New Games Do Not Show Up In Roblox Search

I have a new game launched last week called “Game of Clones” which does not show up when searching for Games on the Roblox website. I enter the exact game name: Game of Clones, but my game does not show up at all. Here is the URL:

I had this same problem with the first game that I released in May. When that game was launched, it did not show up in your search engine. It took a good 6-8 weeks for it to show up in the Roblox website game search results. Needless to say, this is pretty detrimental to promoting a new game.

53 Likes

I wouldn’t really call this a bug tbh, it’s more-so there over population of other games, so a game with little to no recognition won’t show up near the top, and others with visits/likes/favourites will. (or so I believe that’s how it works).

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At the very least, one should be able to search and find a game by it’s title.

No game, not even the best game in the world, is going to get visits, likes, or favorites if nobody can find it.

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That’s why there is ads and sponsors.

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The whole search is kinda awful. If I search my game RO-Port Tycoon (a pretty unique name), it’s the 37th item listed. The items before have completely different names.

Thus, I think the larger issue is that the current search algorithm needs some adjustments.

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This is because the current search uses OR instead of AND when searching. So you will get things that are “RO” OR “Port” OR “Tycoon”.
Seems a bit silly that a more specific term yields more results.

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Interesting. Looks like sticking with single-word titles is actually to some benefit with such a broken searching system.

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I think it is definitely algorithm related since for my game back in May, the search by name was initially not working, but then started working 6-8 weeks after the game was launched.

And I also don’t think that developers should have to rely on ads and sponsors to get their game some visibility on Roblox. Some developers don’t have the money to be paying for ads, especially when competing against games with deep pockets. Even if they did, ads and sponsors are only so effective.

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I have the same issue wiith my game “RS Minigames”. I emailed the ROBLOX support about this bug (this was before I was in the devforums, so some time back in June), and they replied stating that they were investigating the issue.

If you search “RS Minigames”, it doesn’t show up at all. I honestly believe the searching system needs a revamp.

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Keep the examples coming.

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Hello! It shows as first for me (used your link)… I dont know what is going on.

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Strange, still doesn’t work for me. Are they doing some secret A/B testing on their sorting alg?

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The point is I am on phone currently. Gimme a second. Ill check on pc.

EDIT: Yeh. Same on PC. I see it as first.

EDIT2: Some secret AB testing confirmed.

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My game is now showing when I search by name (Game of Clones)!

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Hey developers,

The search algorithm was updated in December. All of the games reported in this thread are now showing up correctly in the search results for me. Do you have any more examples of popular games that don’t show up correctly in the search results?

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Sorry to bump this but I feel like it is necessary. On March 24th of this year, I released a game and it was paid access. I thought that since it was paid access it lost seo because Roblox would want free games to be prioritized. A few days ago I made the game free and it still does not show up in the search and this is why I am concerned. The name of the game is Find the Noobs 2 and when I search up Find the Noobs or Find the Noobs 2 it is nowhere near the top of the list.When I searched for Find the Noobs, Find the Noobs 2 was the 479th result and when I searched for Find the Noobs 2, the game was the 243rd result.

It has now been over a month, over 10,000 ratings, 30,000 favourites, 1m+ visits, 200+ concurrent at all times and it’s still at the bottom or not even in the search results.

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My game: https://www.roblox.com/games/3587181112/gamepass-Creeper-CHAOS-Testing

Seems like it is ignored by the ROBLOX search engine. This problem has never occurred with me before and is very strange because it has quite a lot of reoccurring players, 500+.

It may be due to it not having a thumbnail yet, I will try adding one soon.

1 Like

I have a new game “Sheep Farm Simulator” that is not showing up when I search for that name.

https://www.roblox.com/games/3104648388/Sheep-Farm-Simulator

I should clarify that I renamed my game to “Sheep Farm Simulator”, and now the search does not return any results for the new game name. (But it does return results for the old game name).

So the problem seems to be related to renaming a game, and the search engine not picking up the new name. Is this something that you can fix, so that my game comes up when people search for it with the new name?

New Game Name:
https://www.roblox.com/games/3104648388/Sheep-Farm-Simulator

1 Like

Sorry for reviving this but I think I found out my problem and i’m pretty sure it was because it didn’t have a thumbnail/game icon.