Can't find myself in search

[pgiambalvo]

No matter what filters I use or not, I do not show up when searching for writers. If I can't find myself when trying very hard to, then neither can clients. No wonder my profile views have dropped dramatically and my invites to none. What is up and when will it be fixed?

[tomzilla1]

Yes, but what page was he found on, what filters did you use? The problem is whether or not our profiles can be found... it's "is my profile found on page 25, with like 8 filters, while profiles with less earnings, less qualifications, sometimes $0 earnings showing on page 1... And somehow they are Top Rated." What's the reasoning behind listing the top 1% so far behind that it's in reality impossible to find (yes you can find him if you spend 20 minutes) but would a client spend 20 minutes, with 8 filters, just to find someone who is more qualified than most people before him?

Is it because Upwork is trying to promote new comers? I have no problem with that however, I fail to see how a new comer can generate revenue for Upwork, clients come to Upwork to find top talent, not new talent... I fail to see how this is aligned with the goal of profit. You make money from marketplace on fees, and fees are based on the size of the project, do you expect a client to hire a new comer or a freelancer with much more experience and earnings?

Again, I love Upwork but like many others have said, there is something very very troubling about the search results. Is it perhaps Upwork leadership wants to test out "having freelancers use connects and actively bidding by purchasing connects?" If so, I urge a lower fee for freelancers, because I have never actively searched for jobs for the past 3 or 4 years, I'm happy to pay the 15 to 20% fee because I didn't have to spend time searching. But now if I have to spend time searching, I would expect the fees to go down.

[feed_my_eyes]

---

Tom Z wrote:

Is it because Upwork is trying to promote new comers? I have no problem with that however, I fail to see how a new comer can generate revenue for Upwork, clients come to Upwork to find top talent, not new talent... I fail to see how this is aligned with the goal of profit. You make money from marketplace on fees, and fees are based on the size of the project, do you expect a client to hire a new comer or a freelancer with much more experience and earnings?

---

I do think that they're actively trying to promote newcomers, but I also think that they're trying to starve freelancers like us out of invitations so that we have to spend money on connects. I don't think it's a coincidence that my invitations took a nosedive at the exact same time that the "boost" feature was reintroduced. I'm accustomed to the usual ups and downs of freelancing, especially summer being slow, but this has been going on for two months now - it's not normal.

If Upwork wants to earn more money from connects, great - then stop handing out freebies that only cause dishonest freelancers to post fake projects for themselves and their friends. In fact, raise the price of connects - I'll happily pay more, if it would stop people from spamming every project with 50+ proposals within an hour of each one being posted.

[tomzilla1]

Agreed. I saw the similar drop. One of my interviews the potential client made a comment about Upwork now looks like a bunch of fake outsourced freelancers whereas before, the searches actually showed the top talent they were looking for.

[pgiambalvo]

Maybe if clients are now complaining about it, Upwork will switch it back to how it used to be.

[tomzilla1]

Maybe they are, but I highly doubt it. They're busy busy people. They'll give a platform maybe 30 minutes to perform, and if that first impression is bad, they're not going to waste another 30 minutes or days waiting on a reply from customer service, they're just going to cancel the account and maybe they'll tell their business friends about the bad experience, and... dominoes effect. No PR or rebranding will ever fix that.

And so from my observation the high quality clients with spend are leaving. So what we see now is a bunch of new clients that pays you $10 an hour and demand $100/hr worth of work and yes it has to be done by tomorrow. Comon.

[srinivas794]

Great Observation Tom. The First 2-3 pages are filled with freelancers who have $0 earnings and the keyword searched is actually a talent that they have added to their profile but not their area of work. It seems to be consistent with the different keyword searches that I have tried. It is alarming and disturbing that all the effort over the years to be where we are as freelancers we have been dumped for nothing.

[mar_work]

It is strange that they have modified the search option. I wonder what the real goal is. Now everything seems messy and inefficient. While it's logical and fair to rotate professional profiles (so everyone gets a chance), it honestly feels a bit strange when a well-regarded professional (top rated, top rated plus, etc.) shows up in search positions far below behind workers who have bad JSS or who even have abandoned profiles (with jobs done a year ago, maybe more). I'm just saying it feels weird.

And yes, the invitations are completely forgotten 🙂

[6bfcdaf8]

I wasnt sure if posting a screenshot of search results is ok so i'll share the keywords instead. If i search for freelancers and type

"Script Doctor" Peter

It returns 2 results and you are one of them

[pgiambalvo]

Not for me it doesn't.

[srinivas794]

Well! The search should work without the name like the way you have searched above. Client's dont know the name of the freelancer they want to work with. They just look for the skill, and most of them are a single keyword based search and nothing more than that.

[00137e0a]

Hello everyone,

I'm a Top Rated Plus graphic designer with 100% JSS, and I haven't been invited to work on any real projects in months.

I even tried turning on and off the availability badge to see if it made a difference, but it didn't.

Furthermore, as many freelancers have already mentioned, my proposal/reply ratio has dropped dramatically.

I hate to say it, but after seeing so many people raise these concerns on this forum, as well as Upwork's employees consistently failing to answer objective questions and even admitting that there is a problem, I have lost hope that Upwork will ever listen to freelancers.

This forum appears to be a simple PR stunt rather than a feedback mechanism. As far as I can tell, Upwork doesn't care at all about us freelancers.

I'm willing to change my mind if they start acting on issues or implementing features based on our feedback, but I haven't seen it yet. In fact, I've seen exactly the contrary: They are constantly implementing features that everybody hates, like the boosting system, availability badge, and this new terribly implemented freelance search algorithm...Let alone the huge spam/scam issue, the fake jobs connects farming scheme that's going on for months, and the chargeback loophole, that they seem incapable to address. 

For them, we are just numbers, apparently. I'm sorry to say that, but this is how I feel. 

[pgiambalvo]

I agree with everything you said.

[tomzilla1]

Don't feel too bad, there's people with 1M earnings in the same situation. I think Upwork does care, but made a huge misstep in my opinion. I think they are trying to increase revenue, by reducing # of invites from client to freelancers, and force freelancer to buy connects to apply to jobs. They also made a huge misstep on creating a bunch of new features that I didn't see any benefit at all, most don't even work properly for me at least.

The first issue, I might add, is further diminished by the fact that clients are getting 50+ junk proposals for each job they post. So, what does the client do? Oh this platform is filled with fakes, even though there's so many top talents here. They don't have the time to investigate or email support or ... they just cancel and find other ways to hire. Also, if they share this fact with their business friends, well, what would they think about Upwork? Friends' words are worth more than any PR will ever fix.

Another issue, the Top Rated badge is too low of a standard. If you made $1000, you are top rated. That's it. So when client searches for talent, everyone is top rated, so the top rated badge is now a participation badge. Clients won't take top rated badge or top rated plus badge seriously anymore. Also the JSS. Everyone is 100%. How can you convince a client that everyone is 100%, there's either a system glitch or manipulation that's what the client will think. I think this can be fixed by having a hard look at how JSS is determined. For example, a new freelancer with a successful 1 project and total earning of $1000 will have a 100% JSS. But a veteran let's say Top Talent Plus + Expert Vetted, with over 9000 hours, over 100+ jobs, might have only say 95% JSS. But the problem is the JSS is not reflecting the fact that the much more experienced freelancer had to take on so many jobs, there's ought to be a few cases of failure, imagine the new freelancer if he/she ever makes it to that level, they may only have 90% JSS. The JSS system needs a complete re-vamp to reflect the 95% JSS of someone with 9000 hours and 150+ jobs is actually worth more than a new freelancer who had only 1 job of 100% JSS. When everyone has 100% JSS, client questions, there's no way everyone is perfect... Bottom line, there needs to be a complete re-vamp of search results. People who have 100% js with only 1 or 2 project should not rank higher than people who have much more projects and much higher earnings, no matter what the JS is, simply because the person who took on more jobs have a much higher rate of failure (client is unhappy for any reason), than someone who only risked on 1 or 2 projects.

[3956e956]

Been closely following  the discussion on the new changes to search results.I think its a good thing that upwork is trying to give a fair chance to newbies as well.Being new to upwork does not necessarily mean you lack experience.So its only fair that they also get a chance to be discovered organically.The argument that a client does not have time to go deeper into several search pages does not hold for me.If a client is looking for the best for their projects they will research properly for the kind of talent they need using the metrics( like earnings,badges, JSS etc) they think are likely to lead to such talent.

