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Fiverr gig de-ranked for 5 months after an argument with a VID buyer followed by an order cancellation


priyan87

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Hello

I created my Fiverr account in December 2020. I received my first order in January 2021, which earned a 5-star rating with a good review. After that, impressions increased gradually, and so did orders. In April, my main gig received about 1000 impressions a day. I received at least one order daily. There were days I had to pause my gig due to the excessive workload. By this time, I had faced only one order cancellation. It was a cancellation done by Fiverr CS under my request, as the buyer was continuously asking for revisions. Hence, my gig ranking was not affected.

During the last week of April, I had about five orders on the dashboard. During this time, my rating was 4.9 (still 4.9). Then one of my family members was hospitalized, and I needed an urgent four-day leave. So asked for delivery date extensions from the buyers, saying it was a technical difficulty. 4/5 buyers accepted it without any problems. Only one buyer rejected the request without any reply. As it was urgent, I politely asked the buyer via a message. And the buyer did not reply to that as well. So I put my urgency aside, completed the order, and delivered about 14 hours before the due date, without any reduction in quality of work. I thought the buyer would complete the order immediately or ask for a revision because it seemed he was in a hurry. But that did not happen.

Two days after the order delivery, there was no response from the buyer. It made me realize that neither the buyer had an urgency nor had any issue with the order. I waited until the order was auto-completed the next day. But the buyer asked for revision with a message saying he thinks that he squeezed me for time, and he doesn't like any of those options. But it didn't even say what was wrong with the delivery. I got mad (which I regret now). Then I told him that I did not have any problem with time (which is not true). Since he didn't respond earlier, he must not have a problem with time either. And if he wants revision, let me know what was wrong with the delivery. The buyer misinterpreted my message as I didn't want to deliver revisions. So he requested to cancel the order mutually. I rejected it and said I had already spent my time on this work. Hence, I will not agree to cancel it, and I will deliver revisions if he is more specific. Then he requested revisions with new instructions. I returned a quality delivery. But the buyer wants to cancel the order saying we were not on the same page. He said he had bought 100 orders from Fiverr, never asked for a refund, and he would complain to CS about this. I asked him to proceed, wishing CS would take my side (silly me) because I knew I was right. The argument went on both sides several times. Then he threatened me that he would give me a negative rating when I rejected the mutual cancellation again. But in the end, fearing for a negative rating, I sent a mutual cancellation request to the buyer. Before sending it, I received a warning from Fiverr saying that the gig would be de-ranked. But I proceeded anyway.

It has been 154 days since the de-ranking. I receive around 20 impressions a day. And zero orders from new buyers. I contacted Fiverr CS four times. As per their instructions I shared my gig on social media, took skill tests, sent buyer requests, and stayed online. Last week, I changed my gig title, description, metadata, photo as well. Nothing has helped so far.

What is left to do now to get my gigs re-ranked? Will it ever re-rank? If, when?

Kind Regards,
Priyan

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Edited by priyan87
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  • priyan87 changed the title to Fiverr gig de-ranked for 5 months after an argument with a VID buyer followed by an order cancellation

It's sad to hear what has happened, brother. Well, any online freelance platform will take the customer’s side not the other way around. I have lessons learned but not hard punch like yours. 

Try to send a cold message to 5 -10 your previous clients who know you very well and have a mutual understanding between both. Saying you would love to work with them if they have work for you etc..make a convincing story but acceptable.

Hopefully if they give you a job with 5 star rank you have a chance to get back on the road.

Cheers bro..🤞

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19 hours ago, cmadushans said:

Try to send a cold message to 5 -10 your previous clients who know you very well and have a mutual understanding between both. Saying you would love to work with them if they have work for you etc..make a convincing story but acceptable.

You must be new.

DO NOT advise this person to send a "cold message" to a previous buyer asking them for orders or work. Why? Because, if for some reason, he were to message the one buyer who is having a bad day or is annoyed by the message, his message can be marked as SPAM by that previous buyer and he will definitely see his Gigs tank further than they have already. Being reported for UNSOLICITED messages can also get his account a warning, prevent him from leveling up as well as impact his placement in the listings. If enough people who receive his "plea" for orders report him, his account could be restricted or even banned.

