Search algorithm and what is happening with Envato elite support?

Envato Authors Theme Authors
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Hi, been some time :slight_smile:

I am sure this was raised a few times, but what is happening with Envato elite support, has the respect towards authors gone (in this example power elite authors) to the dumpster?

I raised a question regarding the ThemeForest search. One of our themes that has the best sales in its niche was always on the 1st page in 1st place.

A couple of months ago our sales plummeted, at that time of a year it goes down about 5 to 12% max, now it went down more than 35%.

And after a while, we noticed a few of our themes ranking badly on the Envato search. Now we do not have the compliant badge and we thought well we have to do it, but then we noticed few competitor themes that do not have it and have much lower sales, lower ratings, almost same tags, same categories, and bad descriptions, ranking in top 10.

These themes were always below ours far below. And ours wasn’t even on the 1st. page. (with a few tweaks that I saw some authors exploting we got back on the 1st page but not very high).

I sad, well, let’s contact Envato elite support to see what’s going on. First, we got a generic copy-paste answer telling us to recheck our description, tags, etc. It was a bit insulting but hey, the envato attitude towards authors is at a low stage anyway. Then I explained again and gave examples. And after some time passed again a repeated generic answer. Then I replied a bit harsher and got an answer to give them examples (which I already gave in 2 emails previously, which nedles to say is time-consuming and disrespectful )

After that, I got a mail that, it got forwarded onwards.

Now I got again a semi-generic answer, without examing my mails that, saying we do not have the compliant badge. And yet again I sent examples of themes that are far inferior to ours and have much better ranks, as I said even 2nd place.

First, clean up the basics towards authors before going into something like diversity lecturing.

So summarization:

  1. Algorithm is flawed
  2. Support towards authors is disrespectful utterly bad!

P.S.: there are some bright examples of support being great :slight_smile: Just felt the need to mention that despite my furry :stuck_out_tongue:

Cheers

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Same thing we are experiencing. Last time we saw a huge downfall in sales is in March 2018 after that sales settled to that range for the next whole year and now we saw a second fall in August 2019 and till date sales are in same trend.

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I had one of my theme ranking top 10 in the past few years and suddenly a theme that hasn’t had an update in 5 years and with only 30 sales popped up in first places and I was pushed on second page. That was a change that affected many authors and my sales never recovered and ever since that change all my traffic and theme sales went down 50-60%.

That’s when I lost my interest. I have a theme in soft reject for one year now.

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Yes, what they did, is yet again hurry up without any further real impact testing. @steve_lam - Envato actually made a mess. Some of the themes that do not have the badge and are inferior in all ways stayed high up.

How can you make such rookie mistakes is beyond me?
And for example, I still did not receive any follow-up mail.

And those search charades have been going on for years, on which authors are constantly pointing out.

On one side Envato gave pricing freedom and tons of options into the author’s hands that released them from responsibilities and gave Envato extra income, but those things that would really work for authors are not here. Guess Themeforest is at the lower level of priority, elements is the one to push everywhere.

I am beyond disappointed!

We lost more than 10k in a short period, and the drop was sudden which does indicate manipulation.

And again if it was fair and only those that got the badge got the push upwards relative to other factors, I would be up for it.

But Envato did a poor poor job. Hurried up just to do something as usual!

How they did not learn from past experience, with support, vat, etc. is beyond my comprehension.

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Sales dropped 50% this month when it was expected opposite (October should be good month).

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so here is another example of the absurdity of search here:

This wedding theme is in 4th place

Just because of the tittle is Wedding industry.

And the search key was industrial. And our theme that has direct search key and is directly related is not near there and again it use to be nb.1 so last change really messed things up.

Ah and yes no compliance badge on that theme also.

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So no answer here from anyone from Envato neither on mail. Did we dwell so low?

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I think you should ask them directly here: https://help.author.envato.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

On CodeCanyon, there was no ranking change promise for getting the badge. So, my rankings did not change, although I got the badge in May.

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Already did that, if you read the entire text we actually exchanged some mails but no relevant info. Mostly I am ignored.

and the point is that the entire thing is not consistent is a bad implementation. Meaning that items that do not deserve to have exposure by any standard have a huge advantage.

I understand if they just pushed those badge items higher and left others as they were, that would be ok. But to make a total mess out of it and now to stay quite and not to admit, be transparent and try to solve it is beyond me. They are playing with authors livelihood after all.

This kind of ignorance is beyond my comprehension.

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Heh checked on mobile and again the search results are different :slight_smile: