Is the recommended page and game search bugged? How does a game qualify for recommended?

Sorry for how long this is, I’m just kinda here to rant and ask at the same time

So I recently released a game by using the sponsor feature on Roblox, it is a tycoon with food themed characters and Roblox kinda let me down. I couldn’t find a thread anywhere about this.

I originally planned only to put R$60,000 into the sponsors and to then hope it would stick. The game’s release went very well for me as I had great stats for the day (to me)

  • 75%+ Like Ratio
  • 1300+ Concurrent Players
  • 11-16m average play time
  • Great sales from dev products

This all seems great and all for any developer, but as soon as the sponsor ended the game dwindled to 300-400 peak players. The game was basically invisible to anyone unless I put money into it. So then I continued to put money into sponsors hoping it would stick. But the game stays invisible from the the games search bar and recommended. I wonder if this is a bug or something.

By looking at the recommended page on mobile, tablet and PC. I discovered that my game wasn’t even in the top 2500. Even though I had the “qualifications” to be higher up.

And when I looked at the games search bar. I had searched tags for my game like “Food” and “Tycoon”. My game had 500 players at this time and yet I couldn’t find it. 2 days later I find that my game finally appeared on the “Food” search but I was at the 190th spot. The first games that appear on the search for “Food” are. Though I couldn’t find myself on the “tycoon” game search.

Food

Neither of the first two games are related to food. Whilst my game still has more players then both of those games and basically every game after it. I am still placed at 180-190th place. Most of the games present in the search are either botted copies, games that have nothing to do with food, teleport places, false advertised games and outdated/broken games.

I also questioned why I wasn’t able to get onto the “Tycoons” section. As currently and recently there are teleport places and renamed places on it. How does Roblox pick the right place to be on each section as it seems to me the automated part of it is bugged.

Teleport places and renamed places in Tycoons Section

image
I have confirmed that they renamed and teleport places.

So my final question is just how to make sure that my game is properly placed on lists that it was qualifications for? Because I’m kinda heartbroken after watching it succeed to then fall due to Roblox’s games sorting system.

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Hey there. So how ROBLOX’s system works when something is searched up is it looks on the GAME TITLE and the description of the game. Meaning these games you first see when searched up is full of what is known as ‘tags’ in the description which helps more people see their game. What I recommend doing is putting some tags in your game too. Just at the bottom of the description just try putting ‘food’ and ‘tycoon’ or anything alike and see how that works over the next week or so. Hope that helps. However yeah, ROBLOX’s filter system can not be the best at time. However it seems like your game will be a great success, so good luck!

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It isn’t bugged. As lovedroses mentioned, you need to have key words in your description that describes what your game is about. I recommend copying your title to the top of the description and adding different key words.

Here's an example for the top game of "Superpower"

Hopefully this helped :+1:

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@joe_thfc
Here’s the thing, the 2 front games at the top have 0 tags in their description. I know there is a tag system but I don’t want to fill my description with all those.

As I’m checking for the games at the top I cannot find relevant tags to food, so I wonder why they should be at the top of the search. They are many games without tags just sitting up on the search for no reason. Thanks for the suggestion though.

Images


@Lava_Creeper03

I do have the keywords in my description. In the image below I already had the tags for searches and title in the description. But even with all the tags Roblox refuses to place me higher in the search recommendations. Though I may add more, thanks for the recommendation.

Images

I’m just assuming that Roblox’s search system is broken as I do have the proper tags/description and yet I’m still being placed lower on these recommendations when I have a higher like ratio, visits and current players. I do feel like it has to be manually changed as I feel that changing descriptions or tags won’t change the outcome as the top games in the search do not have anything related to the search.

@superbroggy Like the image I shown, you should also add the key features of the game so it also comes up in different searches. Make your description as detailed as possible. For example, that “Mega Rainbow Parkour”, it has a detailed description where it says:


“Welcome to the Obby, a legendary obstacle course game loved by players all over the orld. Explore riding carts, flying planes, driving jeeps, and many more exciting activites to overcome the obstacles in your path.”


Everything I highlighted in bold are key words on what the game contains and words that are more likely to be searched.

Mhm however those two games are just ‘popular’ and that is why they are there. I feel like you should give it a go. But if you don’t want to, alright.

@joe_thfc Honestly I kinda am stumped as those two games have nothing related to the word “Food” in the description or title. I’m just wondering what allows them to be placed so highly even if they have no relevance to the word searched.

@Lava_Creeper03 Changing the description of a game can allow you to perhaps qualify for other tags, but the main question is why do both those games get to be placed so highly and yet have no relevance to the word searched. I am not looking for more words to be searched, I am looking for the reason why they appear higher on a word that has no relevance to the game’s description or title.


I should mention that both of these games almost every search I’ve done. I do assume the search system has flaws as I’ve seen both of those games whenever I search random words. (fight, battle, egg, cool, gun). There is no reason on why these games should appear this many times without being relevant to the word searched.

Note: This obby is a teleport place.

I’m not asking how to be seen on different tags/keywords, I am asking why am I placed so low on the keywords that I should represent, if that helps. Though thanks again for the suggestions.

They place highly because the have some word in their description that relates to the word you searched or a gamepass/badge. If you have the keywords, all the top played game(most visits and concurrent players) get placed at the top.

All those factors means that my game should be on top then?

#16 on "Food"

In comparison to my game

  • Lower Like Ratio
  • Less Concurrent Players
  • Less All time visits
  • No Gamepasses
  • Less Favorites
  • Uses keyword less times in title+desc
  • No badges (neither of us do)
  • Lower avg play time than me (assuming)

**If I have better stats in every category why am I placed over 100 spots under them in the search feature. For “keywords” in description there are no keywords from this game that make it relevant to be placed in “Food”. I’m searching for 1 word. Not 5, This is a bug.

I’d rather not continue on so how about this just ends? As all my evidence points to that I should be atleast #16 when searched “Food” yet I am 180-190. Most of the points brought up were easily proven wrong and this has gotten out of proportion and has given me no useful information.

It might take a while for Roblox to calculate your statistics and place you in the correct ranking. Just give it a few hours and see what happens. :slight_smile:

I think ROBLOX puts a game on the front page when it is visited and searched more! You advertised your game and got only visits, you didn’t got any searches for it. I think this is reason in my opinion.

2 Likes

It’s been 5 days since I released it…

This may be it, but I still feel like it isn’t the answer, but how would one get higher on the chart? Being searched up and clicked? If that’s the case, then games would have a hard time getting recognized.

1 Like

Just contact Roblox directly through the “Contact Us” and put “Technical Support”. They’re super kind with their response and they’ll answer mostly everything. Here’s the link if you can’t find it: Support