frank_d

Hey everyone! frank hello600×600 2.06 MBA disclaimer: The following post/article is not an official Fiverr statement. It’s a summary of my personal observations over how Fiverr works and I am sharing because I noticed that more and more sellers come here, stating that they “lost their ranking”. This is my effort to provide them with some answers and some food for thought. Hold up. Fiverr 3.0? If Fiverr’s early days (the wild wild west days) was Fiverr 1.0 and we count the facelift in 2014 (I think?) as v2.0, then we quietly got v3.0 late last year. Without an official announcement, without much fanfare, the website slowly rolled out a back end update which seems to have concluded late last year. How do I know this? This is a good time to remind you to read my disclaimer. I have no way of actually knowing anything, no one from Fiverr shared insights with me either. This is just a gut feeling and tons of personal observation, from a seller obsessed with performance. (and figuring out how things work) Ranking is no more I started hinting about this mid-2020, then started actively talking about it. Talking about ranking is moot, as there are no more results pages. Well technically there are, but you’ll see what I mean in a minute. Fiverr transitioned from being a search engine like Google to being a match making service like Tinder. It no longer serves users (buyers) with pages filled with search results, ranked according to how well they are “performing”. Fiverr also no longer counts on buyers clicking on verticals to find what they need. It’s all about the search function. Fiverr’s new engine tries to match a buyer with a potential seller that will be as close to a 100% ideal match as possible, as soon as possible. A great match is when: A) a seller offers something relative to what the buyer is searching for and B) a seller has great “performance” It’s all about reducing risk for Fiverr. Risk that the buyer won’t find someone to hire and therefore won’t spent their money. Or risk that the buyer will not get a great service and ask for a refund, never to return again on the platform. What is this “performance” you keep going on about? Here comes the good stuff. There are two kinds of performance that Fiverr keeps track of: A) performance as a seller (converting prospects into buyers) B) performance as a vendor (satisfying buyers, successfully completing orders) THAT’S IT. Fiverr doesn’t care if you are the best designer, video editor, animator, writer, what have you. All it cares is that you can make people spend and then making sure that said people don’t ask their money back. (And therefore stay on the platform to spend some more) I am oversimplifying things, as the system actually keeps track of a bunch of interesting metrics when serving buyers with sellers. Which is why searching for your gig, or your competition on Fiverr, even using incognito or clearing cookies and what not, will NEVER show you anything useful. The new engine qualifies buyers and knows a lot about them, before serving your gig their way: -their purchase intent -buying history -browsing habits (I mean on site) -how they respond to custom offers -when they spend -how they spend The list is long, and I am sure that even if I am right on some of the stuff I think I understand, there are hundreds more variables that only Fiverr’s coders know. OK, let’s say you are right. What now? Well just like every change in life, it is always met with resistance. The new “engine” is here to stay apparently, since its sole purpose is making the platform more money. What should we do? Why are people losing their “rankings” out of the blue? This is where I will try to sound less like a lunatic and actually try to form all the observations into some -hopefully- actionable advice. When people start noticing that their gigs are losing impressions, or that messages stop coming in, etc, it’s usually because their performance has deteriorated. They dropped the ball somehow. I know it always seems like it’s out of the blue, but there are indicators. Here are some things to keep in mind. The new system values speed and relevance over anything else. It’s all RELEVANT: (performance A) So performance A (being a good closer) has everything to do with how your gig is set up. If you still think about SEO, and keywords, and ranking, you already lost the game. Focus on your gig’s title, don’t try to capture everyone, don’t use pretty adjectives, focus on who you want to find your gig. You need to be focused on your niche. Relevance is key. You need to make sure that only the people you can help will find you, and that will make Fiverr LOVE your gig. Don’t use the same keywords as what you used as a gig title. Trust me. Fiverr 3.0 hates that. Your tags need to be complimentary to your title. Not repeating what you say you will do. Again: relevance. If your gig’s description is written with “SEO” in mind, and is “keyword-rich”, you will once again underperform. Fiverr 3.0 no longer crawls for keywords, it rewards descriptions that answer questions and help convert. The need for SPEED: (performance B) Fiverr 3.0 loves speed. The quicker you can respond to inquiries the better. The sooner you get that custom offer accepted, the better. Other factors that may show Fiverr you are rocking it: -Delivering fast -Buyers accepting their delivery relatively quickly -Not getting lots of revision requests -Not leaving order updates unanswered for too long (the “buyer has posted an update for X amount of hours” notification) -Delivering before the “you have 12 hours to deliver” notification -Avoiding cancellations -Avoiding time extensions Oh, one more thing: Relevance and speed are just two faces of a multi-faced die, that calculates one very important thing. Fiverr 3.0 is all about having satisfied buyers. The platform no longer just focuses on making revenue and having gigs purchased. The updated engine focuses solely on having happy buyers. Which leads me to my last point for this article, to whoever wants to hear it: Your reviews no longer matter as much. You can keep getting all 5-star reviews, and you will still experience lulls and droughts. Because the system no longer takes public reviews into consideration, using the same weight as Fiverr 2.0. They still count, but not as much. And can you blame them? The majority of sellers on the platform can be phoning it in and still get a higher than 4.7 average. The system has too many 5-star sellers for that metric to indicate anything. If everyone is 5-stars, then no one is 5-stars. (to paraphrase something I keep saying for TRS badges.) So unfortunately, and maybe even people gaming the system with fake reviews had something to do with this, public reviews no longer mean as much to the platform, when it calculates how happy our buyers are. It’s a long and complex formula, but I simplified it to this for now: Performance A + Performance B + Buyer satisfaction = Actual seller rating I still think that “gig rotation” is not a thing. It does exist, but it would never tank successful sellers and truly valuable gigs. So to sum up: -When you search for your gig and find it, that’s a skewed POV, that’s not telling you the whole story. You should stop doing that. -When your gig is served to buyers, it’s because Fiverr actually believes you can score. -The gigs that are also presented along your offering, are also very carefully selected based on their performance. There is no “ranking”. -When you notice a drop in sales/enquiries/impressions, start thinking about your overall performance. More often than not, there is definitely some indicator that “told” Fiverr that you were dropping the proverbial ball. The bad news is that this will take some getting used to and sellers are once again asked to either adapt or “perish”. The good news is that this new system is actually a lot more forgiving than the old “SEO/rank” system. Even if you drop the ball performance wise, all it takes is just a tiny spark to get things going again. As I write this, and gave it a quick read I understand that I may have oversimplified things, or that I haven’t spelled it out as much as I could. Please forgive me, as I have a birthday cake to attend to. 🙂 As always I will be here to answer any questions and discuss things in detail with you all. Thank you! main_3800×800 433 KB

