I used to be a SEO tech, so I have an interest in analyzing metrics, stats and data.

Here, I’m taking a personal look at curation patterns on Medium.

This is how we used to do SEO: Observe patterns and make suppositions from the patterns, sometimes called reverse engineering, and we got it right a lot of the time and also very wrong.

Some observations:

There are only so many positions, probably less than we assume, both in time and space, for a story to be picked up and distributed on Medium. The competition is brutal. Everyday new writers join and flaunt their wares.

Given this, curators would go to their top picks first— regulars, who they can count on to write well, without problems (grammar, wrong subjects, poor quality).

Their other top go to, is publications. There is some level of curation there. Why wouldn’t you do this? For instance if you covered the writing topics and tags. I would check the newest articles out and choose the cream from The Writing Cooperative.

All paywall stories have be examined, no matter how briefly and given nod or flick.

The flicks immediately get this:

The nods are reviewed and queued and perhaps marked as: Good. Is there a fit for this one? What do you think? Or similar. This process can take a few minutes, hours or few days. I have one story at present that has been spinning its waiting wheels, for five days — update this particular piece is still showing we are processing, after weeks, so it must have been missed.

Curators leave tracks. They are often first on the scene for a new writer such as myself with only a few followers. The never clap of course, just a quick glance, sometimes not reading the whole story. If the story has not been read, sure sign you are flicked.

The quickest way to find if you have been given a flick or wait/nod: After you publish a story keep an eye here : stats>title of story>details>

The nod that turns into a yes: