A tiny bug fix, but an important one, because the new search experience is entirely dependent on the spatial index, so if a profile is dropped, it no longer appears in any search results.
Largely "under the covers" improvements in this update, but some good housekeeping...
SEO improvements
This weekend, I have been mostly learning about SEO. And in the process mostly learned that I don't want to work in the SEO business. Anyway, thank goodness for NuxtSEO (even if the docs are a little frustrating at tines). And with that, I've added:
Hopefully that will make the Google Search Console happy, but we shall see...
Google authentication (experimental)
An (experimental) implementation of Sign-in with Google is now available for managing profiles. LinkedIn remains the primary and preferred authentication method, but Google Sign-in is available for members who log in to LinkedIn using their Google account.
On-site privacy policy and terms of service
When the site first launched, the privacy policy and terms of service were hosted on Google Docs. Turns out, ironically, that Google does not like that, and won't approve an OAuth Verification Request if these docs are not hosted on the site itself. Which was a good forcing function to migrate them to the site, even if the HTML produced by Google Docs is pretty pathological.
A smaller release this week after last week's big update, partly because I spent a lot of time on refactoring...
Launch of new search experience
The new search experience with relevancy based ranking that was described in detail in the previous update, has now rolled out on the production site. So if you have not had the chance to update your remote, hybrid, and onsite work preferences, and review your locations and focus areas, now would be a good time to do so!
Gender filter
In response to feedback that users would like a way to find coaches or advisors of their own gender, a new gender filter is now in preview. You can set your gender on your profile, which will ensure your profile is included in searches filtered in this way, although your gender will not be shown on your profile page.
Personal pronouns
You can now set your personal pronouns, which are shared on your profile page.
Profile photos
The profile page is still very basic, but it does now include profile avatars, which are copied from your LinkedIn profile when you update your profile, and uses a two column layout on desktop.
OK, this is a big one.
Profile management
Until now, I've been manually hand editing the DB (!) to apply any profile updates requested by community members. This clearly isn't scalable, not least because by this point there are 180+ members on the site. So were I to add any new profile fields, I would have to handle the updates needed for every single member.
So a pre-requisite to any improvements to the profile is a tool to allow community members to manage their own profile. This is now available here and linked from the Manage menu at the top right of the site. Note that the site uses Login with LinkedIn to authenticate you, and for some unknown reason LinkedIn does not provide us mere mortals access to profile URLs.
As a result I have to match logins with profiles by email address, which means that if your LinkedIn email address is not the same as the address you provided when you submitted your site profile, you must send me with your LinkedIn email before you will be able to begin managing your profile. This address will only be used for authentication purposes and will never be shared on your profile, or used to contact you.
Presence fields
Now that's done, I can add new fields to the profile, and make changes to the site that might motivate community members to update their profile. As I mentioned in the 1.0.1 update, it became clear soon after launch that requiring users to filter results by the country (or even region) in which the community member lived was too limiting for those members who primarily work remotely, and serve clients around the world.
As a result, I've added a new "presence" field to the profile, which allows members to indicate their availability for remote, hybrid, and onsite work. For remote work, you can indicate the regions that you accept clients from, and for hybrid and onsite you can indicate how far you are willing to travel.
New search experience (coming soon)
With that in place, the home page search fields will shortly be updated so that searches are not based on the location of the community member, but the location of the client, while also indicating whether they need someone who will work remote, hybrid, or onsite.
Location fields must be real places
In order to support this, use of a real physical location will now be required in the Location field on member profiles. Using "Remote" as your location will no longer be permitted. The presence fields now serve that need. When the new experience rolls out, I'll manually update any profiles that still have "Remote" in the location field to match the real world location of the community member, as best I can.
Relevancy based ranking
At the same time that the home page search is updated to use the presence fields, the ordering of results will also change to use a relevancy based ranking algorithm.
Concerns have already been raised with me since the site launched that a lot of profiles have selected a very long list of focus areas, that do not appear to be consistent with the experience the member has. I appreciate that members want to appear in search results as often as possible, but this could result in a bad user experience when users connect with members, only to find they are not the experts they claim to be.
I considered setting an upper limit on the number of options per focus area category, or requiring members to justify their choices of focus area somehow, but that seemed too heavy handed. I'd rather align incentives, so there are clear benefits to being selective.
If you're interested in the nitty gritty details of the algorithm, it's documented here, along with specific recommendations for how to improve your ranking. But the summary is that profiles that have chosen fewer selections of focus area, and/or are more geographically focused, are treated more favourably.
This is based on the assumption that if a profile has only 3 verticals selected, they are more likely to be a specialist in those verticals than someone who has 15 verticals selected. Similarly, a profile that accepts remote clients from a smaller geographical area will be favoured over someone who accepts clients from around the world, and a client with just one location on their profile will be favoured for hybrid or onsite work over one that has several, or lives further away.
This means that for every focus area, location, and presence field there is a trade off. If you select more options, you will appear in more searches, but you will be ranked lower overall. So choose your options carefully. The intention is that if a client engages with you, they would agree that you have recent and relevant real world experience and domain expertise in the focus areas you have selected.
The other benefit of this model is that those profiles that appear less often in searches will likely be ranked higher, thus ensuring that they have first dibs on the fewer suitable opportunities that come up.
Preview site
Given all of the above changes are quite substantial, I realise members will want to update their profiles in advance of them taking effect, and preview the impact. For this reason, I've launched a preview site, where you can try out the new search and ranking experience for yourself. Access the preview site at preview.fractionals.fyi.
Roadmap
Lastly, in addition to this changeblog, I've also published a roadmap, so members can see what's coming soon. As always, feedback welcomed via email or LinkedIn.
Believe it or not, when the site first launched, the list of supported countries was hardcoded, which meant I had to push a new release every time someone signed up with a new country. So this is a minor update that adds the full set of countries, and makes the region filter searchable to maintain usability. At the same time I've also made the verticals and expertise fields searchable, as their list of options are also quite long.
Within hours of the initial launch, it quickly became clear that the #1 feature request from the community was support for filtering results not just by country, but also by region, as many people accept clients from around the world. So, I've implemented a quick fix that expands a region into a list of countries, and added regions to the top of the country filter dropdown. Note that only regions for which there are profiles in the DB are currently included.
It also became clear that members are using the location field not to describe where they are based, but the regions they serve. This led to a lot of people trying to add "Remote, EU" (or similar) as their location. I've consequently realised that a new approach is needed that focuses more on where the role is based rather than where the member is based. Watch this space...
First release of the fractionals.fyi community directory, with basic support for filtering by role, discipline, location, and optionally by vertical, sales model, company stage, and domain expertise. Results are ordered alphabetically by first name, which is clearly not ideal in the long term, but will do for an MVP. Basic profile pages are supported, which just list all of the profile fields.