[pgiambalvo]

Sorry, but to all of us who have stopped getting invites because of this after years and who depend on them for getting work, it is a very bad thing. It is also very bad for clients who can't find qualified freenlancers anymore.

[srinivas794]

Peter, at the moment it seems like we are not getting answers/resolutions to our questions. Is there a way to escalate this issue?

[00137e0a]

Newcomers had a much better chance of finding good jobs a few months ago than they do now, after the implementation of all these terrible features, this new search engine, and the uncontrollable spam influx, 

I started my first real job on Upwork in January and am already Top Rated Plus, with 100% JSS and over $20,000 earned, so I know what I'm talking about.

However, things have only gotten worse since a few months ago, to the point where it appears to be total chaos.

Objectively, I used to get more jobs and interviews even without any badges and with a low JSS than I do now.

Despite their always elusive answers, Upwork messed up. I just hope they are aware of that and are doing something to fix it, despite their total lack of transparency.

Right now, relying on Upwork for a living feels like being on a ship in the middle of the ocean, in the midst of a terrible storm, in shark-infested waters, with the hull leaking, the engine running on fumes, with no idea where we're going, and the captain is nowhere to be found. 

[feed_my_eyes]

---

Rafael M wrote:

Right now, relying on Upwork for a living feels like being on a ship in the middle of the ocean, in the midst of a terrible storm, in shark-infested waters, with the hull leaking, the engine running on fumes, with no idea where we're going, and the captain is nowhere to be found. 

---

This was always the case, though. Just when you think that things are going well, Upwork changes course. They're constantly making changes, seemingly at random and with little or no interest in feedback from freelancers, so that you have no control over your own business because you never know what they're going to do next. The safest thing is just to view Upwork as one marketing tool among many other possibilities that you have available, and not rely exclusively on them.

[feed_my_eyes]

The problem with Upwork's extremely poor search function is that if a client wants an expert in a certain field, instead they're getting a list of freelancers with totally irrelevant skills and/or who are marked "top 5%" or "best match" even though they've done no projects at all. If I were a client and got results like that, I'd have no faith in being able to find what I'm looking for on Upwork, and simply look elsewhere. This doesn't benefit any freelancers, regardless of whether they're new or whether they're experienced. 

[pgiambalvo]

Have your invites also dropped?

[tomzilla1]

Sorry but no. Upwork makes revenue from client spend and freelancer's cut. While I have no problems with "giving newbies a chance" - this is a grave mistake. Here's why. Clients don't take chances on newbies. They come to Upwork because Upwork is touted as the #1 platform for top talent in whatever the field. When Upwork features newbies more often than seasoned freelancers, they are taking a huge risk, an that's what they are experiencing now in my opinion. The collatoral is all freelancers and clients. Freelancers are not getting any jobs because there aren't any. Clients are not getting the talent they seek because every job post they get 50+ spam proposals. And when they try to search, all the profiles are $0 earnings, very generic/fake profile pics. Sure there are filters, but how many new clients are going to spend 15 - 20 minutes configuring 8 filters, scroll through 20 pages, before they know it, an hour passes and still nothing. Client is not going to waste another 15 minutes trying to contact support (it's actually very difficult since they took away the direct email link, and now it's a chatbot that gives you endless loop of suggested articles). Even if client figures out you can just directly email support, they are not going to wait 2 to 4 days for a response. They're just going to cancel the account and move on.

Not to mention newbie freelancers dilute and decrease the value of Upwork. They are new so they are eager to work for $5 or 10 an hour. Clients who doesn't understand cheap is one of the most expensive things you can buy will fall for this and ending up unhappy with the results. Client then will likely blame Upwork for providing low quality matches, and the newbie freelancer will get a bad review, spam the forums on how to improve their profile, or spam customer support, at the end of the day Upwork makes very very little from newbie freelancers because their projects are tiny, while pissing off new and even current clients. I've had many clients for years and suddenly they all went quiet on Upwork since this year.

I support newbie freelancers, I was newbie once. But the approach has to be different.

