Providers on Tryst.link appear on many parts of the site, including search results, location pages, and category pages. We encourage providers to pay attention to how they show up in these spaces. Recently, we've heard from some who felt others were receiving greater visibility. That's definitely not how our platform is meant to work, so we started looking into what could be happening.
We listened to your feedback and did some digging!
It took us a while to figure out how to replicate what was being reported, so for some of you this might be something you feel like you reported ages ago. Sometimes computers can be curly like that! What we discovered is a quirk in how our search pages are presented, especially for locations with a lot of results.
We found a quirk in our search algorithm
The quirk was only visible for users who left the search page for at least a few minutes—such as while viewing a profile they liked in a new tab—and then returned and progressed to the next page. In the time they were away, the boosts applied to providers who had marked their profile as "Available Now" had faded, causing the provider to show up again on the next page.
How did this affect "Available Now"?
When any provider marks themselves as "Available Now", this temporarily boosts them in search results but loses its effect over time. Previously, if a client took a couple of minutes to move from page 1 to page 2 of the search results as the boost was fading, the same providers could show up again on the next page. This was most noticeable in lists with many providers, because when their rankings were close, even a small change in the boost could be enough to reshuffle their position.
As a result, some providers on Tryst.link felt that other providers were somehow gaming the system to get more visibility. They were onto something—but it wasn’t the individual providers. It was the search algorithm unintentionally creating this effect.
We’ve updated our search algorithm
Our search algorithm hasn’t changed much since the early days of Tryst.link. Back then, with fewer providers, the way boosts worked didn’t cause any noticeable issues. Now that activity on Tryst.link has grown significantly, this limitation has become obvious.
Now that we've figured out the cause of the unstable search results, we've added monitoring and updated the algorithm. This means when performing a search, you will see a snapshot of the results from the time you originally clicked the search button. The order of results won’t keep changing each time you click through to the next page. Profiles no longer appear multiple times in the same search.
We’ve confirmed the fix
While working on the fix, we monitored the system and found out the issue affected 13-14% of searches performed. When we rolled out the updates, that steadily reduced, confirming the fix worked as intended.
Just to make sure that really old searches don’t hang around too long, a snapshot lasts for around an hour. If someone is still browsing results after that time, an alert tells them the results have been refreshed.
What you can expect
The search and listings experience is a critical part of Tryst.link and so a change like this has to be approached carefully. We are rolling this change out gradually so we can monitor not only the accuracy and speed of search results for clients, but also how it impacts providers. For most, it will not be noticeable at all. For others there might be small changes in your profile analytics, but even if your number of impressions changes slightly, the number of actual people seeing your thumbnail will be the same.
If you have any feedback about search results, or any other features on Tryst.link, please get in touch! Fire up your email client and send a message to chris@tryst.link - I can't respond to every message, but I will absolutely read them all.
Are you a sex worker with a story, opinion, news, or tips to share? We'd love to hear from you!
We started the tryst.link sex worker blog to help amplify those who aren't handed the mic and bring attention to the issues ya'll care about the most. Got a tale to tell? 👇☂️✨
