Common Reasons Projects don't Appear on Homepage

Hi everyone,

As you may already know, the Scratch Team works hard to make sure that our homepage is inclusive and accessible to all Scratchers. The front page is the first thing new users see when they visit Scratch for the first time, and we want to make sure we’re giving them a chance to explore great projects from a variety of Scratchers, no matter their age, background, or the speed of their internet connection.

We often get asked why a project isn’t showing up on the homepage, even if it has gained a lot of loves or remixes. We wanted to share some potential reasons why this could be happening with you:

The project contains inappropriate content

All content on Scratch should be friendly and safe for all ages. Some projects clearly violate our Community Guidelines and are removed, but others are just not the type of content we’d like Scratchers to run into on the homepage. For example:

• It is slightly scary, violent, or intense

• It includes “potty humor” or gross-out photos/sprites

• There is mildly inappropriate language in the project, sound files, or notes and credits

• It is based on a movie, TV show, video game, or other media that isn’t appropriate for Scratch

The project isn’t user-friendly

Certain projects can make the site run slower or make the homepage difficult to navigate. For example:

• It includes an animated thumbnail

• It shows users how to “hack” Scratch by changing the way the site functions

The creator of the project is gaming the community

Our Community Guidelines say “Be honest,” and it isn’t fair to use dishonest methods to get a project to the front page. For example:

• The creator has spammed links to the project through comments

• Alternate accounts have been used to try and boost the project’s loves/favorites/views

Other questions you may have:

My project has more loves than some of the other projects in the “What the Community is Loving” section. Why isn’t it showing up there?

The “What the Community is Loving” section of the homepage shows a random selection of projects that have received many loves recently. Sometimes there may be more projects that meet the criteria needed to show up here than we have space to show! Having a higher number of loves does not guarantee that your project will be shown over other eligible projects.

I have a project on the homepage already, but I think another project of mine is eligible to be there, too. Why aren’t they both there?

Even if a Scratcher is eligible to appear in several rows on the homepage (for example, Featured Projects and What the Community is Remixing), they can only be in one row of the homepage at a time. Being on the homepage is a very exciting event for Scratchers, and we want to make sure that it’s as fair as possible so more people get the chance to experience it.

We shared this information with you to be more transparent about our processes for keeping the homepage a safe and friendly place for everyone. We hope this can also help you make the best decisions about your projects to ensure that more people can see them and find all of the other awesome stuff you’ve created.

Scratch On!

Summary

Projects may not appear on the Scratch homepage even if they are popular for a few reasons. Content that is scary, violent, inappropriate, or based on unsuitable media is not shown. Projects that make the site harder to use or slower may also be excluded. Additionally, dishonest behavior like spam or using alternate accounts to boost engagement is not allowed.