Do NOT message anyone here out of the blue - only RESPOND to a message sent to you recently.

GG

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  • 8 months later...

A 100% similar case with me. I was ranking at #1 for most of the keywords & suddenly after one single order cancellation gig was hidden from even 20 pages

image.thumb.png.b274b01ddf609f3623e3fa177e3b0a92.png

Any solutions?

After getting deranked, I completed around 10 projects & most of them gave me the tip as well which is quite a good thing for fiverr ranking factors.

But that didn't help.

suggestions please?

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  • 1 month later...
On 6/19/2022 at 3:24 AM, rabia_sabir said:

A 100% similar case with me. I was ranking at #1 for most of the keywords & suddenly after one single order cancellation gig was hidden from even 20 pages

image.thumb.png.b274b01ddf609f3623e3fa177e3b0a92.png

Any solutions?

After getting deranked, I completed around 10 projects & most of them gave me the tip as well which is quite a good thing for fiverr ranking factors.

But that didn't help.

suggestions please?

Hi @rabia_sabir

How are your gigs doing now? I am in the same position as you were for the past month. Doing all my best to get back on my feet.

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Any progress on your gig guys? did they recover? and how long? this is my current situations since July15th last month and im a bit concerned. The bad news also is i cannot promote my gig anymore.

image.thumb.png.d5b121ed9409c8e7bb9980bf9405e4d8.png

image.png.7ca75f2ebba539439adb8ac4dc5cd6bf.png

 

On 6/18/2022 at 9:24 PM, rabia_sabir said:

A 100% similar case with me. I was ranking at #1 for most of the keywords & suddenly after one single order cancellation gig was hidden from even 20 pages

Any solutions?

After getting deranked, I completed around 10 projects & most of them gave me the tip as well which is quite a good thing for fiverr ranking factors.

But that didn't help.

suggestions please?

Have you recovered from your situations?

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10 hours ago, designboom said:

Not yet😞 and I also cannot promote my gig anymore. My gigs got down even before yours, end of June.

Same, i also cant promote my gig when this happened, they said it doesnt met the quality or something, this is concerning, Fiverr is my main source of income and im afraid now. 😞

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It is truly sad to see how much the platform makes just 1 cancellation affect what you have spent years building because of a spitful and malicious customer. I understand that they will always take the client's side. I understand that I'll lose the money even after working for it. What I find really painful is what the cancellation calculation does to what I consider my life's work. 2 cancellation (one of which happened years ago and was judged to not affect the ocr by the CS representative) out of 93 orders and my ocr is showing 85% and I am then supposed to miraculously get orders and complete it before 15th of this month or be deranked?
Then I completed an order even before the deadline and the ocr moves to 86%. I had to go check the cancellation calculation formular to be sure I wasn't going crazy. I'm an HR professional and I'm not even sure if this performance appraisal system will not be damning for even high performing superstars.

I started freelancing because I didn't want to be a slave to any employer. Now, I am not so sure if I took the right route. I'm typing all these here because I am just really exhausted. Hopefully, the decision makers will reevaluate because I do not see how the platform will survive if they start to lose competent professionals to passive agressive customers who are just here to exploit and leave.

I am truly pationate about the Fiverr platform but I really wish that they woud take a better approach.

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I think it can be even worse when this attitude comes from VID buyers.
I had a to deal with a very rude and insulting VID client myself some time ago. In my case, he first tried to get free revisions without using the revision feature the first time (he asked for a modification in chat) and only did so with the second request. This way he thought he could take advantage of the 2 free revisions I offer (although clients can technically request countless revisions and it's up to the seller to reject it if they already used the free ones), while constantly asking for edits in chat. Then he acted passive aggressive, criticized my work in a very unprofessional way, essentially complained about my explanations saying it wasn't true, only to then mark the order as complete although I told them they still had one free revision to use. They refused that.

