Search Algorithm Update

The search engines are not perfect, I finded the same bugs many times

You write - this is not the short race, this is marathon. I agree with you, but in this search algorithm top autors driving on ferrary and new authors on the bike. it’s not a fair race

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Michele, I am not sure “tweaking” and “testing” the overuse of indie, inspire, dramatic is the answer. Many of us have stated many times that Titles should be eliminated entirely from search. In other words, the primary goal is to give absolutely no advantage whatsoever to one word titles like “inspire” “indie”…The search check box suggestion by the best “inspiring” selling author…the guys selling 20 copies a day was beyond intelligent. It was the best suggestion yet. The customer needs to Check:

  1. Genre: Rock, Corporate, Jazz, Holiday, etc

  2. Tempo: Fast medium Slow

  3. Feel and mood: ambient, happy, sad, dramatic, foreboding, heroic, etc etc make them check at least 5 words for goodness sake…3 at a minimum

  4. Search by author name as an option

  5. Then search by track title as the LAST Option.

Envato needs to force everyone to change all of their titles by making them irrelevant in search
Envato needs to force customers to type or check more than 1 descriptive word such as “inspire” before a playlist is even delivered.

It seems like all you have accomplished here with these “tests” and “tweaks” is you have pushed top sellers back to the front. I happen to be benefiting from a “1 word” search with my "one word Title with the changes you made, but not getting anywhere with others. This seems like a bandaid to the existing problem, but its not a solution to encourage all of us to go back to more creative and “figurative” titles like “Bikini Beach Party”…“Bikini Beach Party” will still just be called “Fun” or “Happy” or “Summer”…you guys have to come up with lasting and intelligent solutions to encourage cool titles.

Even customers will feel like they are buying a unique piece of art if they tell the office “Did you hear that track I licensed for our project?”…yeah that was cool what was that track called? answer. “Bikinin Beach Party” has a MUCH BETTER RING TO IT…verses. …It was called “fun”…

Envato MUST come up with a strategy that discourages 1 word song titles, and titles inspired by keywords such as “Happy fun” “Inspire Corporate” or “Epic Drama” “summer happy” 'optimistic Fun"…These all sound so pathetic, unprofessional, and it simply exacerbates music as a cheap commodity.

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I’ve sold one track today, rather ironically containing the word…

…i’ll let you guess.

:smirk:

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Why is it affecting ThemeForest too?

Be honest and tell me is this fair to you!
In the company, where I work, I came last. The other workers are much more in the company than I am. What do you think who is working more? Who will do the heavy work?
I`m working much more then most of them together but they are paid much more then I am and they are also driving better cars then I drive. Is it fair? If you ask me I would say: Yes, it is!

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i’m too long strugling in this sites, like most author experience and feel right now, it scared too think and actually see the search engine result right now, it’s just a time machine to me drag to the year before 2013, i know the envato team still optimizing the formula , i hope the new search engine algorithm can make us all have a fair chance of exposure in the future.

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Hi Leto :wink:

It’s not exactly the same situation with employees. In a real employment situation there is a mutually binding contract - the workers need to show up and work, and the employer needs to pay them a salary every month. In the case of AJ authors, revenue is supposed to be a function of the work you put in. Not the years since you showed up the first time. There are top selling authors who don’t upload for months, and they still rake in 10-20 times more than newcomers on a daily basis. Let’s assume a neutral position here and say that those who “led the way” should receive a compensation. Well, in my book they have been VERY compensated for that by now. Cheers to that! And who’s saying the ones with a solid track record should not continue to have benefits unattainable for the rest of us? I’m actually fine with that, but only as long as there is a decent possibility for new authors to join in the fun. They already have Elite status and their 70% cut, they have a lot of sales to show for and a good deal of VH and YouTube partnerships, they have badges, they have know-how, they have everything a new author could wish for and more. That’s fair! Now, why should anyones year-old items block out brand new ones, why is that the best solution? Wouldn’t it be better if the system encouraged them to create NEW bestsellers instead of relying on their past tracks? I’d be totally fine with some kind of reward system where if you’re deeply invested in the game can have a slight boost in the search algorithm with your NEW items. With 300,000 items online we can’t expect to aim for a handful of them consistently outselling the others, just by virtue of pushing new items out of sight by default.

The Envato staff is doing a great job trying to balance all the factors and values at stake. It’s basically impossible to make everyone equally happy with every change, big or small. I think we authors can help a lot by suggesting things that revolve more around how these websites can gain market share and produce a bigger pie for us all to enjoy. Let’s not talk about author vs. author so much, let’s focus on the market, the items and how we can create something that looks spectacular and fresh for all the buyers coming here, while also encouraging high quality uploads. This is supposedly a “platform”, let’s make room for building something great on it.