Congrats @vibronx well deserved. Now it’s time to start planning your growth. 🙂

I am not 100% clear on what happened, the exact timeline of the events. For me the client’s response is all I focused on. Let’s say I am interested in your service, and you tell me it will take up to 48 hours to deliver. I check with my client (boss, whoever) and I tell them that we’ll get it in 48 hours. You deliver in 48 hours, revisions are needed. You deliver said 24 hours past initial deadline. I now missed my deadline. This is a communication issue, most definitely. I didn’t blame the seller, nor did I try to investigate whether or not the buyer is at fault. I just wanted to divert the OP’s attention to the fact that it’s all moot now. They were focused on the big bright " LATE" warning that they missed what the real issue is, and why upon re-delivering they may end up getting a negative review.

You are missing the point again. You didn’t deliver when your buyer needed the delivery by. They will not use your delivery, they did the report on their own. That’s a really big miss on your end. Worrying about an automated message on your dashboard should be the least of your worries, as the one thing your buyer paid you for, never got done on time.

Seems like the real issue here is that you missed the deadline agreed upon with your buyer. He didn’t ask for a new revision, he is requesting that you deliver again so that the order can be closed.

As a TRS myself, let me offer some insight. You are setting yourself up for failure by asking “what is wrong with my account”. The TRS badge is not easy to get but at the same time it’s not a badge you need to get in order to make good money on the platform. Work on your process and not just the deliverables, and always strive for excellence when it comes to customer support. Best case scenario: Fiverr grants you the badge. Worst case scenario: you elevate yourself, grow your business and make more money. It’s a win-win. But if you keep hitting an invisible wall and feel bad about something you cannot directly control or influence, you will be unhappy. And if you are unhappy you will probably not be able to grow and create a better future for yourself.

Success always leaves a trail. Most sellers who are considered high-earners have definitely done something right. I am always open about my process and mindset, but most of the times people on the forum are looking for a different set of answers that require less work to get you to that kind of income.

Please don’t let me know. Like I said this isn’t something you can achieve via editing. You are not even listening to the answer. And don’t call me buddy.

It’s a portrait, shot in a studio by a professional photographer. The background is colored that way from gel lights hitting the wall at the time the pic was snapped. It’s not photoshopped.

@vickiespencer did the revenue appear on your dashboard as soon as an order was placed, or after it was successfully closed out?

I don’t understand, what is it that you find “sneaky”?

Nope, all info on this feature is available for the past month or so.

You can find all the info you need right here: https://sellers.fiverr.com/en/article/promoted-gigs

It comes and goes, it’s not a browser issue. If Fiverr rolled out this feature globally, some outage is expected. I’m used to it.

Fiverr is down for me, immediately after I got the email as well. Seems like the website is crashing due to all the sellers bidding? Meanwhile: A) I need to deliver a rush order B) the favicon for the 404 page uses the old Fiverr color and my OCD kicked in.

You can use pushover although it’s not free. (In combination with IFTTT which is free)

Offering something of value to your target audience would sell even if your gig picture was non existent. You don’t need a cool looking store front to attract costumers. You are looking at this the wrong way.

Again for clarification, if buyers use the advanced filter options and are looking for “online sellers only” then yes if you are not online, you won’t appear. However that has NOTHING to do with the gig’s ranking. I know it can be confusing to understand how this works @nani_waheed but please refrain from dolling out advice since you yourself don’t know how this works 100%.

I should clarify that when I say a gig is underperforming, I don’t mean the 3 key metrics all sellers monitor. I am referring to how the actual gig is performing in terms of conversion and clicks.

You are worrying about the wrong things, and I say that after checking out your gigs. Rankings are 100% affected by gig performance. Your gigs seem to be underperforming as no sales have been made. So the search engine will slowly but surely start burying them.

That is false. Please do not spread misinformation. If you are unaware of how Fiverr works please visit the learn center. If you are not online and someone specifically searches for online sellers then you won’t appear in search results.

No it doesn’t. No you don’t. You need to be responsive when a message comes, so when you get a notification respond as soon as you can.

You should definitely think over how you are doing business on here if you aren’t available for days at a time and/or are worried that you can’t respond to messages or orders. With the mobile app and the template response tool there’s no excuse.

I am an introvert myself. But I do need to discuss bigger projects with clients via voice or video. Communication is faster, easier, and it helps build trust and rapport. I also keep notes and as soon as the call ends I message the client via Fiverr with a summary of what we said, and what they requested/were we landed. I then request for them to confirm what I typed out so we can proceed. Extra steps? Yes. Bigger projects though. Also other than an initial call none of my clients actually ask for more calls or I even faced any issue with a client bugging me all the time. But I do understand your concerns. Having $5 being able to push a button to call you would be a disaster.

I am sure they will roll this feature out to all users once it is improved. If you ever place an order with a Pro tier seller you can definitely talk to them via video!