JessicaKay My understanding was the more categories you are in, the more searches that you would appear in
There's an Upwork Help Page which talks about this – https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/360024526754-Profile-categories-and-skills
From that page: “Picking the right categories means you're more likely to get invited to jobs that align with your strengths. It also makes it easier for you to stand out when clients are browsing through freelancer profiles.”
I'm interpreting somewhat here, along with previous posts I'd read on the forum which talk about niching down with your profile (which is how I started, with much greater success… though I recognise the platform has changed, too), that this means being only in the fewest no. of categories (or just 1) directly related to your main skill area will place you higher in search than if you're spread over numerous categories (because how does the algorithm know which of your categories you consider to be your best skills? Well maybe your profile content… but then what is the function of being in other categories if the algo is going to override?).
Anyway that was my theory on reading this page in combination with others' views, and early results are positive.
JessicaKay Also, what exactly do you mean by categories? Like specialized profiles and/or the skills listed in the profiles?
See page above. In your Upwork Account –> Profile Settings, you see 'Categories' towards the bottom of the page. It's these, where you can pick skills within those, which places you in their associated top-level categories.
I have broadened in terms of deep skills, and had also wanted to do coaching (and did pick some of that up), so had picked a lot of skill areas, placing me in quite a few top-level categories. My feeling (note: I'm not an Upwork mega-success story) is that this had been harming my profile's performance in Talent Search.
I did also create two specialized profiles, and my feeling is that doing this, in conjunction with broadening my skill/category selections, has been a serious act of self-harm on the platform. Further time will tell.