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Fantastic that this has ongoing attention. I’m curious what the effects will be.

You are right…we won`t talk about author vs author anymore! After all this is not place for it and we will be more smarter after they finish everything!
+1 for secound part of your text :wink:

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Bad news for new authors. I hope that as a result of the search will be balanced and new tracks will have the chance

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I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that my new song that got 6 sales in it’s first week (last week) has had only 4 views and no sales this Monday/Tuesday.

Last week, it was the #2 result (with about 30-40 views per day) when searching for a specific word, and now it’s halfway down the second page behind about 45 songs that have 300+ sales and 5 star ratings.

Tell me how that is fair ?

Tell me how that is a good solution for newer uploads?

Tell me how this is good for anybody but the top authors from 3 years ago?

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Come on, people, you do know that in most countries soon it will be Christmas, when people buy presents, not digital items…

So if your sales are low, this is not necessary due to the search algorithm updates…there are a lot of other other factors to consider…

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This is not about getting sales in 5 minutes and 3 days before Christmas. This entire debate is about a sustaibnable, long term, intelligent search system to guide MUSIC buyers to a playlist of tracks they truly are looking for on attempt # 1.

It’s about preventing 30,000 tracks being titled inspire, inspiration, inspire, inspirational, the inspire, etc.

It’s about presenting to buyers imaginative and creative titles that speak “figuratively” to the buyer.

This is not a market where when you enter you see signs that say

APPLES
ORANGES
METALS
WOOD
COTTON
WHEAT
CORN
CHICKENS
COWS
FLOUR
SPICES

This market is starting to look that stupid, bland, and overtly commodity driven. Music is NOT a commodity, it is an original piece of art created by it’s **original creator and his or her imagination. He or She deserves the right infrastructure to title their original work something unique that speaks creatively and innovatively to the buying customer

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Now that the working day has started in Melbourne, can we please be updated as to the current situation? Are the changes complete?

@michellerobinson
Is there a way for us (on this forum or via email) to directly communicate with staff who are responsible for the changes? It would be a great chance for authors to contribute ideas and make sure the outcome for the search engine is the best it can be. Communication here is key, as it appears (so far) that there is a lack of understanding between Envato staff and its authors as to what we are asking for in the search engine.

After this changes (I do not know, may be it is just the end of the year, but) I already have dramatic impact on my sales - there is no one, since Envato announced their “update”.

So less than 1% of authors asked for changes - Envato did it, what about the rest? Would you like to keep top authors forever? You really think that profit from this 1% is truly enough for you? I just do not understand such a logic!

I know it will come to this now: "bla-bla elite guys made it, you can to and so on…"
No, I can’t! Becase Envato stuff seems to be interested in this 1% of authors!

What am I see now - elite authors do not like how system works - the rest MUST adapt to new rules and then circle repeated! Then they do not like new items on popular files - ok, there is new changes for you guys! System doesnt work again for you? No problem, we will delete N-ammount of files! And etc, etc, etc…

Thats how it looks from my point of view. I really respect Elite guys, but do not make market only for them please.
Vlad

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Today, someone noticed a change? Results are? Sales become better?

Well, today I see that if you go to http://audiojungle.net/category/music you won’t see “Sort by: Best Match” anymore and “Sort by: Newest Items” is set as default but when you try to search for something you’ll see that “Sort by: Best Match” appears again and your search was “Sort by: Best Match” not “Sort by: Newest Items”.
That’s weird and looks like a bug.

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Here is my opinion:
Firstly search algorithm is one of the most important things for Envato to remain the best marketplace for everyone.

The search algorithm that was before the update stimulated people to upload new tracks (even old elite authors). I monitored one elite author with thousands of sales and a lot of years of membership who stopped uploading new content and he didn’t get a single sale for few weeks. Then he started to upload and his sales continued to grow fast. I can understand elite that if you got to the top, you want to do nothing and get passive income (this is beautiful by the way :slight_smile: )

New authors worked hard before the update, because they got the results of their work. I saw some of new author’s items in weekly top sellers and this is awesome! This gives the chance to everyone who works hard. The fair competition is the key to the success of the market.

I hope that this is only the beginning of the update and things will get better. Otherwise, if best sellers are selling and new items have not enough exposure, is there any sense for any (elite or new) author to work hard and try to upload better items?

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Looks like the search engine works well from here now :heart_eyes: