danno1950

Well said! Yes, it really is frustrating because we can't pinpoint exactly what is causing all of this.

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That is definitely a strange trend, but I don't know what it means. Yes, does feel like what we've been talking about, that there might be a change in something search related.

Absolutely, Alex. I'll keep my profile, but I won't just be waiting around for Fiverr to figure things out. That could take a while. It's in my best interest to not rely on Fiverr as a consistent revenue stream, with the way things have been going. That it unfortunate, because I'm a big fan of the way their business model operates. I just think they're too fond of tinkering with it, without solid oversight.

I completely agree - that will be what motivates Fiverr to change - when they start losing money.

Yes, it's time to beef up and search out alternatives. I'm not confident that Fiverr is going to be motivated enough to figure out what's going on with their platform that is negatively impacting so many sellers.

Interesting. The fee sounds appealing, but I'm still not at all a fan of their business model. Their bidding process can lead to a lot of time spent with little return.

Thanks for the clarification, guys!

This talk about a possible algorithm adjustment makes for interesting timing when you think about the planned downtime on March 26th. It says "upping our site's efficiency," but I'd be curious to know what that efficiency increase actually consists of.

Maybe that's why they differentiated on the Request To Order feature between "First Time Customers" and "All Customers" - to at least give us a way to feel out difficult new buyers. I sure use it that way.

Wow, this just happened on Twitter. This is exactly what I've suspected for a while about Fiverr. If there is not a competent developer familiar with the underlying code of Fiverr, who is at the top supervising these algorithm adjustments, after a while, the whole thing just spins off course. I remember when we heard last spring that Fiverr was working on developing many new features, all at the same time. One thing I know about programming is that you just change one thing at a time, because then you can gauge the impact of that change. If you're changing a lot of elements that interact with the algorithm, how can you tell which change did what?

It really makes me wonder if they still have control over the algorithm itself, or if the developers are doing things without adequate supervision or training on how it is supposed to function, which leads to substantial negative impact on sellers.

I'm all for that, and sooner would be better!

I absolutely agree, Mike. The circumstances are just too widespread to say "chance occurrence." My only hope is that enough sellers will lose revenue that it will motivate Fiverr to address the impact of their latest algo tinkering.

Interesting that you revisited Upwork as well. When I went there, the jobs in my area were all about things that I don't provide, so that's where I lost interest.

Thanks for sharing this - very enlightening! I haven't gotten this notification yet. It looks like it is saying that it will add the feature that we will be shown the winning bid on a cost-per-click basis. I think that will help us set our cost-per-click prices above the winning bid, if I understand correctly what this update will accomplish.

Just in fairness to myself to hedge against a continued slump at Fiverr, I revisited Upwork. I was active on it for a while, but I hadn't been there in 2 years. After a few minutes of trying to navigate their "connect" bid model, I remembered why I preferred Fiverr. So for now I'm just inclined wait it out on Fiverr.

Well said, and that gets to it in a nutshell.

I agree. I'll stick with Fiverr, but I think they need to evaluate what they're doing in order to remain competitive.

I agree with that - the Upwork bidding process didn't work for me at all. I got some work there, but not enough to tolerate the process.

Great points! I think those are all valid factors, and along with the explosion of the AI issue, could be impacting Fiverr orders. However, those are more global events, and the impact on Fiverr might be more of a trickle down effect. I'm still curious about the fact that some of us have experienced the same dropoff in traffic and orders at almost the exact same time - Jan 30th to Feb 6th - which could point to an additional event, like an algo adjustment. I don't think any of these issues are mutually exclusive, so we could be getting hit on multiple fronts in a number of ways.

I think that might have happened, and we're back to unintended consequences. I used to work with software programmers who would tinker with the system, and make changes. We then had to monitor to see what impact their changes had on the rest of the system, the unintended consequences of their actions. I think that sometimes happens on Fiverr, where the developers change something and don't sufficiently monitor the impact. Then we are all left with the results, like the slump that many seem to be experiencing right now.

That makes perfect sense. I think "the ocean of sellers" is how Fiverr is clogging up their own system. @newsmike predicted a while back that this was how they would work against themselves. I didn't see it at the time, and now it's coming true. Fiverr Business for instance was supposed to be for the 'cream of the crop" sellers, and it got just as flooded as the regular platform.

Wow, that's the same time that my traffic dropped off. If a number of sellers are struggling at the same time, you do have to wonder about algo adjustment. Yes, this could be a big deal. Of course, the fact that so many sellers are struggling means that Fiverr is earning less - which is their biggest motivation to actually do something to resolve the issue.

That's an "are you kidding?" concept, but very true. I need things to pick up as well!