Job feeds

[90864586]

What is the difference between 3 different feeds (my feed, best matches, recommended)? How do they behave in the background and what affects them depending on user actions?

[researchediting]

The only "user action" that affects your feeds that is also under your control is building and saving your own feeds (searches). Upwork's CEO acknowledged to stockholders a year ago what freelancers have been saying for years: Upwork's matching algorithms are broken. They have a marketing video claiming they use artificial intelligence; I've seen no evidence of that.

[90864586]

Thanks for the reply!

I understand that they insist on us defining our advanced searches and saving them, I just dont understand what the 3 built-in feeds are for and how they differ.

My feed seems to be an "include everything" based on categories of work you selected and its the default feed. 

But what about "best matches" and recommended?

Recommended might be based on your profile description, keywords and expertise?

[researchediting]

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Edin B wrote:

Thanks for the reply!

I understand that they insist on us defining our advanced searches and saving them, I just dont understand what the 3 built-in feeds are for and how they differ.

My feed seems to be an "include everything" based on categories of work you selected and its the default feed. 

But what about "best matches" and recommended?

Recommended might be based on your profile description, keywords and expertise?

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I really stopped paying attention to them once I recognized their apparent randomness. It is a known phenomenon that Upwork's text matching is all-inclusive and indiscriminate rather than intelligent. Some words, such as the "title" (tagline) seem to have more weight than others. There is copious anecdotal evidence than anything we write, and at least some things our clients write (or choose from a list) ends up hanging, albatrosslike, from our necks. Which is why text editors get matched to video editing jobs.