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mjaninea

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Posts posted by mjaninea

  1. 4 hours ago, frank_d said:

    Hey gang.

    Since @Kesha locked the official news thread, I felt like it was valid for us to create a new thread on this section of the forum, so we can gather our questions, concerns and feedback on the new system.

    Let's please refrain from actually asking for support for our personal accounts, anyone who needs immediate assistance should open an official ticket with CS instead.

     

    This thread is for sellers, members of this community, to openly ask questions, express opinions and discuss their issues or concerns around the new leveling system.

     

    I will try to keep this thread open but I will also do my best to ensure off-topic replies and requests for support are hidden, so we can keep things clean.

     

     

    Thank you for this @frank_d! I have watched today's webinar about the new leveling system, but I have to say I was not able to figure out how it really works. They said this change is "pro-sellers" but I honestly can't agree for now.

    My situation.. For personal reasons, I have been away from Fiverr for a while, had to cancel orders, replied late and delivered late. I was Level 2 and now I am back to being Level 0 and I have no idea where to start or what to do to gain orders and customers again, specially with this new leveling system.. How can people in situations like mine get back on track again? Should we create new gigs? Delete this account and start from zero?? I am honestly so hopeless right now about my Fiverr account.. and these changes they are implying are not helping at all.. 😞

    • Like 17
  2. Hi everyone! I've started the journey on Fiverr in 2020 and used this platform as an extra income. I was doing quite well, but then started with late deliveries, order cancellations and been inactive for months since 2023 due to pregnancy and other personal reasons. Now, I want to get back on track, but I was wondering..

    Should I continue with my existing account even though I know it should not be first in research due to the latest performances? Or should I cancel it and start anew with a new account?

    Also I see there are so many changes here on Fiverr, which are the biggest changes I should be informed about?

    Thank you in advance! 🙂

    • Like 3
  3. I don't think there's any specific gig that's more profitable.. and you should not even create a gig according to its profitability.
    First thing is you should do is analyze yourself, your skills,.. What is one thing you're good at and won't get tired of doing over and over again? I believe that you should also love what you do, skills should be accompanied by passion.

     

    • Like 2
  4. I also have encountered many buyers/sellers who called me “m’am”… Some male buyers even called me “dear” and sometimes even sent hearts to thank me. 😶 Most of them were Europeans. It honestly does not bother me when it comes from female repeated buyers, with which I’ve started building some kind of “friendly relationship”… But yea… I always try to keep it professional and simple, with “hi/hello” or by calling them by their name.

    On the other side, I am asian and in our country it’s completely normal to call someone “sir, m’am”. It’s some way of approaching the other person with respect. I was born and raised in Europe so, it sometimes sounds weird and “too much” for me too.

    • Like 55
    • Up 1
    • Thanks 3
  5. Fiverr tracks these things for 60 days. So most likely things will improve. I was removed from search due to dealing with surgery and canceling a lot of orders. That was in October/early November and it took until January 10th or 15th for me to get back in search. I also had a few negative reviews aside from cancellations, from people that rushed me to deliver, despite not having the health to do so.

    Obviously no one knows how this works, but I would suggest you try to optimize your gigs and wait, if you have current orders, deliver them with great reviews, and eventually the negative review will be removed.

    I agree, negative reviews have an impact, if you receive a 3.3 or 2.7 star review it’s fine, but once you get under that, It does mess up with ranking. At least that was the case for me.

    I have a gig where I barely get reviews, a scammer tried to get his money back saying that he will pay me half after cancellation. I didn’t cancel, I received a 1-star review from him and it’s been a month without orders on that gig.

    Yes! I am trying to optimize my gigs in the meantime, but I’ve heard that editing gigs can make you lose your ranking or make the gig disappear from the search engine for a while, so I’m trying not to overdo it.

    Thank you so much for the helpful suggestions and comforting words, much appreciated 😊

    • Like 34
  6. I wish this was true. I’ve been facing a “dry moment” here on Fiverr after receiving a 2.7 review from a very demanding and difficult buyer in February. After that experience I got few orders I successfully completed and yet my stats got even worse.

    As far as I can see, every situation is different.

    What you said about the SSM suggesting you different keywords, because I am a writer, I have keywords like article and blog in my gig title and as keyword tags, yet I am ranked among the first if you search for that keyword.

    Regarding the review thing… it matters how many orders you process. If you have 200 orders per month and you have 1-2 bad reviews, those don’t really matter that much. But if you just have 20-30 orders a month, then the review does matter a lot more. That’s why I believe the amount of orders you process every month is crucial. At least that’s what I see in my case.

    If you process lots of orders, whenever you cancel it doesn’t matter that much, although it takes half a day or so to receive a new order. That is, if you already delivered other stuff you had in queue. I do agree that having orders in revision mode and stuff like that is bad, and it will have a negative impact, I saw that.

    Thanks for your reply!

    Yes, of course I understand that. I’m definitely not one of those who get 200 orders per month 😛 I got 29 orders in February and then really saw a decline in inquiries, messages and orders in March after that negative review. And now, I don’t know how to “get back up” again. Nothing seems to work.

    • Like 32
  7. Hey everyone!

    A 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!

    Don’t use the same keywords as what you used as a gig title. Trust me.

    Fiverr 3.0 hates that.

    I really think this is true!

    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.

    I wish this was true. I’ve been facing a “dry moment” here on Fiverr after receiving a 2.7 review from a very demanding and difficult buyer in February. After that experience I got few orders I successfully completed and yet my stats got even worse.

    • Like 32
  8. Hmm. The wording of two of the private feedback questions heavily lean towards certain responses and retracts from others.

    The “How would you rate the overall quality” question really shouldn’t have “Perfect” as the top rating, as perfection is virtually impossible to achieve, and should have something more realistic like “Very Good,” “Wonderful,” “Excellent,” etc.

    And the “How closely did this delivery meet your expectations” question should have a “Nearly As Expected” as option 4, “As Expected” as the top normal option, and "Exceeded Expectations as a bonus sort of 6 out of 5.

    With the current wording, if a seller completes an order as expected and does a very good (but not “perfect”) job, they would receive a 4/5 and another 4/5. And we all know that, unfortunately, anything under 5 stars has some sort of detrimental impact tied along with it.

    Yes, I also thought about that. Maybe they could have just simplified it by putting 3 options? Like REALLY BAD, OKAY, VERY GOOD. Since it’s 5 options, I think they consider it like the 5 stars and as you said, if you don’t get 5 stars, it’s no good here on Fiverr…

    • Like 21
  9. Although I understand the valid points made by @vickiespencer and @vibronx (two forum users I respect the views of), I don’t like the concept of private reviews. It allows for the possibility of double-standards - either maliciously or through individuals not having the guts to publicly say what they are thinking. Either way, it’s not good.

    I’ll openly declare that some of my favourite forum threads are from sellers who are moaning about receiving a 4.7 star review from a buyer. Usually the accompanying review is something like “The buyer did an okay job but their communication was poor and I had to explain myself several times to be understood. I won’t use them again because of this.”

    What a lovely honest review! The buyer did an okay job but their communication was poor. That’s all Fiverr, the seller and future buyers need to know. Why the need for secrecy and private reviews? If people don’t have the balls to say what they think (so long as it is an honestly held view) then they shouldn’t leave a review at all.

    Couldn’t have said it any better. Thank you, @english_voice!

    • Like 17
  10. Personally, i don’t see the use of private reviews, especially when they can be used against us and we don’t even know where our problems are coming from (I heard private reviews also affect gig rankings). I don’t see the need for reviews i cannot defend or learn from.

    Reviews are reviews. Buyers should be encouraged to leave honest reviews. If not, then sellers should have private reviews too, because i have a lot to say about some buyers which i politely cannot say in the public review box.

    Exactly my point. By asking buyers to leave “private reviews”, they are making them think they can leave a 5star review and then be honest later anonymously. So what’s the value of the public ones? Both for the seller and for the buyer… Plus, sellers have NO IDEA of what the buyers complained about, and who did, so

    1. How can we, as sellers, provide the service and work that buyers are looking for if their complaints and honest reviews are hidden from us?
    2. What if a buyer used this against a seller, leaving a very bad private review? How can the seller explain his/her side to CS?

    (I heard private reviews also affect gig rankings).

    They do affect gig rankings. Even more than the public reviews.

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  11. What’s the need to ask for a private, anonymous review when there’s a public one?

    Because a buyer can be more honest in a private review, some buyers are too polite to leave a review that is less than 5 s.

    Also, despite it being against TOS, some sellers ask for reviews or complain to buyers about a less than 5 stars review, which makes buyers unhappy and uncomfortable.

    What about you, what do you think about private reviews?

    I am a buyer and a seller on Fiverr, and I think private reviews are okay.

    If you see a positive side of it or its purpose, please share it with me because I really can’t find it.

    Maybe the positive side is more for the buyer’s benefit than the seller’s.

    Thanks @vickiespencer and @vibronx !

    Yes, I totally understand that… But a buyer could also not care about being honest and just leave a bad review without us knowing. And in that case, if with the public ones we can contact CS and let them know what happened, with the private reviews it’s impossible to do that.

    I’m saying this because I’ve encountered a couple of toxic buyers who publicly left a negative review, even though they were 100% happy with the work (one of them even wanted to order again but I blocked him right away) so I was wondering, how much more with the private ones! And we all know there are a looot of difficult buyers.

    I don’t know. I just think it would be a bit helpful for us to get even just a glimpse of those private reviews so that we could understand what we really have to improve about our services…

    And yes, the positive side could be more for the buyer’s benefit… but if I as a buyer find a seller, I will see all the positive reviews that will convince me to place an order, without having a clue of the “true and honest” private reviews. I mean, I just don’t get it…

    • Like 31
  12. I didn’t know anything about private reviews until a month ago.
    I’ve learned that they are anonymous and have a bigger impact than the public ones.

    I honestly don’t know what to think about it, I just don’t understand their purpose. What’s the need to ask for a private, anonymous review when there’s a public one? What if a buyer just wants to randomly leave a negative private review, after all, it’s anonymous! Why make them sooo private even to the sellers? What’s the use, if we cannot read what buyers really think about our services (if that’s their real and honest opinion).

    What about you, what do you think about private reviews? If you see a positive side of it or its purpose, please share it with me because I really can’t find it.

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  13. I wish we had a thread where we could share our own comments/thoughts on the various meetings/webinars from this program. But I guess we could use this one?

    Anyway, I have just finished my first meeting with my success manager. For now I can say it’s helping me. No, I haven’t seen an improvement in my sales yet (it’s my first week of the program), but he’s given me constructive criticism and small things/adjustments that I didn’t think about. Also, he clarified some things that weren’t really clear to me.

    Let’s see in the next days, weeks, months…

    • Like 42
  14. I can’t say for sure.

    Did you receive an invite in your messages? I did, and I was allowed to sign up.

    I assume who’s the fastest gets the spot, if it’s available for everyone.

    I did, I received a notification and noticed that “Seller Plus” badge.

    I’ve just signed up. Hopefully it will help and work, as I’ve been having very quiet moments lately.

    • Like 43
  15. I know they are not obligated. What I’m saying is that a message is not spam. If he answers that’s okay, if not, that’s okay too but rude lol.

    Yes, I get it, but it’s never okay to advice someone to send the buyer a message, their account could be reported or suspended. So it’s better for @adnan_montakin to just consider the work as done and move on to other projects. If something was wrong, the buyer would have certainly messaged him right away. If he didn’t, it might be because everything is fine and is just waiting for the 3 days to pass for the order to autocomplete.

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    • Up 1
  16. “Hey, tell me if everything is okay”. That shows interest in the work you make. That’s not spam.

    That’s not spam, but the buyer could report or mark it as spam and Fiverr has strict rules about it. After an order has been delivered, buyers are not obliged to reply or send messages.

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  17. You should not worry about it. You delivered your work, you did your job. If the buyer didn’t like it or wanted to change something, I’m sure he/she would have messaged you. If you hear nothing from him/her, it would mean they are okay with your work or are still analyzing it, or (if they outsourced their work), they could be waiting for their customer’s reply/comments.

    Whatever their reason, they are not obliged to respond to you are mark the order as complete. As @vickiespencer said, sometimes buyers just let the order auto-complete itself.

    So yes, don’t stay there waiting for a reply from the buyer.

    • Like 12
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