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e_luneborg
Community Member

What's up with all the $0 earners?

Why is it that the same freelancers who has never earned a single dollar here always show up on the first page of the search results? Whenever I search for "casino" it's always the same freelancers there, and the same ones has been there for almost a year, and they still haven't made any money. In fact only 3 of the 10 profiles on the first page has made any money at all. 

 

Shouldn't their profiles have become private a long time ago? I know you can just re-set it to public, but can that be done every month for as long as you want to? If I were Upwork I would think that this is the freelancers who take clients off Upwork, why else would they bother to keep their profiles public. It's not like they have ever earned any money, and they probably never will.

 

I'm also always on the first page, so it's not like I have anything to complain about in that sense, but it bothers me that they are still there, every time I check. And I do check almost every week. 

 

If a mod or someone could give me an answer to why this is it would be great, as this is bothering me.

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Freelancing is a gamble - To win you need skill, luck and a strategy
24 REPLIES 24
mwiggenhorn
Community Member

Same thing with paralegals.  Although my position revolves on the searches, there are always a bunch on the first page who haven't made a dime and I doubt that they are all new to the platform...Glad you brought this up.

No, they have not just signed up. 

 

The one on top of the "casino" search took a test in 2014, so she's not new. She has not made any money, and has been on the top of the search results for at least 6 months. 

 

I think something is not working properly with setting profiles to private. Why would anyone bother to change the profile back to public every month on a website they have been on for 4 years but never made any money?

________________________
Freelancing is a gamble - To win you need skill, luck and a strategy

There are 3,153 "paralegals" on Upwork who haven't earned anything, out of a total of 3,842.  Sigh...


@Mary W wrote:

There are 3,153 "paralegals" on Upwork who haven't earned anything, out of a total of 3,842.  Sigh...


So it seems like a lot of freelancers are making an effort to keep their profiles active, even when they are not making any money. Has to be a lot to do for support getting all of those contacts to make profiles public every month... 

 

Or are profiles not made private anymore if they don't earn? Did they stop doing that?

________________________
Freelancing is a gamble - To win you need skill, luck and a strategy

Supposedly they are still making profiles private.  Lots of complaints in the forum about it.  But if you buy the extra connects, you don't get switched to private so that might be it.  Seems like it's time for a good house-cleaning in my particular category.

Rephrase that to ALL categories, please.

Eve, that's an interesting observation. I looked at 3 of the $0 earned "casino" FL, and 2 of them don't have plus membership, so that doesn't explain it. Another oddity is, the one who has a plus membership also has 100% JS, despite $0 earned, I presume because his agency is 100% JS. But all this might be moot, because unless I'm mistaken, when a client does a search, results may differ from the same search done by a freelancer, and only search results seen by clients really matter.

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"No good deed goes unpunished." -- Clare Boothe Luce


@John K wrote:

Eve, that's an interesting observation. I looked at 3 of the $0 earned "casino" FL, and 2 of them don't have plus membership, so that doesn't explain it. Another oddity is, the one who has a plus membership also has 100% JS, despite $0 earned, I presume because his agency is 100% JS. But all this might be moot, because unless I'm mistaken, when a client does a search, results may differ from the same search done by a freelancer, and only search results seen by clients really matter.

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Hmmm, quite interesting my dear Watson! Robot wink


 


@Wendy C wrote:

Rephrase that to ALL categories, please.

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I totally agree, Wendy!

 


 


@Eve L wrote:

No, they have not just signed up. 

 

The one on top of the "casino" search took a test in 2014, so she's not new. She has not made any money, and has been on the top of the search results for at least 6 months. 

 

I think something is not working properly with setting profiles to private. Why would anyone bother to change the profile back to public every month on a website they have been on for 4 years but never made any money?


Or, something is working exactly as intended with UW's IPO looming. The more "active" freelancers, the merrier. If they were to publish the numbers Rene provided it would look a lot less successful, don't you think?

Searching for paralegals today from a client account:  14 of the first 20 have no earnings.

something's goofy.  If I use the filter to search for paralegals, any earnings, any anything, it says there are 26.  Last week it was around 3,000.

