Yeah, this is completely out of control… This week I was also a buyer on envato and I saw for the first time how this looks from buyers perspective, it’s really unprofessional, confusing and it looks very cheap… Word count limit is not enough, search engine needs to ignore title and focus on tags… I hope one day this will be solved, that would be awesome
Creative, cool and artistic titles are out the window forever in this business. Just say goodbye forever. At this point how do you repair what is beyond repair? There should be no limit to how many words someone has in a title. At this point…will it really help? The only people that are gaining an advantage are the top seller tracks. Why? because they cracked the code on the algorithm. Its pretty obvious that the algorithm for the following keywords reward today’s popular files:
upbeat
uplifting
corporate
motivational
So the top sellers changed their titles to 4 and 5 keyword titles so their track shows up on page 1 in search across several keyword searches. I can not say I would not do the same if I was in the position to do so. However, new music is not getting a fair chance again. Envato just program the algorithm this way, for any of the common and popular keyword searches …deliver to the customer:
25% Proven best sellers
25% new music
25% music that you think simply is good
25% random
However, if you have decided that “winners take all” is the best approach for you to make the most revenue, then there is nothing any of us can do about this. New music does seem to be neglected once again. How about those curated playlists in different genre’s? How about $49 to $69 “standard” prices or Author Driven prices? Am I alone on pricing or does everyone still love that $19 price tag? Didn’t the recession end 7 years ago? Aren’t the Stock markets and corporate profits at all time highs? Yet musicians stay eternally paranoid that their intellectual property may be too expensive for some.
Mixing in different search algorithms is a great way to add life and variety to the ecosystem. I would think there are some technical hurdles (page load speed, removing duplicates) but definitely worth pursuing. It would probably benefit other marketplaces as well.
However, we may be a bit naive thinking most buyers use the default “Best Match” search sorting. Maybe 90% go for “Best Sellers” in the drop down menu regardless.
Another method would be to simply “cap” the sales weight variable, displaying only “>100” or so, and let other variables like upload date take precedence in the best seller group. Buyers would still feel they get “the best items”, only not just “the three best items” at the top of search results. At least that would distribute conversions a bit more evenly where it matters the most in regards to PF and dinosaur regeneration.
Since there is already a simple option for buyers to select “Best Sellers” in the drop down menu, surely it makes sense that a `normal’ search DOESN’T bring up the best sellers, because it’s just really unfair that they get both opportunities to dominate the search results.
Another idea would be to have the search engine not bring up high-selling items which are CURRENTLY in the popular files list. It’s obvious that the popular files list is like some kind of perpetual-sales machine and it’s one of the main places buyers look for tracks; so since the PF list gets such a visibility boost, that should be balanced out by those tracks not getting a high place in the search.