So there isn’t any way to discuss things with the search team? Unfortunately for a certain set of terms the search engine is very unfavourable! Terms such as Inspiring, Upbeat, Fun and Corporate yield incredibly biased results that favour top selling tracks. This has to be changed one way or another. This is why we are asking for the old search engine back, which was perfect for new item exposure. So is there any chance we can revert back until a fair solution is implemented? Changing things on the go without knowing how they’ll pan out can be disastrous for many authors who rely on the search to be working properly.
It has become a big issue for me as I rely on the search engine to be working fairly. I’ve had to stop uploading until the search engine is fixed and working in a balanced way. I’m very eager to get back up and running so we need to reach a solution quickly!
Your feedback has definitely been read by the search team. As mentioned, we need a certain amount of time to let the data come in so that we’re not making knee jerk reactions all the time.
Our efforts are aligned that we want to keep improving how search works
Great, thanks, Travis! I hope my feedback has been genuinely useful to the search team and not taken as complaining or anything
I really love Envato and I want to make sure it’s the best marketplace around. I’m here to stay as a proud exclusive author so I want everything to work perfectly!
If you need more feedback I’d be more than happy to offer some more ideas via email. I understand you guys don’t want to reveal anything about the inner-workings of the search engine to avoid gaming, and that’s perfectly understandable. I’ve got some cool ideas though if it would be any help
Anyway, I really appreciate you taking the time to respond. Nice knowing our goals for the search engine are aligned.
Why this change has affected ThemeForest too? We had an item appearing at the top positions, now an item from 2013 is appearing at the top and this item is by an power elite author. The search system for ThemeForest needs to favor new and fresh items instead of outdated items since the tech field changes so fast. We and many fellow authors have experienced a huge drop in sales since envato decided tweak the search system for TF.
Envato, these search results are just plain terrible. This needs to be addressed immediately.
We have a brand new item that’s already at the bottom of the first page of it’s search result - behind and surrounded by items with 200+ sales from 2010 and 2012!!!
I’m sorry, but this is beyond ridiculous… I should have followed @AurusAudio 's example, and NOT uploaded anything new until this is fixed.
We are pleading with you to fix this as soon as possible. This change negatively effects 99% of your authors (the ones who are actively making new material for your site.)
I know Envato wants to improve and make a better search engine all the time, but i son’t understand why you need to wait for the sales data to come in when you receive “forum data” from all over the place saying this last change is very bad.
We are still trying to recover from the Us tax change, adding to it this little “incomplete” systen change is killing us. Please change it back to the old search. Thank you
Comments from 10-20 authors with bad sales vs. sales data from the entire marketplace…
What do you think will give the best view of how things are going? Someone will always be unhappy, and unhappy people write posts.
Obviously, sales haven’t stopped altogether, but authors who are experiencing low sales will always find something to blame it on. They may be right about new items not showing up etc… But NO CHANGE will make everyone happy. Period.
If they removed the top lists low level authors would be happy. Do you think the people on those lists would be? Then of course they would be writing on the forums about how they have to sell their house…
If I do a ThemeForest search for ‘real estate’ and show only Site Templates, 2 of the top 5 results are from 2008 and 2009. Both of which are not responsive. I wasn’t aware that templates this old were even still part of the marketplace.
How do you think the top level authors will manage to sell their new items then?
It’s fair for everyone to prioritise new content. The older, top selling tracks have already seen their glory days, and many of them are still receiving healthy exposure from the popular files list. Plus, buyers can always just search by sales and bam, they’re there. They do not need as much search engine exposure as they are recieving at the moment. The algorithm was changed in August giving priority to new tracks and despite being pushed down, the sales of those top tracks remained steady.
This is not about what’s fair for new authors, it’s what’s fair for all authors. I guarantee you that even the top authors will want to sell their new content. They can’t rely on their old top sellers forever - and they shouldn’t. It should be a moving market, where everyone should have to work to keep up with the competition. Otherwise, giving priority to older, top selling items will slow down the pace of the market and only exacerbate the effects of market saturation.
At this rate, there will be no new top selling items under the affected search terms. “Inspiring”, “Upbeat”, “Fun” and “Corporate” are examples of broken terms. Thankfully “Epic” and “Motivational” have been restored. Let’s get the rest back up and running.
I think we have to remember that the search is for customers, not sellers, and a customer wants the best match for his search terms. That best match for their needs may not be a new item. It might be something that’s been here for years and might be of higher quality than something just uploaded yesterday. Therefore, the default view for a search result should be the best match sort with no form of additional prioritization that would defeat the whole purpose of a “best match”. If they want to see new items, they can simply use the date sort. If they want to see the top sellers, there’s a sort for that as well. The only “fair” way to sort is the “best match” sort.
Also true. However take into account that there are many new high quality items coming into the market. Best sellers can easily be found like you said by sorting by sales. That’s why I think priority should be given to new items. Even buyers will eventually grow tired of getting the same results page full of the same top sellers - which is what will happen if we don’t see any more new top sellers. I think the best solution is to have 80% new items with a 20% sprinkling of top sellers around the first page.
I understand it may be great for those who have been lucky enough to score a ‘hit’ on AJ, but please be aware of the situation for new items. How are you going to sell your new items when they debut on page 4+?
The marketplace cannot move forward if the search results page is full of the same top sellers (for a certain set of terms). As I said before, it only highlights the pending market saturation. If we want the market to stay alive, we need it to keep moving and evolving.
I just can’t see how it is beneficial for anyone to have a search engine that shows only top selling items for the first 3-4 pages. Having a search engine that makes it this difficult to sell new items will only encourage cheating and authors to buy their own tracks to reach a high enough position, as we’ve seen beforehand.
Aurus, you are spot on with this. I’ve got to say that I do have a couple of tracks that rank high on a certain common keyword, for which I’m super thankful and if the algorithm were to change for them… well, I’m not sure how that would affect them and that does spook me out a bit. However, new track sales are pretty abysmal. Of my 9 newest tracks over the past month or so, I’m totaling only 13 sales for these at the moment. And if you look at the Popular New Files page, it is a pretty bleak picture (especially considering almost half of them are Christmas tracks).
I can’t say I’m exactly sure how the changes have done anything to help the naming problem around here. If you search the common keywords, the tracks that show up are still just “Inspiring” or “Inspiration”. The only thing that has changed is there are absolutely no new tracks and it’s just all old bestsellers.
I’m conflicted because I seem to be benefitting at the moment from these changes, but the lack of traction with new tracks is a huge concern for me as well. I think what you’ve been saying all along is the only answer to this. I’m not sure that I agree with the 80/20 split you’re advocating, but new tracks have to be included somehow with bestsellers in the search results. I am inclined to stop uploading new tracks with the current situation.
Who knows, perhaps Envato is concerned with the amount of tracks being uploaded and this is a passive way to curb uploads in these over saturated genres? All I know is that if addressing the naming problem here was the goal of this change, well… that definitely didn’t happen.
All I want is to be able to sell my new items with the confidence that they will receive that important initial exposure, which the previous engine achieved brilliantly. I’ve got no problem with best sellers appearing in the results, but in my honest opinion, new files should be given the priority, especially because best sellers can already be found:
through ‘sort by sales’ in the search
often in the popular files list
through word of mouth and past exposure
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have a system that operates like the previous algorithm where new items were given the chance to sell and even become new popular files.
I can understand why some of the authors who have top selling items in the search results now, but consider this for a moment:
How did they get there in the first place?
And how will any of your new items become new top sellers if the search results don’t include new items?
I’m not really concerned about the generic title issue any more - I just want my new tracks to see the light of day
In a perfect world this is definitely true. However, if someone is searching “Inspiring” or something they get the entire gamut of genres from epic orchestral to solo Ukelele. In a vacuum, you’re right: the best match for the buyer is the absolutely most critical thing, age of the track be damned. But, I think it can be argued that the search engine isn’t doing this when titles and sales ranking are the most weighted, and seemingly only, factors. If you have a great new track that IS the best match for a buyer, good luck having them find it…
Hello friends! I want to share my observations about the state of the new tracks. Today approved two tracks. 1. If you click on “music” without category, where you can see a list of new tracks, you’ll only see yesterday’s tracks. None of today’s track. no tracks are approved today. 2. In my portfolio you can read the 53 items, but in fact you see only 51 items. You cannot see 2 new items. 3. In the search or in the category You cant find my new tracks. Now I see only one track on the main page audiojungle. The second truck was gone. I want to ask how long this situation?
