Has Medium Changed Its Algorithm Again? Part 2
It’s Going To Be a Saga
Every time Medium changes its algorithm, something unusual happens.
We never quite understood the old way it worked, and were slowly working our way to peel the onion and make some logic out of its intricate layers.
And now, there’s a new change to the mind-boggling algorithm of Medium!
At least, that’s what we believe. Call it speculation as of now. But a strong one.
Medium changing its algorithm is not a new case. Writers on Medium have racked their brains trying to find out the logic behind Medium’s algorithm for years, but to no avail.
In August 2017, Medium decided to pay its writers based on how many claps they got.
katie zhu, product manager of Instagram (former product manager of Medium) wrote an article when they first introduced claps.
But, it was not clear as to how the algorithm would work.
Rob Howard, CEO of Howard Development & Consulting, wrote an article about his understanding of how Medium’s algorithm works in the same year. This is what he said.
Obviously it’s some combination of the number of clicks, comments, outside referrals, reads and claps… but because there’s no way to understand or optimize for the inner workings of the algorithm, you’re shooting in the dark. The result is often that your best writing gets 10 views and some random idea you wrote in 20 minutes gets 10,000.
Then, in October 2019, Medium started paying writers based on reading time rather than claps. Emma Smith wrote a comprehensive article on this topic.
Almost three years have passed and we are still peeling the onions.
If it is that tough to understand the public changes Medium makes to its algorithm, imagine how tough it would be to understand the secret changes it makes.
Strange things are happening to Medium’s algorithm that are stranger than stranger things.
Yesterday I wrote an article, “Has Medium Changed Its Algorithm Again?”
I was quite worried because even though my friends were reading my articles, their reading time was getting wasted; I was getting zero reading time from them.
There definitely is something wrong going on with Medium’s algorithm that we do not understand, but we need to.
My good friend Timothy J. Sabo commented on my article. This is a screenshot.
I liked the last sentence the most.
Medium must not make fun of us. No matter how low we may earn, we are still valuable users for this platform. We need to know how the algorithm works. It’s our basic right.
If reading is our main source of income as writers, we need to know if Medium has secretly made any changes to the algorithm, what it is, and why.
Because what used to count as reads in the past does not. I don’t know why.
So, I emailed Medium.
Let’s see what they reply.
Please support this article with your read, claps, comments and highlights.
I am still trying to understand this algorithm to avoid losing money.
I will share what I know and keep you all updated.
Cheers.
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