Considering the very negative experience I had with this person and the abusive behavior they showed, I decided to block the user for my own mental sanity. They came back 2 weeks later expecting me to revise the work again although they had accepted it and previously refused to let me work on it again although I offered. When they noticed I blocked them, they left a 1 star review accusing me of being lazy and a liar. Thankfully, the order didn't get cancelled (which means in the end they still wanted to use my work, otherwise they would have requested a refund to CS) and the negative feedback did not affect my overall rating because I had a good number of 5 stars reviews. But if I have to be completely honest, VID buyers acting entitled and offensive, even making threats about reviews and whatnot, should be kept in check and eventually demoted from their status. Using their "power" to treat sellers like slaves and/or treating them with superiority should not be accepted.

Unfortunately, we are constantly penalized even when we are in the right and it takes a very long time to see our stats and overall rates back to normal after a cancellation. If we are lucky and receive new orders from new or returning customers in the meantime, we can pass the monthly evaluation with a completion rate over 90%. But if we don't get any new order it will automatically drop almost daily and this may take the level badge away from us, demoting our profile and making it even harder to get new orders. Unfortunately, it is what it is and there isn't much we can do about this.

I'm sorry you had to go through this OP, but I'm sure your profile will recover from this and you will be back on track with your quality work!

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On 6/19/2022 at 6:24 AM, rabia_sabir said:

A 100% similar case with me. I was ranking at #1 for most of the keywords & suddenly after one single order cancellation gig was hidden from even 20 pages

image.thumb.png.b274b01ddf609f3623e3fa177e3b0a92.png

Any solution
After getting deranked, I completed around 10 projects & most of them gave me the tip as well which is quite a good thing for fiverr ranking factors.

But that didn't help.

suggestions please?

image.png.f7613835ce031d96ca358ab075f55460.png

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21 hours ago, osmanbnj said:

Any updates about your case ? are you getting any new orders or is it still the same ? 

Still the same. Getting orders from regular clients only. I am focusing on projects outside Fiverr and building a second source of income.

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  • 3 weeks later...

That is great news and I'm so pleased for you. It seems likely that one grumpy buyer left a private review that showed he was less happy than his public review had shown, and that dropped your performance score for 60 days. Now, he's dropped off the system as the 60 days have expired. Hurrah for that!

I say 'he'; I mean she too, since we just don't know. Keep up the good work!

 

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I'm facing the same gig deranking issue, It's been unto 4 months now, 1 wrong cancellation led me to disappear , even from all 20 pages, contacted Fiverr 2 times, but it's all okay at their end and they stopped responding, even on new ticket. 

Gig promotion is also stopped, tried everything I possibly could in these months but still no progress so far. Just to let all know, I'm here since 2016. 

I hope this fixes soon as I'm doing this full time now. 

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The same has happened to me. I was de-ranked after an order cancellation, I think the algorithms are structured in a way that it treats any cancellation as bad business hence the low number of impressions. At this point you can only try seeking new buyers from friends to purchase your service through fiverr and give you a good rating. Slowly your account will gain impressions and hopefully get back 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 9/1/2022 at 9:17 AM, collinswriter9 said:

The same has happened to me. I was de-ranked after an order cancellation, I think the algorithms are structured in a way that it treats any cancellation as bad business hence the low number of impressions. At this point you can only try seeking new buyers from friends to purchase your service through fiverr and give you a good rating. Slowly your account will gain impressions and hopefully get back 

Yes, the algorythm essentially turns around all the time, allowing different users (and especially new buyers) to 'have their turn'. I still believe that the current cancellation system is way too strict considering the amount of times Sellers are blamed when they are in the right or even abused, but in my case the best way to remain active with a 90%+ competion rate and potentially receive new messages is to have returning customers.

