AJ's search algorithm is not sustainable. The Popular Files list is going stale.

I think that search engine must be connected with amount of transaction (for example item that have 10 sales at 30$ will have to be ranked higher than the item that have 20 sales at 15$).

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I thought the same thing but in my experience it’s road to nowhere. Your monthly revenue is not increasing right now, you stop uploading new items and your monthly income stays at the same level. For a while. You’ll notice your sales are beginning to drop in about 6-8 months.

But generally you’re right. Because our new works are not getting enough exposure, we’re all demotivated to make new tracks. Search algorithm surely need some serious changes.

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Popular files shoud be the most visible because we all want to be there. Even the authors who have item there want to have another one and another one. It is huge challenge to be there to all of us.
5-9$ tracks should be removed from search system and start showing tracks from 10$ and above. This way envato can help us authors considering many bad things happened for all of us with so many new things in short period.
Authors who want to put 5-9$ tracks should promote them outside the Envato and try to reach popular files this way.
We need to understand that there are huge number of authors who sell almost nothing. Who can „judge“ them if they start to cuting down the prices to the minimum. Maybe they will think twice if that song won`t show in search system.
This way we will lower the price only when we are planning to run some paid campaign and sacrifice search system till promotion ends.
We all know that full tracks 5-9$ will ruin us authors sooner or later. Envato did fantastic job to their company. They will always earn at least 4$ fee.
As someone metioned „trending files“ should be counted only with unique viewers and sales. Comments and same viewers should be removed for reaching trending file.
Envato should put tags as priority in search system and put title as almost irrelevent.
Also Envato should contact all authors (there are not so many of them) who raised songs for 1M$ (and similar unrealistic prices) and kindly ask them to put reasonble price.
This way site looks like a joke when buyer sees a song for 1M$. Please guys…noone will ever buy your song for that price.
There are so many things we can improve but we (I belive many of us) would love to see someone from Envato that comunicates with us. This way it looks useless.
This site can be better for us and Envato but we need to do it together.

All the best

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I would really like to hear what @StockSounds thinks about this topic :slight_smile:

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Why the topic suddenly became personal attack to James? I totally agree that the search engine need to change, and he opened this thread so we can be heard by Envato. Don’t make our chance disappeared just because your silly personal hate of succesful author.

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Since this thread has been thoroughly derailed, I’ve started another where the focus is on suggestions on how to improve the search engine. Please feel free to chime in!

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Don’t play on that card… Just don’t. No one is attacking James. As the matter affect, I really like him and I support him and I respect him.

My suggestion so we don’t go in other directions, we should stop stalking how and why the search engine should change. If you think the change is necessary, just write +1. If we collect enough authors, we can show how much we want it, we just need to unite.

+1

Hi everyone,

The search could always be improved, new files that have done well should definitely be rewarded more than they are currently, though some keywords such as “Happy” are heavily weighted towards new files, it seems like one extreme to another.

It would be nice to have non keyword titles, with the search being able to understand which tracks have been purchased for different keywords, ranking them higher for those keywords. Then again, titles we currently use are beneficial for google, so having a display title and an SEO title might be the way forward there.

I was pleased when the popular music list had the option to filter by genres/categories, I think that has helped a bit. However, the genre filter on the popular music page should be a dropdown menu with all the genres/categories displayed, at the moment they swap around, this swapping must be frustrating for buyers, having to manually input the url when their desired genre is not displayed, which obviously most people won’t do. A dropdown menu for all the genres on the popular files page would be better for buyers, and for authors too.

I think the top new files page could be improved also. You could have a page that displayed tracks from 6 months old/3 months old/1 month old (maybe the user could change this based on their preference with the default being 3 months old), with the same look as the popular files list (I think the grid display gives better exposure for lower placed tracks), with a genre filter too. This would be very beneficial in my opinion and would make things more sustainable (it might encourage less popular genres to do better as well). First and foremost it would help buyers greatly, which is what its all about.

