Posts not appearing in Reader

  • Unknown's avatar
    simonkanzen79 · Member ·

    Hi, my last four posts haven’t appeared in the WordPress Reader, although my first six posts did. I have no idea why this is, and am hoping someone could explain it.
    Thanks, Simon

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • kokkieh · Staff ·

    Hi there,

    I can see all your posts, including the one you published two days ago, if I look up your site in the Reader:

    https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/98990770

    So they are in the Reader, but it’s possible your browser is not loading them. Please see if clearing your browser cache, logging in with incognito mode, or using a different browser makes any difference.

  • Unknown's avatar
    simonkanzen79 · Member ·

    Hi, and thanks for quick the reply. I realise now I should have been clearer in the question: it’s really regarding the articles not appearing in the Reader search results.

    To explain my query: When I first created the site, I was surprised (pleasantly!) to find I was getting followers and likes—because I didn’t know about the Reader. So I searched the Reader for my article titles, and they all came up—which explained how people were finding them.

    However, since my last four articles (beginning with the “Part 2” of the “Transhumanism: Religion in Plain Sight” series) there were no more page views. And when I search for the titles in the Reader, they don’t come up (the previous six still do).

    I would appreciate it if you could explain how it works, as I don’t understand why the initial six articles appear in the search, whilst the latest four don’t—as I haven’t done anything different that I’m aware of.

    Thanks again,
    Simon

  • kokkieh · Staff ·

    Reader Search uses an algorithmic search, similar to how Google searches work, that returns results based on a variety of factors, including content from posts matching the search term, but also the number of views, likes and comments on any particular post.

    It is also unlikely for any search to show more than one result from the same site, so if a particular search term is already showing you an older post published on your site, it won’t necessarily show newer posts matching the same term. It would only show the newer post if the newer post becomes more popular, causing it to “outrank” the older post according to our search algorithms.

    However, since my last four articles (beginning with the “Part 2” of the “Transhumanism: Religion in Plain Sight” series) there were no more page views.

    This is unlikely to be related to the Reader Search specifically.

    Traffic to individual blogs ebb and flow over time. There are also certain times of year where we notice a decline in people reading blogs in general.

    But your site also still has very few followers, and very few posts. The Reader is a great source of new traffic, but it’s only one, and I’d recommend you look into the other options as well. We have some tips that might help you here:

    Increase Your Site’s Traffic

    It would also help if you’re able to publish content a bit more regularly. That will ensure that your site gets indexed by search engines faster and your content rank higher in search results. At the moment there’s not much on your site yet for search engines to send people to, so focus on that first. Then the traffic will start coming over time :)

  • Unknown's avatar
    simonkanzen79 · Member ·

    Thanks for the advice and the link—both were informative.

    Perhaps my site is not a blog in the usual sense, as I don’t expect to write frequently; and creating a following is not an aim for me. I plan to write in-depth articles every so often; and it would be nice if they had basic exposure in the Reader, so that I know at least a few people will see each one—this is how I assumed it was after my first posts were exposed (automatically, it seemed).

    For example, my latest post is 13.5K, and it’s about a current and highly popular TV series—yet the search results don’t list it at all. This is what I couldn’t make sense of, seeing as my first several posts were exposed, i.e. before I had any likes or follows at all—which was how I got them.

    My question then really concerns the criteria for basic exposure in the Reader, i.e. that an article will at least be listed in the search results. If you can think of anything specific as to why my latest post is not (about the show “Stranger Things”), it would be helpful to know. Either way, I’ll keep in mind your previous advice.

    Thanks,
    Simon

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