okay i know ive posted alot about this just now, but now that ive got it more or less figured out I’m gonna make a better post here and include the tags relevent to my interactions in it to ensure no one else in my fandoms/communities are blindsided like i was.
I encourage you to make your own, or to just recopy this, tagging the fandoms and communities important to you!
CONTENT CREATORS: TUMBLR IS HIDING YOUR POSTS!
If you make a post with external links, your post will be hidden from searches. If you make a post and link to your redbubble, no one can search for your post. If you make art and link it to your deviantart or artstation, no one can search for you post. If you make any post and just throw on a “hey here is where you find me!” no one can search that post. If you want to recommend a fic or a youtube video, no one can search your post, if you… hell you get the idea. Tumblr has completely shut down content creators on this hellsite and its fucking infuriating.
Edit:
I have just confirmed that the post type “Link” also does not show up in the tags. Thats right, there is an ENTIRE TYPE OF TUMBLR POST that cannot be searched. G-FUCKING-G TUMBLR.
WHAT TO DO?
It shuts down posts with external links, so at first i assumed internal links would be fine. and they are. if you make a page on your tumblr blog called like /links or something you can certainly link to that. But in that way you run into an issue, tumblr mobile is a piece of shit and cant load tumblr pages, and itll just take you back to the mainblog any time you try.
The best solution ive found so far is put all your relevent links in your blog description like so:
and then in every content post, call tumblr out for being a piece of shit and direct them to the links in your blog description.
Edit: In the top right hand side of photo posts you can click on it and include a single link as “source” that should work if you have one link neccessary. though if you need more you are still SOL.
CONTENT CREATOR SUPPORTERS
It is important now more than ever on this hellsite that you try to support your artist and content creators, reblog as much as possible, look to find them on websites off this piece of shit, and generally do your best to spread the word and support them, since tumblr itself is trying to silence them!
Now I get why I sometimes search larger tags like “World of WarCraft” and never see my shit anywhere. I thought I was just unlucky, but I guess it’s because I always have external links. I just tested it by doing some search on my tags, and only a few of my characters show up when searching them directly, and only the posts where I have absolutely no external links of any type like drafts and teasers.
This is depressing.
Now the question is, do I just announce my stuff assuming you guys know how to get to my site (I do have a link on the sidebar, but that does not appear in the dashboard, obviously) or do I keep doing what I am doing and almost never appear in any of the searches I tag. Bah.
MORE INFO
So to test out what I just learned, I did a search for “Elise Starseeker”, since I figured anything with her would be rare. Did the search normally, and my post from two weeks ago didn’t show up. Hilariously, my old ass draft of Elise from like a year ago does show up, since it does not have any links attached.
I went back to my original post and removed the offsite link. After I removed it and re-did the search, now my post shows up at the top of the list.
HOWEVER, while doing said checks I noticed that an old post from my friend @runiclodges does appear in the search with offsite links. I decided to check them out and it was back when he was mainly only linking back to GYFCAT.
Further checks show that posts using GYFCAT, PATREON, YOUTUBE, etc… seem to show up just fine in the searches.
My best guess is that tumblr, probably to fight malicious linking and spam, has a “white list” of sites that are allowed to appear in a search when referenced. Since my site is a personal site and thus not through anything that is on the white list, any time I offlink towards it, I invalidate my posts from the search. It’s likely this also affects other more obscure upload sites, like Mixtape.
Just keep this in mind when you offlink guys, if it’s not to a site tumblr approves, you won’t appear in any search.
That is just so much horseshit :/ Thanks for testing things out and posting about it Rex! I won’t be adding links to my stuff anymore and i’ll probably go back and remove them from previous posts. Shit’s hard enough as it is without Tumblr sabotaging my attempts to gain an audience.
Sadly, whether the old posts will appear in the search is hit or miss. I decided to go back and remove the links just adding a “visit my site” text, and them appearing in search have been hit or miss.
For instance removing the site link from the Troblin and Alleria Doggystyle posts make them appear in the “Zuljin” tag, but no matter what I do, the Alleria Reverse Cowgirl will not appear, even without the link. Either some edits need more time to repopulate, or something is lingering in the back end on tumblr’s server that is still blacklisting that specific post.
Also it seems ADDING a tag does not work, as while doing this I added a “Blackhand” tag that I forgot in the Pidgora / Blackhand quickie but the post only appears when I search the original tags I listed, not the new one. Keep that in mind before you decide to go back and edit them all.
Morning boost for this issue since it affects a huge chunk of us all.