Paralegal.jpg

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"Where darkness shines like dazzling light"   —William Ashbless
versailles
Community Member

From a client account, in the paralegal services category (no other filters active) I see very few with $0 earnings, none on the first page.

 

Upwork tells me that there are 3,853 people in the category. 3,163 have earned nothing.

 

Amongst the 3,163 non-earners, 875 have been active in the last 2 months or less and 2,288 have not been active in the last 2 months.

 

Also, Upwork tells me that there are 1,733,407 freelancers in total on the platform, amongst them, 1,559,170 have never earned a rouble. Only 174,237 freelancers on Upwork have earned 1$ or more. That's 10% of the Upwork population. 90% of the freelancers on Upwork are totally useless.

 

Of all the freelancers on Upwork, only 667,339 were active in the last 2 months, while 1,056,516 have shown no activity in the last 2 months. 61% of the freelancers who have a profile on Upwork are not actively using the platform.

 

(Edited for typos.)

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"Where darkness shines like dazzling light"   —William Ashbless

Rene- very interesting about searching from a client account versus from a freelancer account.  I feel a bit better now.  Thanks.


@Rene K wrote:

From a client account, in the paralegal services category (no other filters active) I see very few with $0 earnings, none on the first page.

 

Upwork tells me that there are 3,853 people in the category. 3,163 have earned nothing.

 

Amongst the 3,163 non-earners, 875 have been active in the last 2 months or less and 2,288 have not been active in the last 2 months.

 

Also, Upwork tells me that they are 1,733,407 freelancers in total on the platform, amongst them, 1,559,170 freelancers have never earned a rouble. Only 174,237 freelancers on Upwork have earned 1$ or more. That's 10% of the Upwork population. 90% of the freelancers on Upwork are totally useless.

 

Of all the freelancers on Upwork, only 667,339 were active in the last 2 months, while 1,056,516 have shown no activity in the last 2 months. 61% of the freelancers who have a profile on Upwork are not actively using the platform.

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The solution seems so very simple; doesn't it?


 

booksist
Community Member

The first thing that comes to mind is that there many people who use Upwork as if it were a job search engine - to find projects and then send their proposals via a different channel.

Nearly two years ago a client of mine posted a job looking for a logo designer, and at least five freelancers used the contact form on her website (she left the link only to give prospective candidates an idea of what was all about) without ever sending a proposal through UW. I imagine there's still a way for some people to get away with such behavior.


@Valentina D wrote:

The first thing that comes to mind is that there many people who use Upwork as if it were a job search engine - to find projects and then send their proposals via a different channel.

Nearly two years ago a client of mine posted a job looking for a logo designer, and at least five freelancers used the contact form on her website (she left the link only to give prospective candidates an idea of what was all about) without ever sending a proposal through UW. I imagine there's still a way for some people to get away with such behavior.


But if that is the way you intend to use Upwork there's not really any need to keep the profile public. This can just as well be done from a private account.

________________________
Freelancing is a gamble - To win you need skill, luck and a strategy

Totally true! I suppose some of them hope to get hired on Upwork but are afraid that that sending too many proposals would get them banned.

All upside down (:

Perhaps a sign that Upwork should take less of a cut.  20% fees might be scaring people off. 

vinod111
Community Member

It's very patheticSmiley Sad for Top rated freelancers to see their names at a bottom of search list which flooded with all zero earners. I really don't understand how they reach the top of the search list? I think upwork should consider reworking their search algorithm. 

randallcoding
Community Member

Thanks for bringing this up.  I've earned $500 since October, but when I search I still can't find my account until I pass through 7 pages of $0 earners in the same field.  Insanity!

 

 

iaabraham
Community Member

I'v seen something similar when searching for "proofreader and editor" in the past, with few or no filters. I wonder if it has something to do with keywords (though clearly not in your case). And on top of that, unless I use a lot of filters, people with lower JSS and fewer earnings appear higher than me.

I thought I was the only one feeling this way... I believe Valentina has a point here. Looking at the situation in the opposite direction, if a prospective client uses Upwork just as a search engine they can easily hire a freelancer who has contact information in his/her profile.

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