Why are search results so inaccurate?

[feed_my_eyes]

I recently did a search for my name using the keyword “PowerPoint” (and before anyone judges me, I’m not in the habit of searching for my own name, but I recently created specialized profiles and wanted to see if they were coming up correctly).

I found myself pretty easily, but I was surprised to see a sentence under my profile description that says, “Suggested because they worked on 6 jobs that matched your search.” (See attached screen grab.)

SIX jobs? I’ve done approximately 150 PowerPoint projects on Elance/Upwork! Nearly all of them actually have the word “PowerPoint” in the title, and definitely in the job description, so what could be causing such a low match in the search results?

It makes me concerned that such faulty results may also be impacting whether some freelancers qualify for a “Best Match” label when they make a proposal, or whether they’re unfairly ending up in the hidden folder of suposedly unqualified rejects.

I contacted customer service with this question about three weeks ago, but received no response, so I’m not very impressed by that, either. Can anybody please shed some light on this? If it’s too much to expect that search results should be accurate (or even in the same ballpark), then why not just do away with the whole “suggested because they worked on X projects” thing? It’s doing both clients and freelancers a disservice otherwise.

[cogniqubit]

 Hi Christine,

I'm still new here but I read your question, found it quite interesting and decided to reply with my personal perspective. The behavior you noticed and descibed may be related with the way people submit their project/tasks requests. If they don't use the right tags/keywords their postings may not even appear in your and other freelancers queries. Hopefully Upwork support will provide you with a valid answer confirming my theory or explaining the issue's exact root cause.

Best Regards,

PAG

[feed_my_eyes]

Thanks for your response, Pedro, but let me clarify: I'm not talking about my job feed, I meant that when I search for freelancers from a client's perspective using the word "PowerPoint", it says that I've only done six jobs, when I've actually done well over a hundred. I would like to know why this figure is so far off the mark.

[cogniqubit]

Hi Christine,
You're welcome. I hope Upwork support will help you on that one. It's definitely difficult to think about something that is causing it. I'm curious about their explanation so I will try to keep following your message's thread.
Best regards,
Pedro

[kochubei_valeria]

Hi Christine,

Sorry about the delayed response on your ticket. I see, however, that the team has been looking into it. Let me check this further and we'll get back to you with more information. 

[kochubei_valeria]

Sorry about the delayed response, Christine, I've been discussing this with the team.

Currently, this count would only show when your general profile comes up in search, it wouldn't show when a Specialized profile comes up for a specific search query. That's why you'd sometimes see it and sometimes not. The logic for the number of jobs in your work history that matches searched skills is continuously being improved. There are plans to improve this feature to make sure we highlight all the jobs you've done that are relevant to the client's search. We appreciate you bringing this up to our attention.

[feed_my_eyes]

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Valeria K wrote:

Sorry about the delayed response, Christine, I've been discussing this with the team.

Currently, this count would only show when your general profile comes up in search, it wouldn't show when a Specialized profile comes up for a specific search query. That's why you'd sometimes see it and sometimes not. The logic for the number of jobs in your work history that matches searched skills is continuously being improved. There are plans to improve this feature to make sure we highlight all the jobs you've done that are relevant to the client's search. We appreciate you bringing this up to our attention.

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Thanks for your response, Valeria, but given that the results are so completely off-base, I don't see how this feature is helpful to clients or to freelancers. Why have it at all, until Upwork can figure out how to achieve more accurate results?