How ranking and ads work

The Popular order

Unless you pick another order, listings are sorted by a score worked out every hour from:

• recent paid sales that were not refunded, with newer sales counting more;
• how often people who open a listing go on to buy it;
• its reviews, weighted so a handful of reviews cannot outweigh many;
• how recently it was updated, and a short boost while it is new;
• a penalty for refunds and chargebacks.

In a search, how well a listing matches your words always comes first. Listings that are hidden by our moderators, unlisted, deleted, or sold by an account whose selling is suspended are never ranked. Views are counted without storing who you are: we keep only daily totals, and never count bots, our staff or a listing's own team. Trending compares the last two days and the last week with the week before.

Sponsored

A card marked Sponsored is there because its creator paid for it. Creators bid in a weekly sealed auction for a place on the home page, at the top of a category, or in searches that match their listing. Only listed, approved products in good standing can take part, and a category or search place only goes to a product that belongs there. At most one sponsored card appears per row, and no more than about one card in seven.

A creator can also pay for a ranking boost in the whole store or in one category. A boost adds a small, capped amount to the listing's score and can move it up only a few places, so it can never jump a clearly better listing. Boosted listings carry the same Sponsored label wherever the boost changed their place.

Ads

A few fixed spaces on the site, marked Ad, show banners from outside advertisers such as server hosts. The label names who paid. Advertisers buy a share of the time a space is shown, in a sealed weekly auction, and every banner is checked by our review team before it runs. When nobody bought a space it may show a partner banner or, only if you allowed advertising cookies, an ad from Google. Ads never appear in your account, in checkout, in a creator's console or inside a listing's description, and a listing's page never shows another creator's product as an ad.

Paid placement does not change

• the reviews and ratings shown, which cannot be bought;
• what a listing costs or what the creator pays us on a sale;
• which listings are allowed on the marketplace.

Questions

Write to [email protected]. Want to advertise yourself? See Advertise on Bytesforge.