I’m not sure how the Folksy community feels about such ideas but in getting your items to the most prominent positions and ranks in searches views are probably more important than likes/hearts.
The idea of this game is to view items to increase their prominence in searches.
The rules:
Post 1 item you wish to be viewed.
View the 3 items listed directly above your own.
To simplify and speed up this game hold down the CTRL button on your keypad and click on the item links (This will open listings in a new window).
You may list an item again after 3 or more posts are made below your own.
Views are generally counted after an item is open for 8 seconds, By opening a new window you can either look at each item or just keep the window open then close it at your leisure.
Hi @ChompStomp - you make a really good point re the length of time you are on a page. Are we trying to influence the internal search engine on Folksy or Google’s search engine with this?
The Fav games are great because they also give participants a chance of appearing on the front page as a recently favourited item, and also give customers a degree of assurance if they think x number of other people like this item. They aren’t really intended to be games that are influencing search or page ranking. But there is definitely room for your game too.
I seem to recall from my digital marketing days that Google favourably rates your page if someone lands on it having input a certain search term or phrase, and then spends a certain amount of time on it, because it then assumes (rightly or wrongly) that you are reading the page content and therefore you are engaged with said content. Therefore, the next time someone inputs that search term on Google, it’ll be presented ahead of other pages with similar content optimised for that same search term. For that to work though, there has to be a link to some search text being input. So to influence google, you’d have to input an actual search term on google and then make your way down to the end page, rather than using an internal search engine on Folksy or clicking on a link in a forum thread, as Google adapts its algorithm from ‘top down’ ie based on the words someone types in their search field. I don’t think anything we do in isolation in a forum thread would influence google. However, we might be able to influence the Folksy search engine.
@folksycontent - are you able to say whether the internal Folksy search results are influenced by page dwell time in the way that we think Google is on its homepage? If yes, we could adapt @ChompStomp’s idea slightly (if okay with Andy) and maybe change the game so that we advise what search term we are targeting and then get our fellow Folksy players to play on that basis?
So for example, looking at Andy’s items I could search on “wedding cake decoration” in the Folksy search bar, and then find/ go directly to Andy’s listing, stay there for the required numbers of seconds before I close the window. Then anyone (i.e. a real punter) else who searches for “wedding cake decoration” might see Andy’s listing rank higher.
BTW I really like the red rabbit - you are like me, I can never be particularly creative when naming things - my designs started off being named as seahorse 1, 2, 3, Beach Huts 1, 2, 3 etc. I’m getting a bit better though in my new shop… good for search though.
