Home Page Feed

Okay, first forgive me, been up working and on a coffee buzz.

What is the cycle of the home page feed.  I keep looking for something new and different, from the prospective of anyone landing on the page and for myself hoping for fresh reading material...it doesn't change often, it does at one point in the day but hmmmmm got me thinking just how is the feed cycle set up, can we expect to see more new articles highlighted at a more frequent rate in the future?  

Just Wondering 

I wondered this, too. I see a couple new ones today but still mixed in with the same pieces I've been seeing there for 3 days. Like you, I was looking for something new to read as well and thinking some new additions would be cycling through, but I don't see it.

My personal observations (based solely on my own pages, so not at all empirical) are that they record the last 7 to get 100% or the articles with the most/latest comments.

Has anyone reached a 100% page ranking without seeing it on the front page?

I have not reached that without being on the feed.  But most of my work is very new regardless.   I personally would like to see it refreshed more.  I wonder if it will build tensions as writers see those remaining on the feed achieving the desired scores due to their up front and personal position on the feed and if so due to the amount of comments left and not traffic...  ??? Aw inquiring minds 

Jo, I just read your wizz on what to do after 50 articles, found my answer there, like it or not it is what it is.  Thanks 

It's certainly a bit of a roundabout, insofar as those on the feed do get extra publicity. This in turn brings more people to interact with their content (comments, Wizz likes, social network clicks etc), which contributes towards keeping them at 100% for a while.

However, to be in the popular feed on the front page, you have to have 100% already.  This is what I was waffling on about here. I've just checked and every article currently in that feed does have the rank.

I'm just a writer, so my understanding is based solely on observation. But this is how I think it works.

Say that me, you, Mary and four other writers all got an article to 100% at the same time. The whole of the popular feed would suddenly change to reflect those seven articles. I'm unsure what would happen if an 8th person did the same, but I'm suspecting that the first of those 8 to reach the rank would suddenly disappear again, as the 8th would be the latest one to achieve it.

I read somewhere that Wizzley up-dates the ranks three times a day. Without confirmation here from any of the team, it's my personal feeling that it happens once.  At that point, the feed would grab the latest seven articles at 100%, then randomise them into the popular list on the home page.

However, there are two other feeds on there, which can be pretty instant on the up-dates. As soon as ChefKeem or another editor awards an Editor's Choice, that article will appear in the relevant feed.

Also I think that Wizzley's algorithm is monitoring comments in real time. It is looking to see which articles have people talking, then taking the top seven to display on the 'buzzing' feed. I've seen some go up within an hour or two of getting enough comments. (My guess is that anything above two comments puts it in the zone to be picked up.)

Those in the Editor's Choice and Buzzing feeds are more likely to achieve 100% quickly, thus ending up in the popular feed. But they won't go there until that have that rank.

I've also observed that the first feed you see, when going onto the home page, is also randomised.  It selects between the three each time an IP is registered for the first time that day. It could be a different feed to the one you first saw, when you visited yesterday. That gives a pool of 21 articles to keep things fresh for the browsing public.

That's my understanding anyway!

Jo, your assessment is pretty accurate. We rotate our "100" authors based on newness, comments, etc., depending on the tab, i. e "Popular, Buzzing, etc. We normally update once a day, overnight. Except for the instant "Editor's Choice" feature.

Don't worry too much about this - by far the most visitors land on individual articles.

Who said, "Write often, write well"? Oh, yeah - Jo did. That's what eventually gets you on the Wizzley home page (if you have your profile filled out, and if you use preview images).

Or start a new forum topic. Ideally, not just for the purpose of a front page appearance.  

It's nice to know that my observations aren't way off the mark!

I can confirm from looking at my own article traffic that there's a definite swing towards search engine results.  At first they were mostly Wizzley and social networking, but now things like Google are starting to take over.

I didn't know about the forum topic posts!  Presumably that also links in with the author ranking?

As far as I know, the new forum topics feature any author, 100 or not.

I suppose the feed will become more fresh once the 100 content pages grow.  I guess I'm being a bit lazy, looking for good content to wizz through 

ChefKeem - I'm an idiot, totally over-thinking that one. I'd forgotten about the fourth feed on the right-hand sidebar. -.-  :)

Katie - That sounds like our mission then. Wizzley writers, time to be brilliant and help grow that 100 ranking pool!