff. The moderator is a volunteer community moderator and doesn't have access to the staff tools, so he can't index a game.

The only person who might be able to help you here is the admin, who sometimes reads the forum.

The most that can be done this way, would be this:

Please do not create topics asking how long it will take for support to reply to you. Different questions may take different amounts of time to respond; typically, we will respond within 1-3 days, but it may take longer depending on the type of issue. If you haven't already, search for existing topics or check the FAQ to ensure that your question hasn't been answered elsewhere. To ensure that your request is tied to your account and prioritized appropriately, please contact us using the email address you have connected to your account. If you still need to create a topic about a Support Request, you must include your ticket ID with your message.

CrimsonDelightGames165 days ago(+1)

Well I just hope it gets sorted out. We worked really hard to build visibility on Itch and keep up a regular release schedule. And right now our pages are effectively shadowbanned, while a ton of low-effort asset flips and literal spam projects are still up. It's incredibly frustrating, to say the least.

No Time To PlayModerator165 days ago

Shadowbanning? No-one has been trying to hide from you the fact that your games aren't indexed anymore. And as I explain every few days, our admins intended the search box as a convenience to the players, not a marketing tool. Please rely on your own promotional efforts.

CrimsonDelightGames165 days ago(+2)

That's pure semantics. Your deindexing system is effectively a shadowban because the pages hit by it are hidden not just from normal search but also from tags and devlogs. Also, yes, we DO handle our own marketing and funnel traffic to our Itch pages via links directly embedded into our game. Regardless, this platform sees 70+ million visits per month - that's a non trivial amount of players. There's a reason every online game store uses surfacing algos to connect players to games (your tag system being one such tool).

No Time To PlayModerator165 days ago

As explained in the unofficial FAQ, this could be due to recent changes on the project pages. It's an automated measure. Please wait.

CrimsonDelightGames165 days ago(+1)

Thank you for the quick reply. I think we might have tripped the system's alarm bells because we make frequent changes to our pages, adding new info, art, and features as the game grows. We also push out a new release every 2-3 weeks on average, across multiple pages, all of which is accompanied by multiple devlogs. To an automated system this could probably look like spam, but if you take a look at our content you'll see it's all hand-crafted and we carefully curate all our pages.

Whatever prompted this recent wave of auto-deindexing ought to be looked into, because the automated system is causing havoc.

Please reach out to an admin or Itch staff member to look into this! We've put so much effort into building a presence on Itch over the years, and now it's all gone... and just when our project was finally starting to take off.

No Time To PlayModerator165 days ago

Sure, but first you need to follow the instructions given in the rules of this category.

CrimsonDelightGames165 days ago(+1)

I'm not sure what you mean. Our content is properly flagged as 18+. We weren't even aware it was deindexed and hidden until we went looking into the analytics tab and saw a complete cliff dive for visibility... then we read this subforum and realized we weren't the only ones hit by the recent algo changes.

I have no idea what he Itch staff implemented on the backend to deal with malware and spam, but whatever it was it's also flagging legit projects (like ours) that have never had issues in the past.

Please look into the issue!

No Time To PlayModerator165 days ago(+1)

I can't look into the issue, you have to contact support for that. And I mean the part of the rules that says,

If you still need to make a topic about a Support Request, you must include your ticket ID with your message.

Hope this helps.

CrimsonDelightGames165 days ago

We've sent an e-mail to support, and got an automated reply stating our ticket number is 266559.

I've added that to the thread title...

Thank you for your help! :)

No Time To PlayModerator165 days ago(+1)

I've let our admins know.

CrimsonDelightGames165 days ago

Cheers, much obliged! :)

CrimsonDelightGames158 days ago(+1)

I hate to be a squeaky wheel, but our game is still de-indexed and hidden from the store.

It's been a week since I put up this thread and e-mailed Itch support... still no word.

Ticket number is: 266559

Can someone on staff please re-index our game? Only reason this is happening is because y'all added a shotgun algo to auto-flag page edits. We've had our Itch account for years and never had any issues whatsoever, this is a recent problem with the de-indexing. Please fix it!

63bit Games158 days ago

Last time when my games were removed from the index I waited for more than 60 days. Now the situation has repeated itself - some games were removed from the index on February 16, they still haven't returned, there are no replies from the support for my emails (last request id is 266615). All that I did is just uploaded a new version of APK, because the previous one does not work with very new Android phones. The result is the removing from the index for months. ((

Here, the removal from the index is explained by the alleged fight against malware and spam, but I don't believe it, because they do not block access to "suspicious" games. As result thesoftware that they suspect is malicious are still available to download via direct links.

Also just browsing through the products on the site will show dozens of outright garbage, but all these products are not removed from the index and are displayed in search results for months.

All that remains is to wait and hope that someday my games will be returned to the index. Now I'm really afraid to make updates to the games page and post updates, because this is guaranteed to lead to removal from the index for at least 2 months.

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