Also I think because of COVID, everyone wants to make 5 or 6 figures from home... So they come to Upwork, without the discipline, without the patience, mass increase in low quality freelancer profiles. And in theory, we should see an explosion of clients as well, since COVID is still going on, businesses are seeking online presence still. But currently, what I see is low quality clients, and mass numbers of extremely low quality freelancer profiles ranked on first pages. Maybe there hasn't been any chances to search algorithm, but rather it's because of mass signups from people who dream about working from home but don't put any effort into it and expect money and jobs immediately.

[kochubei_valeria]

Peter and others,

Thanks for sharing your concerns and questions. I encourage you to check out my response on this thread as it addresses these concerns. Specifically, the following points:

• As long as a profile isn't set to private by its owner, it will be discoverable in search.
• Various factors go into search results, and results may differ over time, in part to allow more freelancers a chance to be discovered. Some considerations may include Freelancer skills, experience, and platform ratings, as well as other elements geared towards determining a potential match for the client’s job. There are no immediate plans to change that.
• The general marketplace dynamics vary over time and so can the number of invites freelancers receive.

 
Additionally, to address the concern Peter expressed in the original post here, I ran a search with a few relevant filters and Peter's profile was showing. 

[srinivas794]

Hi Valeria,

Thanks for your response. We appreciate it.

We have been working on Upwork for a long time now and we already know what you have been mentioning. I know that you have been denying that the search is not broken but trust us it is, not just because we don't find ourselves in the search but that the results themselves return irrelevant results i.e Sometimes after a couple of results the rest of the freelancers have nothing to do with the keyword that was originally searched. It totally returns random results. 

I humbly request you to take this issue to your Software Developer/QA and make them search for a variety of single keywords (without a person's name) and see what the results look like. Also, it would be great if you could guide them to this thread and address our concerns.

Regards

Srinivas Prabhu

[ericaandrews]

The problem with the search results 'changing' constantly and not showing what clients are expecting to "allow more freelancers a chance to be discovered. "   Is the following:

For brand new clients trying out the system, these first few 'searches' they run are a MARKETING opportunity - that can be lost easily.  Those search results are Upwork's first (and possibly ONLY) chance to prove to that 'new' client you have the TALENT available for their hiring needs.  This means you should be SELLING....what SELLS in order to keep that client from going elsewhere. 

If a client is trying out the system for the first time and needs to quickly hire a reliable, highly qualified graphic designer, writer, or accountant, they are going to be immediately turned off if the first page or 2 of search results they see are people with unrelated skills, or people with incomplete profiles, no Upwork experience, no earnings, no job success score, etc.     Even worse, sometimes the search results even show people with BAD Job Success scores at the TOP of the list, with Top Rated and Expert-vetted people either at the bottom of the first page or even several pages deep in the results.  

If a NEW client types in a skill, they are usually looking for the BEST and somebody that has a proven track record.  They are trying a NEW platform for the first time and want to hire the freelancer that looks the most trust-worthy and reliable.  The client is not trying out Upwork to 'discover' somebody and 'give somebody a chance'.  They are trying to hire somebody the know can do the job.  If the top of the search results are filled with people with no work history or poor JSS scores on Upwork, that new client is going to assume there really are no 'experts' available on Upwork, that Upwork freelancers are all simply a bunch of 'novices', and LEAVE.

I don't know about other people, but if I search for something on a site and the first 2 pages are junk or not what I'm looking for, I LEAVE the site. Without the clients finding somebody they want to HIRE resulting in the issuance of a contract, there is no money for Upwork.  

I see TV ads for Upwork several times a day, and all of those ads feature somebody with a badge and a high JSS.  Why? Because you KNOW that's what a new client is looking for.  If you wanted some of the freelancers with no UW history to be 'discovered', why don't you feature THEM in some of the TV ads?   (You know exactly why).  It looks deceptive for the TV ads to show 'top rated plus' and 'expert vetted' freelancers, then the new client decides to try the site, does a search, and gets a list of results of unrelated freelancers or  a list where the first few pages are people with no experience, no profile picture, no profile headline, or 30% JSS scores.  

Yes, you may have helped 'new' freelancers get 'discovered' by showing profiles with no experience at the top of the search list, but you LOST the new client in the process.

The search results ARE a marketing tool, and you should be marketing what SELLS to the client  - which is most relevant matches (by skill) ranked by rating/performance/earnings/badges on Upwork.   

