I have generally found NicheIQ topic suggestions to be useful and mainly on target, with only a few unrelated terms coming up.

Today, however, of the 30 or so new suggestions only about five were related to my topic at all.

I write about piano and keyboard instruments, so I am used to a few guitar and other musical instrument keyword phrases coming up, and that's fine.

This time, however, I was getting a lot of weird and completely unrelated items such as things about air purification, refrigerators and other household items, vehicle parts, and all sorts.

Is there a known issue with NicheIQ at present?

    londonblue Hey, we have not seen an increase in publishers reporting unrelated topic suggestions, have you made any incremental changes to the way to site is configured? I've checked NicheIQ and I am struggling to find the topics you have mentioned, do you have a screenshot you can share with me please? I've checked your hidden topics as well.

      Imogen Sorry, I hid a lot of the topics before I thought to report. I'll take a look again next week for another update.

      I've not made any updates to my site recently.

        a month later

        Hi,

        Here are some screenshots of suggestions received today. Lots of guitar ones, which I can partly understand as it is music-related, plus some ones which are definitely not.

          londonblue I'll pass this onto the NicheIQ team and see what they come back with - in the past the suggestion was to hide the irrelevant topic suggestions and that should hopefully stop the same kinds of topics being suggested in the future but I'll ask the team if they can see why these topics were suggested in the first place!

          londonblue Hey, your hunch was correct - topic suggestion got hit with a bug. We've resolved the error and you should see more quality suggestions from next week! Let us know if not

            Ethan Hi Ethan, thanks for the replies.

            I had got quite used to the guitar ones although they had increased in number, the other ones about various car/household appliances were just weird! 😀 Will take a look next time things refresh. Is there any chance it's possible to 'bulk mark' topics that are deemed irrelevant as it can take a little while to hover/click over each one in turn.

              londonblue Thanks for confirming. Unfortunately, there's no option to bulk mark them currently. That said, as Ethan pointed out, you should be seeing more quality suggestions again next week. Feel free to reach out to us again if you continue to find problems with the topic quality next week.

              10 days later

              Hi,

              Just an update, still getting a lot of guitar ones, plus a few very off-topic items still. "Brother label maker p touch manual", mobile phone keywords, but it is a lot less. Some of the items are because certain big companies make a variety of products across several areas, so I suspect these will always be present. Anyway, it is better than before.

                londonblue Glad to hear this is at least better than it was before. The NicheIQ team did say we can always ask them to look into it further if you're not satisfied with the topic suggestions - would you like us to raise that with the team?

                If so, it might be helpful if you could explain a little more how you think NicheIQ has recommended the non-relevant topics to you - just let us know!

                  Ethan I don't know how the system works behind the scenes, but for my particular niche (pianos and keyboard musical instruments) I can see some types of "incorrect" post which might be occurring.

                  1. Completely (seemingly) off-the-wall suggestions such as the label maker, gym equipment etc.

                  These appear to be unrelated to anything I've ever written about or my audience would find interesting (or at least, expect to find on my site).

                  2. Suggestions related to a relevant company but an irrelevant product

                  Yamaha makes digital pianos and music keyboards but it also makes other types of musical instrument, as well as motorcycles and lots of other items.
                  Casio makes digital pianos and music keyboards but it also makes calculators and watches.

                  These would need some extra context matching.

                  3. Suggestions which are broadly topical on music but not niche enough.

                  This includes the 'guitar' posts which I suspect are coming up because they are related in the music sphere. I've only mentioned the guitar maybe two or three times in the site's history and it's not a major part of it.

                  In fact #1 posts are the ones which had started creeping in and may have been related to the bug you mentioned. #3 is very common, with #2 somewhere in between.

                    londonblue Got it, thank you for confirming. In terms of the Completely (seemingly) off-the-wall suggestions - are those still appearing since the bug I mentioned was resolved?

                    Without consulting the NicheIQ team directly, I believe it would be difficult to eliminate the broadly topical suggestions, but the off the wall/irrelevant products so seem like something we could have the team look into

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