Now, I realise that some of what I’ve just suggested can be achieved by utilising the search features, but the popular files list is obviously very, well… popular, and the search can only display 1 month old files, the next option is a year old which is arguably too old, options for 3 months and 6 months would be better.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

StockSounds

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Great idea which could easily be implemented. Last time I had a track that reached the rock sub popular list it, it did not “rotate for Rock” until friday the following week. A display of all popular list genres would help new files get a little more momentum and should not take up much space on the site at all.

Make notes @Sarah_G :slight_smile:

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It remains for us to hope that someone from the Envato leadership will take a closer look at this topic and give answers.

Good on you @StockSounds for hopping onto the forums and sharing your thoughts. Much appreciated.

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Guys, RainyAudio has just launched a simple petition thread. All you need to do is comment “+1” if you’re in agreement. Let’s make some changes for the better!

Some big names like @StockSounds, @RedLionProduction, @LumenMedia, @MorningLightMusic, @pinkzebra, @OlexandrIgnatov, @guitarsstate, @COSMONKEY, @CoffeeMusic, @StudioKolomna, @musicdream, @studio89 would make a great addition to the thread.

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Please consider pressing “like” on @RainyAudio for maximum forum impact :stuck_out_tongue:

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I agree +1

Old news, but still relevant. The PF page would be less stale if the items on it weren’t fed with sales from both the page itself AND search.

I wrote about this some time ago:

I also made a suggestion how to break up the PF page into categories:

And yes, the title-weighted search also plays in:

Seeing nothing has changed in way over a year I would have to believe changes relating to search and popular files are considered complicated matters, have implications across all marketplaces, and since AJ isn’t really highest priority, this is an issue that is continuously swept under the rug.

Since joining in 2013, uploading 295 items into Music, having 16,000+ sales, I haven’t had any file in the PF page except for one that got featured, and quickly slid out. I don’t mind the success of others securing a place, but I do think the snowballing “feedback effect” is way too strong, it’s a sticky “winner takes all” situation and it has clearly demotivated many, myself included, to upload music in PF saturated genres. The PF page simply needs to be refreshed more often, and that will never happen unless items on the PF page are allowed to stay in the spotlight month after month, while still enjoying the benefits from all the extra sales in Search .

2 simple ways to achieve balance:

  1. Limit exposure on the Popular Files page to a fixed time period (e.g. 3-6 months)
  2. Limit exposure on the Popular Files page to items uploaded within a fixed timeframe (e.g. 0-12 months)

I understand how Envato would be reluctant to implement this in Themeforest and/or other marketplaces, where updated items can be kept relevant and fresh, but in AJ specifically this would likely work wonders for author motivation and creativity.

Cheers!

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Thank you @Stockwaves for your perspective on this. Your older posts are highly interesting and 100% relevant today as well, they are aging like a great wine…

I highly recommend you @BenLeong @jamesgiroux and @Sarah_G to read through the older posts above from Stockwaves in case you never have. I certainly have never read them before.

The main point is that it needs to be more balance. The problems being discussed are old and they are only increasing in size every single week if nothing is being done.

AJ has a great potential to step up its game and become much more competitive towards other sites, there are incredible amounts of “hidden” outstanding high quality items on this site. But than you simply need to remove some of the monopoly of the godzilla tracks, at the minimum in the very search engine.

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This is a great idea! Try to bring it to those in whose competence to do it. It will be very good and right if they do it!

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Hi all,

Steve here from Envato. I wanted to step in and say we really appreciate all the time and effort you’ve put in to coming up with suggestions for AudioJungle’s search algorithm. I, myself, am not an expert in this area, but we have shared this with the relevant teams across Envato to consider as they plan their future roadmaps.

We can’t promise any actions or timings, but we do acknowledge the frustration that some of you feel around the slow pace of change. We are always looking for ways to help customers find what they are looking for and search plays a big part in that experience.

We’ve begun rolling out a series of changes across marketplaces to improve the way search results are displayed and will continue to invest in more ways to present great ideas for tracks that customers might like.

There is still lots to do and we really value conversations like this and the valuable feedback and ideas they generate.

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Thanks @steve_lam. Hearing from Envato staff is encouraging.

Maybe it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway - authors and Envato have this in common: the goal to make AudioJungle the best experience for customers, and the most valuable resource for royalty free audio.

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