When I first got on Upwork, my profile was never at the 'top' of the search lists because I had no badge, experience, etc. and there was no 'feature' at the time that placed me at the top of the lists above people with Top Rated and Expert-vetted badges to help me be 'discovered'. My profile was always at the 'bottom' or several pages deep, and I think that was FAIR because other people with the same skills as me had an established track record on Upwork, and so they were shown first.  It was 100% fair.  You have to earn your 'stripes on the battlefield'.

When you are starting a business, freelance or otherwise, you don't wait to be 'discovered', you make your presence known.  I had to EARN the right for my profile to stand out in the search results, which is what everbody joining Upwork should have to do.  Now, Upwork is taking people that worked hard to earn badges, high JSS scores, and get 'expert vetted' and burying them in the bottom of the search results.

What Upwork is doing right now of manipulating the search results to help people get 'discovered' instead of trying to help clients find the people they want to HIRE is costing both Upwork and freelancers lost revenue.  Without a HIRE, there is no revenue.

[tomzilla1]

Well said... It's really sad to see Upwork heading this way. I've seen many 500k, 700k, even 1M earnings listed on page 5, 10, 15, and in my case I'm on page 25... The client is not going to spend 20 minutes digging for best talent, especially if they paid for the client plan, and all they see on first 3 pages are $0 earnings, profile picture looks generic/questionable, maybe $1k earning and suddenly they have a Top Rated badge... The most obvious question the client is going to ask is "why am I spending money on a platform that hands out Top Rated badge to someone who is obviously new, earned $1k (sure everyone has a beginning, I started with $1k at some point), but I didn't pay the fee to get on Upwork to waste my time and filter filter filter..." The client is like you said, expecting the search to return the best candidates with as little effort as possible (little to no filtering). For example if they are looking for a PHP developer, they should just maybe set US only filter, and the results should show the best PHP developer profiles on the first and second pages. The client shouldn't have to pick categories and then subcategories, and then sub sub categories... Most of the clients probably don't even know the difference between the sub categories... They are HR managers, business owners, they just know they need a PHP developer. They don't know or they don't want to filter down to "PHP Developer->Database->SQL->Oracle" (example of course), after 20 minutes and they are still pulling their hair, because apparently someone can just put PHP as one of their skills, even though they are in Customer Service..., and I've seen cases where the Customer Service profile come up higher than an actual PHP developer... with the PHP developer being Top Rated, earned over 80k, while the customer service only had 20k in earnings, both had 100% jss.

Blows my mind. Upwork we obviously do care very deeply about the success of this platform, please do something about it. Raise the prices on connects, raise the bar for Top Rated. To a typical client, a $1k earning qualification should not be Top Rated... the bar is too low. Rising star maybe. Top Rated should be at least $10k, otherwise everyone is Top Rated and therefore nobody is Top Rated. That's the current situation. I'm happy to pay your 15% to 20% fee, but if there's no client, and/or I have to spend an hour everyday to actually look for jobs and try to bid on them (almost all the jobs now have 50+ proposals... within like the first few hours). What's the point of me paying the fees. I am not getting advertised. The client is not getting what they are paying for, they don't want 50+ proposals with majority of them, if not all of them being junk candidates.

Another thing, Expert Vetted badges only visible to Enterprise clients. As of March, I have not seeing any Enterprise clients posting any jobs. I understand you want to "keep EVs for only the most valuable clients," but if there's no job posts from Enterprise clients to go around, EV's value is diminished greatly. With so many profiles qualifying as Top Rated Plus, I think it's time to show EV to all clients, otherwise it's very hard for a client to decide which Top Rated Plus to go with. The cheapest one? Well, two problems there. You make less with the cheapest one since you charge a %. Number 2, cheap is one of the most things you can buy. You get what you paid for. The cheaper Top Rated Plus profile will more likely deliver less to the client, the client is not happy, heck they might just leave the platform because of one bad experience. First impression is everything. Even worse, the client will tell their friends and warn them about the bad quality and experience they had on Upwork,... and guess what, friends trust their friends warnings more than any great PR will ever make them think otherwise.

I'm still rooting for Upwork, but it's becoming harder and harder each day when so many issues are not being addressed that's been voiced by so many freelancers, and who knows probably clients too but they probably won't spend anytime submitting a ticket or waste their time telling you how they think, they'll just find an alternative.

