Search Algorithm Update

it is too early to talk about the change in the search. My sales are down but most likely this is due to the holidays

@michellerobinson I must be confused. Why are some search terms working in the new algorithm (like ā€œinspirationalā€ and ā€œcorporateā€) while others are not (like ā€œmotivationalā€)?

This is still broken for so many keywords and theyā€™re refusing to acknowledge it.

The problem is that you cannot just REDUCE the weighting of title, you have to remove it completely. If itā€™s included it will always be better to call a track Inspiration, as well as feature similar words in tags and description.

If you reduce it you will get a different mix of tracks called ā€œsomething with Inspirationā€ but to tackle the title problem, reducing is meaningless.

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@michellerobinson This has been broken for almost a full 7 days now, Iā€™ve also opened a ticket with support #380977. Whats the deal? This is getting ridiculousā€¦

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The ā€œDiscoveryā€ team said nothingā€™s wrong. Whatā€™s disappointing is that they refuse to acknowledge a change or an issue. Itā€™s quite odd that they donā€™t have snapshots / logs of their popular keywords to realize there is an issue. For a system of this scale, that would be a common practice.

I agree. Buyers should be able to find their item by title, but this shouldnā€™t be set to standard. The best option would indeed be a checkbox. Tags should get more attention, they are almost useless right now. This naming situation will just get even worse and authors like me who refuse to tag their titles (because thatā€™s just what it is) are left behind.

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@michellerobinson

I think at this stage, if the title issue cannot be solved in a fair way, we need to move back to the old system.

I thought having to use generic titles was an issue, but seeing this new update has given me a new definition of disaster. The changes made to the select terms have served no purpose other than to give older, high selling items more exposure, leaving new tracks hidden with no chance at exposure. Michelle mentioned the staff were monitoring the changes - I think itā€™s clear that the new algorithm has had a big impact on exposure for new files and made it extremely difficult to sell any new content. :frowning:

The marketplace cannot move forward without giving a way for new items to reach a popular status. If this does not change back, the marketplace will grind to a halt. Itā€™s imperative that we give new files a chance at exposure, and the older algorithm did this perfectly.

I have noticed that for a couple of terms the algorithm have been restored (ā€œepicā€ and ā€œmotivationalā€ for example), but there are still a few that are not working well (ā€œinspiringā€, ā€œcorporateā€).

Please Envato, change it all back!

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Yes, previous algorithm was better for new items. Please do back up to previous search algorithm.

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Also best match for ā€œRockā€ is out of fresh tracks. Just saying :slightly_smiling:

I am in full agreement with @AurusAudio and the others above.

Please change it back.

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Unfortunately it seems like the algorithm tweakers might need to improve their methods.

First, we must identify the problems:

Problem #1: Majority of new items have tags as titles. It would work in a library with 200 items, but now it just looks bad.

Solution: Remove title from search completely. Add optional ā€œTitle Searchā€ field.

Problems #2-100ā€¦ New items donā€™t get a chanceā€¦ Old items donā€™t get a chanceā€¦ Only best-sellers show upā€¦ Only old items with many sales show upā€¦ only new items show upā€¦ quality items with few sales donā€™t show upā€¦ etc. etc.

There is no easy fix as the cause of this is a HUGE inflow of items. No search result page can make everyone happy.

Possible solutions, or at least improvements: The search must include RANDOMIZATION to a certain degree. A search for ā€œCorporateā€ could yield 25% Best-sellers (total sales), 25% Trending (sales/days online), 25% New items (1-4 weeks for example), and 25% random items that match the search.

Another thing that COULD improve the experience for buyers would be for the review team to SECRETELY add a score from 1-5 or 1-10 on each item they review based on pure quality. All hidden from anyone else. A portion of the search results could be affected by this rating (maybe 10-15%), giving higher priority to secretely high-rated items (by reviewers) in the search, regardless of sales. No, it would not be perfect, but maybe yield a better quality list of search results.

Also, reviewers need to look at the tags and descriptions and remove obvious mismatched tags. I do not think they do that today at all. People put ā€œepicā€ on calm piano themesā€¦

Lastly, descriptions donā€™t work well in the search since people can write whatever they want in there. Links to other items and collections will influence search even though those words have absolutely nothing to do with the item theyā€™re on.

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As a former web developer in a startup, I know from my own experience that things are never as simple as users think. Itā€™s usually 10 to 30 times more complicated than users think. :slightly_smiling:

BUT. Oh wellā€¦ :slight_smile: This new search engine thing really does not look promising.

This all went totally wrong, didnā€™t it? What AJ authors were talking about for years is that the music marketplace is very different from the rest of Envato areas and it needs its own search engine. Music simply cannot be described by one or two words. A buyer should be able to quickly dig deeper by layering tags/keywords, getting the results narrowed down with each word or parameter added. As well as explore freely within the genres or moods - seeing a mixture of old and new tracks (which was already more or less achieved (!), except for the total obsession with the titles in the results).

Thank you for trying, but sorry, just ā€œfine-tuningā€ the search mechanism affecting all marketplaces, and therefore trying to make it a win-win for each of them, will never result in anything good for AJ.

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Thanks for videohive web developers and their efforts to make videohive a better place for sellers & buyers.

But I think new search result interface in videohive (New Grid View) is NOT GOOD AT ALL. Because video preview is too small and buyers canā€™t really see what are in videos. I think this problem has affected on selling items so far.

Of course List View is still good, And I think Previous ā€œGrid Viewā€ had more useful details for buyers and its video preview was larger, And buyers could see more details of products.

I suggest that change Grid View to the previous style.

Hi, Guys!
Now searching engine while entering several keywords like ā€œRockā€ , ā€œTrailerā€ and etc, shows very old bestsellers and at the same time new content shows at the 5-7-th pages. I think itā€™s really bad for most authors on AJ, and I think it doesnā€™t solve the problem which was described by Soundroll in his topic. Now I afraid of uploading new tracks, I spent a lot of time to compose and product them, and they will fall down anyway without sales.

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When will envato bring the old search system to the ThemeForest again? Since the change our sales are very bad, before the changes our item was selling about 6 - 8 copies per day, now we sell 1 copy every two days, very bad and silly decision. Canā€™t understand why when things are going right they decide to change something and this way affect all the sales badly.

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I agree with KingLeo, these changes doesnt solve any problems. Im affraid of uploading new tacks too, as long as it is pointless to compete with the outdated bestsellers for exposure. Please, bring the old search algorithm back.

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Hi Michelle Robinson and the rest of Envato stuff and community

Iā€™ve been working hard for the past 2 years on creating a 300+ catalog, i donā€™t have any 1000 sales tracks
but i was doing okay until the last algorithm update.
The last change has been not very good to me and to most of the musicians here.
Thereā€™s no sense in placing the first item in the search results for some item that was created 3 years ago and already sold 2000 sales,** that is not inspiring any competition.**

Now i feel thereā€™s no point in creating new music because it will be placed right away in the 3rd search results page.

Here are some examples :

Take a look at energetic for example, the first item that shows up is from 2009 ?!
Even from the seller point of view, thatā€™s not making any sense
Hope thereā€™s a fix coming up, and if so we would be glad to know when.

Thank you for your time and all the good effort.

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So is there a chance we can get a update soon or is this the fix/update as it is right now? Thanks for all the effort offcourse, just curious, and im sure im not the only one ':slight_smile:

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