If you build a good work relationship with the clients, they may come back to you for more work. They essentially helped me go through the past 3 cancellations I faced in 2 years and I didn't go below 90-93%. By completing more works you also get back on track and new people may still contact you. I actually had a cancellation in July because the client did not provide enough informations and didn't like the final work I sent which was based on the initial instructions. When they complained, I offered them to partially rework it as long as they could give me proper explanations or references. They were unable to and cancelled saying I couldn't do the work. This immediatly sent my completion rates from 100% to 92% and they reset just a few days ago. I managed to keep my Level and complete other works thanks to my returning customers and new ones who also found me.

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  • 3 months later...

UPDATE TO THE ORIGINAL POST ALMOST AFTER 1 YEAR AND 2 MONTHS!

Hello Again.

First and foremost, I apologize for not being able to give an update on this post. I have a piece of good news and some bad news. Please see the updated graph of the impressions of my main gig.

The good news is on 16th October 2021, after 5 1/2 months since the de-ranking, all my gigs got re-ranked. Even though my gigs got de-ranked six more times (I have numbered the number of times my gigs got de-ranked in the graph), it was bearable as I got orders between the de-rankings to make a living. And the de-rankings gave me time to up my game by fine-tuning my gigs to provide quality work with the best customer service. Plus, every good seller out there should have a chance to be re-ranked and get orders.

And now to the bad news. I cannot say the same thing for the 8th (present) de-ranking I'm experiencing. There were only four days between the 7th and 8th de-ranking where I did not get any orders. There were only four orders since the 7th de-ranking on 07th November 2022 up until now. I managed to get them via social media sharing and from returning buyers, for which I got 5-star ratings. And looking at the four positive reviews and two buyers placing back-to-back orders, I'm NOT worried about their private feedback. So I believe this unfortunate situation occurred from the order I completed on 07th November 2022.

A buyer with +500 seller reviews contacted me and checked my availability. I said that I was available and listened to his requirement. After making sure he read and understood my gig conditions, I sent him a custom offer covering all his needs. The buyer accepted it within a minute and then expressed there was some extra work as well. Then he vaguely answered the questions and submitted the questionnaire promising he would complete it in 24 hours. I politely explained to him that I needed the details asap as the order clock had started. And he had sent the details via a Fiverr message along with a few video links after about 12 hours while I was asleep. So I read it about 20 hours after the commencement of the order. I noted there was too much extra work he did not mention in the initial discussion. If it had been a small amount of extra work, I would not mind. I would do it for free, as I generally do when I face similar situations. But his extra work was a lot. Then I messaged him back and attempted to start a conversation about the discrepancies between his initial requirement and the requirements he had sent. What he did was initiate a dispute requesting to cancel the order mutually. It was like he did not even bother to explain. I rejected the request mentioning there was no error from my side and that I do not wish my gigs to be de-ranked because of this cancellation. It seemed the buyer gave me an ultimatum; to complete the order regardless of the extra work or cancel it. I did not wish my gigs to get de-ranked for another 5 1/2 months like the 1st time. So I said I would deliver the requested work.

Then I gave extra special attention to his order and proceeded with it. I made sure to separately present the default work and extra work I did on the delivery PDF. I hoped the buyer would notice the quantity of the extra work I had done and consider additional pay as a tip. I delivered the PDF 24 hours before the deadline and was hoping for the best. After about two days, the buyer completed the order and gave me a 5-star rating with a positive review (As you know, I was not aware of his rating until I rated him). But I never received an extra payment as I expected. I knew I deserved it for the amount of effort I put in. So I gave him a 1-star rating and wrote a summary of my negative experience as the review. Well, it seems it triggered the buyer to submit negative private feedback. And I am pretty sure it caused these two consecutive gig de-rankings spanning 40 days and counting. 

I contacted Fiverr customer service and asked for clarification on the last-say of buyer. I needed to know whether there is a system to nullify negative private feedback from a buyer if they have given a 5-star rating to the same order and provided a positive review. It seems there is not. This incident again made me feel the buyer always gets the last saying whatever their actions were, and the seller has to pay the price by getting de-ranked.

I really wish my gigs would be re-ranked soon.

Gig De-ranking Timeline.jpg

Edited by priyan87
Needed to change the font color of the title.
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