Prisimpad: A Guide to Wattpad, Writing, and Whatever

ON WATTPAD: Rankings Updated

5/23/18

So a few weeks ago Wattpad updated their ranking system to include more ranking options. I have my mixed feelings about this, which I'll go into at the end of this chapter just because I can. I wanted to wait to do this chapter and let some of the dust settle on the new system, more than likely there will be further tweaks the longer the system is in place. For now, here's how it works as of this posting. If I need to do a future update to the rankings, I will.

Basically what this change did is it got rid of the traditional genres (what I'm now calling the Core Genres) and books are now ranked by tags. Again, I have mixed feelings about this but I'll save that to the end. For now here is an overview of what you're looking at with the ranks.

You'll be able to see if you're ranking in a couple different locations, so here's a screen capture that shows three of them. The first is on your main profile, the second is when you click on the books title you get the little pop up prior to entering the book, and the third is off to the right of the blurb page.

Clicking on See all rankings will take you to a page that will list every rank that book is currently ranking in. Now I've given up trying to understand the algorithms so don't ask me how one book is determined to rank over another, because I don't know. If you don't see a rank, that means that book is currently not ranked in anything as it hasn't met the magical criteria of the algorithm. And since people have asked about it on Twitter and in the clubs, yes completed books can rank. Again I don't know the algorithm, but all books are eligible to rank. All of them.

On this page the first rank is the one which will show on your profile. That is the rank deemed most impressive by Wattpad. Again, no idea what determines that but I assume it's a combo of the rank you have plus that amount of people tagged in it compared to (obviously) the rest of your books ranks. The first number is where you're ranked on that list. Then to the right of that you'll see out of how many. Again, if you have a tag that doesn't show on this list, it means you're not ranking in that tag.

Clicking on each tag will take you to a hot list specific to that tag. As you scroll through that list you'll find every book currently ranking in that tag. Their number is immediately to the right of their book.

The tag hot lists function exactly as the original core genre hot list functioned. There is only two differences: now anyone tagging that tag will compete with you, instead of just the books who had placed themselves into that core genre. So if you have someone who incorrectly tagged their book fantasy, you're going to compete with that book. And mature books can also now rank. So if you don't want to read mature, tread carefully, because as of this posts there's no way of knowing a book is mature until you click on it.

That's basically all there is to the new rankings. Now my thoughts on it.

I both love and hate this change. I love it because now I can rank in sub genres, so it gives me and others more chances to rank. Before you had one chance an only one chance: the core genre you placed the book in. I hate it because you can't filter the mature books (I'm all for them ranking, but I don't want to see the smut on this site) and also I hate it because you can rank in random tags that really do nothing to help sell the book. I'd personally rather rank only in genres, sub genres, and age tags (IE Rantasy, DarkFantasy, YoungAdult). Content tags like Wyvern, Asexual, Ice, etc just hold no interest for me. Plus other than the LGBT related tags, I doubt a lot of people will search things like Wyvern or Ice. They'll search primarily for genre and sub genre. So to me it doesn't make much sense to rank in everything you've tagged.

I think that's it on the new ranking system. At least for how it currently operates.