As for the new features, Project Catalog doesn't even work for me. It has been saying "Pending Approval" for 2 months now. But apparently I'm getting a few consultations. Is it half working/half broken? I wouldn't know. I submitted new project catalogs, it's been 8 days now? Still pending approval. Record with Loom - I never use it, I have my own screen recorder tool. Schedule meeting - never used it, client tells me when, and I put it on my calendar on Google. Testimonial - most ex-clients who have provided you a review are reluctant to spend another 10-15 minutes to write you a testimonial. And I don't even know if testimonial boosts your rankings. There's not a re-send request button for testimonials, in case if the email got into spam. Or maybe the client just didn't see it. And I'm not going to send reminder emails to ex clients to pester them about testimonial directly myself... The new design, I don't see how it improves my UI UX experience. I've never had an issue with Upwork's UI UX. But are recently having bunch of 404 errors. Customer service speed and quality has gone down by a lot.  A year ago I would get an email resolution usually in 2 days at the latest. These days, I get the first "we're looking into it" email probably 3 to 4 days after I send it.

[vepa_durdiyev]

"Upwork Search is Not Broken." Oh, explain this one, please. See attached. There are literally only TWO people named "Vepa" on the whole platform; I am an EVT freelancer, check my profile, and guess where I am on that search. Third. There are two people named Vepa. The first guy just joined zero $ earned, no feedback, empty profile, yep, he definitely should rank higher than me. I am not saying Upwork should always display the most qualified, rotation does make sense and offer some chance to newcomers, but there should be some common sense here. Maybe have two lists, and let the client pick. It should be up to a client to decide if he wants to give a new guy a chance or hire the top professional, not Upwork's algorithm.

Don't get me started on a general search, tried "Top Rated Web Developer," with 1000 hours billed, Top Rated Plus and up, JSS 90+, hourly rate 60+. I gave up after 20 pages. Could not find myself there. No wonder invites dropped. I am in the top 1%; I used to get almost daily invites, but now I got 2 in the last 30 days, and both are "spam." I also applied to 100 jobs, and I am good at pitching; (I think I am, thus the EVT) guess how many replies I got? So it is not just a search; even in the applicant's list, I think the ranking is broken. I also have a client account where I recently posted a job; the list of suggested freelancers is so broken; 90% of the list is marked as "Bets Match" if everyone is the best match, no one is. This is a web development job, and the freelancers marked as the best match are not even developers; this is not good for anyone. Not the client, not even the freelancers who will be invited to an unrelated job.

I thought YouTubers and other social media influencers' careers depended on algorithms' whims well, now mine is too, and I spent +8 years on Upwork building this profile.

Good luck to everyone, and may the algorithm has mercy on your profile.

[pgiambalvo]

Exactly!

[tomzilla1]

Funny, I noticed the same problem, when I type my name, there's multiple Tom Z's. All of them have $0 earnings, some random picture. I didn't even bother clicking on their profiles.

And yes, I've noticed this as well - when you type in say "google ads" - it shows everyone who puts Google Ads as their skill, even if they are in Customer Service or some completely different field. I've even seen the Customer Service ranking higher than an actual qualified profile that's in Digital Marketing->Search Engine Marketing.

Search is broken now on both freelancer and client side. No wonder.

If I'm a client, I would not want to log back in to Upwork after seeing 50+ proposals from irrelevant profiles in completely different fields, and of course what follows is I would naturally cancel the membership. A client is not going to pay any platform so they have to spend their own time to sift through qualified candidates, if there were 3 bad matches, ok fine, but 50+ are all fake, I mean that's worse than posting in the local classifieds. And clients are busy people, they do not have time for second chances.

And since I haven't seen any Enterprise postings since March, I'm assuming this issue applies to clients of all tiers, aka it's not Upwork trying to push people to sign up for Enterprise, which is good, but flip side is, it's completely broken for all clients.

[paul2461981]

Hello Peter, How are you?

Upwork is getting bad. They are putting the squeeze on everybody. Connect you need to pay for, then you can bid your proposal up obviously that costs connect (I don't do this), then 20% of your earnings. Clients need to pay. Put all that together fewer people are posting good jobs unless they are scams.

