I have noticed a very strange and obvious issue in the past few weeks. When a novel goes premium, its ranking suddenly improves. There were some obscure novels (like Gourmet or Pet King) that had a very tremendous change after going premium. This was easy to trace before the viewing of past weeks of ranking got limited.

What is more obvious is the new novels in the pool. When they get released, they will gain a boost of more than 20-40K votes, jumping sometimes to top 10, then suddenly, the following week they will only have 1-2k votes.

    Pokko
    Contracted novels are usually featured right when they get contracted. This will often boost a novel into the top 50 if they weren't already there. For novels in the top 50, they usually only go up a 5 to 20 ranks depending on where exactly they sit.

    Contracted novels also show up in other sections on the front page, such as the new to webnovel and recommended sections. This gives an advantage over non-contracted.

        SnoozySloth You saying Contracted and Translated were getting the same treatment then? 😕 OP was talking about translated that just became premium here. But I haven't checked if these new premiums became featured at some point when they became premium.

            DazzlingGem
            Every novel being translated has the translation rights owned by webnovel. I'm pretty sure every single translation has the opportunity to go premium. I think they also usually get recommended fairly ealry on. I'm not 100% sure on these things though, so don't quote me.

                SnoozySloth I somewhat get the rights. But what I meant was, newly contracted originals were on many features or banners(?) in the front page, but I didn't see them doing that on newly premium translated, which was the case with the OP. Since your post was talking about contracted, then do you mean new premium translated also get the same treatment as them? Well, maybe I just haven't seen them getting featured. 😅

                PS: And Pet King, one of the translated novels mentioned, was here since last year (I think) and just became premium this month at around 90 in the rankings before becoming premium. So it wouldn't even be in the new releases.

                    DazzlingGem
                    Well, I've seen translated novels appear in the recommended section and such, so I assume that's why. But I could be wrong.

                        SnoozySloth Yup, there were translated there but I haven't seen the new premiums that were in my library. Anyway, maybe I just haven't seen it when they were featured.

                            I am strictly talking abour Power Ranking, not the Recommended, New, Trending etc.
                            Power Ranking require Energy Stones. Depending on how much each novel has, their ranking will be. Theoretically, this is the best tool for measuring popularity. That is why I am concerned. Why does the new novels (Eg Lady Cultivator) in their first get some 40k votes, then immediately the following week get 2-4k only? Isn't that suspicious?

                              Pokko I don't know about manipulation simply because I can't afford to start any more books either way. Plus , there are new books that legit enter the chart and stay there because it's a reputed author.

                              However, I'm very certain that a ton of us answered "rankings" on webnovel's survey when they asked how we get ideas on what to read. They wouldn't make the effort to show off all these random types of rankings if it weren't so 😂

                                Eh... well I just grant my power stones to whatever last novel that I'm reading, even if it's new and I'm just trying it out. As long as it's not horrendous I'll give it my power stones. I'm too lazy to go through my library to go look for any specific novel to give PS to. I mean... the PS button is right there for me to click already. Next week I might forget about the book or I'm trying something else new and that gets my PS instead.

                                  Pokko For my part, when Lady Cultivator came out, I gave it every stone I had every day for more than a week. I'd since had to use my stones for other things (aka shamelessly voting for my own new story), and I suppose there were more readers who also stopped voting for it for other reasons after the initial enthusiasm (it's really really good, don't get me wrong). So yeah, I'd say the novelty of a great new story being available for free simply wore off

                                    2 years later

                                    Pokko Actually, I would like to point out one thing and that is, power ranking and votes keep changing each week as per Webnovel policy or system. We, readers, have the right to vote and boost the novel's ranking and there might not be any kind of manipulation going on but about premium, I have no idea. Sorry if I had said something wrong.

                                        Pokko This artificial winding up of both the rating and the number of views. Not 1000 views are watched per day, but 40-60 thousand views.

                                            Power stones and all that crap is a marketing gimmick only "special" people might fall for.
                                            Webnovel isn't here to provide a free platform for "authors" and provide an impartial ranking system....

                                              2 years later
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