Thank you for your reply and for agreeing with the core of the issue! It's encouraging to know the team recognizes the problem.

Regarding the concern about "gaming the system" — that's a completely valid point, and I agree that the inner workings of the indexing algorithm should not be exposed.

The key problem I'm trying to address is slightly different: the complete lack of feedback for developers when their game is simply not being indexed at all.

Many newcomers (and even experienced devs) might have a critical, but easily fixable, error on their page — like a missing description, an empty field, or misconfigured settings. Currently, there's no way to know this. The game just remains invisible, and the developer is left in the dark, not even knowing if it's in a moderation queue or if something is broken.

My suggestion is not about revealing ranking factors, but about providing a basic, binary status and minimal actionable hints for your own page only. For example:

• "Not eligible for indexing" → with a simple bullet list: "– Description is too short. – Primary genre is not selected."
• "In moderation queue" → with a rough estimate: "Typically takes up to 14 days."
• "Indexed" → a simple confirmation.

This approach doesn't help "game the system" for better ranking. On the contrary, it helps newcomers follow the platform's rules correctly from the start, reducing confusion and the number of support tickets asking "Why is my game invisible?"

It's less about transparency of the algorithm and more about basic communication of page health. Even minimal hints would be immensely more helpful than the current silent state.

I'd be grateful if other developers could share if such a minimal status system would have helped them. Thank you for considering this perspective.

You're right that better documentation could set clearer expectations. But in practice, when a developer's game is completely invisible, they don't go back to reread the docs—they immediately think something is broken or that they made a mistake. They turn to the community or support, which creates the very workload we're discussing.

However, I believe the proposed "Indexation Status" feature addresses the core of this issue more directly. In my view, this feature would not only make the process more transparent but also significantly reduce the load on the support team by eliminating repetitive, game-specific help requests.

When I faced this problem, I also found scattered posts and documentation that could hint at a solution. But knowing where to look for this information is a challenge in itself, especially for newcomers. Updated docs alone won't solve the problem of support overload because users in a state of uncertainty are likely to seek immediate help, not search through documentation.

Furthermore, the option for intentional non-indexing could also be clearly communicated within this "Indexation Status" section, explaining what settings to adjust if a developer wants their game to remain private.

Right now, game indexing feels like a "black box." I simply want to add a bit of transparency. A clear status indicator in the dashboard would empower developers to help themselves, provide peace of mind, and ultimately create a smoother experience for both users and the itch.io team.