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[c4e453ac]

---

Paul J wrote:

Upwork is getting bad. They are putting the squeeze on everybody. Connect you need to pay for, then you can bid your proposal up obviously that costs connect (I don't do this), then 20% of your earnings. Clients need to pay. Put all that together fewer people are posting good jobs unless they are scams.

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

---

They are taking a lot, but put maximum responsibility on the shoulders of freelancers.  Someone posts a scam job, freelancer is "an idiot" to send a proposal to it rather than the platform not taking really simple and obvious steps to prevent 90%+ of scams being posted in the first place.  I am new here (3 days) but have seen so many scam postings in this time.  Most of them have 50+ proposals sent.  When I point this out, I get "new freelancers are idiots, they should read the rules and regs, the responsibility is on them".  What's posted on this platform is UW's responsibility, and nobody else's.  What they let jobs posters send to freelancers (e.g. Telegram links) is the responsibility of UW and nobody else.  The reason UW are responsible for both of the aforementioned is because they can prevent such postings and links being sent in the first place. They could certainly prevent these scammers sending links, but UW choose (not can't, but choose) not to. They could put extra security on job posts from those who have paid out $0 and have no verified payment (at least extra warnings).  They choose not to.   Instead, they want the community to "flag" these posts.  Meanwhile, 50+ so-called "idiot" freelancers send proposals to these scam postings.  Something is very wrong here.

UW take a lot while putting all of the responsibility on the shoulders of freelancers.

I've been self-employed for 18 years.  I even used oDesk (what is now UpWork) back in 2010 as a hiring company.  I've worked consistently throughout my working career (34 years).  I came back here because I wanted to add some more irons to the fire. In fact, what I'm seeing here is that it's a platform adding extra disadvantages to freelancers that don't exist outside of UW.  I agree about LinkedIn and other networks - it's all about contacts at the end of the day, and this platform is making it more difficult for freelancers than it needs to be.

[anniedesigns]

I haven't been receiving any invitations at all. I used to get 5 at least when i was brand new and my score was less 80%. Now it's been weeks i have't received any invitation, my weekly views are from zero to one and i have 100% score. What is going on, please give us some kind of answer.

[mhdlh]

I wonder why I am not receivng invitations as well despite submitting many proposals, I just got one job after months and hundreds of proposals, I thought of investing time and effort at upwork, but it seems that and after reading the forum here , there are many complaints from freelancers!

[mar_work]

This thread has become very interesting. I guess we workers experience a mixture of tiredness and disappointment. In addition to the unnecessary and undesirable changes that occur ("boost your proposal", new messages, "white" appearance of the platform, etc.), we have all experienced the real slowdown of work. And let's not talk about spam or fake projects flooding the platform. Wouldn't this problem be the real challenge to control or mitigate?

What is clear is that "certain things" are failing and affect us all. And the moderators' answers seem to upset rather than help clarify 🙂 For me, as for others, searching is a disaster. I still don't understand why it seems so inefficient.
I guess we are all to a greater or lesser extent frustrated. Hopefully soon and we'll get back to the workflow or invites we used to have. Upwork is the best platform, even with its flaws. I hope they don't end up ruining it

[7ba56d1a]

Something wonky is definately going on with how the system sees my profile. I got an automated suggestion to create a specialized accounting profile based on my profile and work history--and believe me, you DO NOT want me doing anyone's accounting! That's about as far away from my wheel house as it gets. I do voice overs!

Also, I have not received an invitation in quite a while, but I thought maybe it was because I delined one for AI generation where they require download of an app and use of a cell phone.

Is all of this AI generated--how our accounts are read and displayed?

[srinivas794]

Ok, I guess the issue is finally resolved. When I do a simple search "Script doctor" on the talent search page on both freelancer/client context the results are the same and Peter is shown in the 1st page of the results

Also, when I search for keywords related to my own skillsets, the searches now show the right freelancers with the skillset and no freelancers with $0 earnings like before. 

I believe this was a software bug that was unnoticed by the QA team at Upwork and the issue has finally been fixed.

Thank you, Everyone!

[susurada]

Maybe this thread helped to resolve the problem 😅

[srinivas794]

Most likely it was fixed yesterday! 😄 My only feedback for the Upwork team is to have a bug-tracker system where we can add bugs related to the website that can be actively fixed by the team. This search issue was there for 2 months and I am surprised that it went unnoticed for 2 months.