Fuwazette Blog: "You May Also Like..." bizarreness

[sanahtlig]

So I'm looking at my most recent post, and 4/6 of the "You May Also Like" recommendations are VN Translation Status updates (which are probably completely redundant).  That seems kind of silly.

 

1) Do we even need translation updates every single week?

2) Do we need more than one VNTL post in existence on the blog at any given time?

3) Do we really want 4/6 of the outgoing links to basically lead to the same content? (note: this question is rhetorical)

 

Assuming the recommendations are generated in some automated fashion, it's not doing a very good job.  At the very least, my post on If my Heart had Wings should be listed (as the single most related post), but it's not.  The system either needs tweaking, or needs to be replaced by manual curation.

[Eclipsed]

Wow, I didn't realize the VNTL posts were that 'abundant'

I'd say 'Probably not' for all three questions.

~~
If possible, the

• 'You May Also Like' should include only the most recent VNTL post instead of all the older ones as well?
• Also, should be author preferred so it prioritizes your other posts.

[Tay]

The "you may also like" issue is partly due to our theme's settings and integration with two plugins. When I talked to them last week they said they were working on a few updates to improve the recommendation system.

 

RE: VNTS posts -- with the way search engines and user traffic work, having separate, weekly posts is pretty important to our SEO. We do keep a static updates page, btw, but until Google and Bing change the way they work, that's how we have to do things to stay visible and relevant.

[Zakamutt]

Oh, I never look at the recommendations I guess lol. Might want to just show a selection of the user's other posts or something... or maybe the featured posts thing I kinda trashed for... reasons.

[sanahtlig]

The "you may also like" issue is partly due to our theme's settings and integration with two plugins. When I talked to them last week they said they were working on a few updates to improve the recommendation system.

 

RE: VNTS posts -- with the way search engines and user traffic work, having separate, weekly posts is pretty important to our SEO. We do keep a static updates page, btw, but until Google and Bing change the way they work, that's how we have to do things to stay visible and relevant.

[Tay]

Well that makes sense I guess.  Maybe we could tweak our tags or something so VNTS posts never get recommended.  I imagine tag overlap plays into the recommendations to some large extent.

That's a good idea. I'll look into it.