---
title: 'How the Roblox Algorithm Works (Explained Simply)'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=inWzxY26NXo'
video_id: 'inWzxY26NXo'
date: 2026-07-12
duration_sec: 1098
---

# How the Roblox Algorithm Works (Explained Simply)

> Source: [How the Roblox Algorithm Works (Explained Simply)](https://youtube.com/watch?v=inWzxY26NXo)

## Summary

This video explains how the Roblox algorithm works for game discovery, focusing on the home page recommendations. The creator breaks down the process from launching a game, using ads for initial traffic, to how Roblox ranks games based on player engagement metrics. He emphasizes that improving game stats is more important than just spending on ads.

### Key Points

- **Video Purpose** [00:00] — The video aims to simplify how the Roblox algorithm works, specifically the home page recommendations, to remove ambiguity about why games fail or succeed.
- **First Step: Traffic** [00:43] — To get into the algorithm, a game needs traffic. Common methods include running Roblox ads or posting short-form content on platforms like TikTok and YouTube Shorts.
- **Initial Data Collection** [01:50] — Roblox uses initial ad traffic to collect data on metrics like average play time, D1 retention, D7 retention, average revenue per paying user, and conversion rate.
- **Beta Mode** [03:20] — Beta mode prevents a game from appearing in home recommendations, allowing developers to test and optimize stats with ad traffic before full launch.
- **Ad Traffic vs. Home Algo Traffic** [04:50] — Players from ads are cold traffic (cheapest players), while home algo players are more engaged, have higher retention, and spend more. Don't be alarmed if ad traffic stats are lower.
- **Ranking Against Genre** [06:48] — Roblox first ranks the game against the entire genre, then against games with similar players. The 'experiences with similar players' benchmark shows direct competition.
- **Farmers Market Analogy** [09:37] — The algorithm is like a farmers market: games with best stats (retention, monetization) are placed at the entrance, getting the most eyeballs. New games must prove themselves to move up.
- **Ads vs. Home Algo** [12:16] — Running more ads does not directly improve home algo ranking. Ads and home algo are separate markets. To improve ranking, you must improve game stats through meaningful updates.
- **Focus on Acquisition Stats** [14:24] — Developers should look at 'acquisition > home recommendations' stats, not just overview. Key metrics include QPTR, deep play through rate, 7-day playtime per user, and 7-day play days per user.
- **Iterative Improvement Process** [15:37] — Run ads to get data, identify worst stat (e.g., D1 retention), make a meaningful update to improve it, then run ads again to collect new data. Repeat to climb rankings.
- **7-Day Rolling Window** [17:30] — Roblox uses a 7-day rolling window of data, so stats don't change drastically overnight. Continuous improvement is key.

### Conclusion

The key to Roblox algorithm success is improving game stats through meaningful updates, not just spending on ads. Focus on retention and engagement metrics to earn a spot in home recommendations.

## Transcript

Guys, this is going to be how the Roblox algorithm works, specifically the home to really simplify this for you, okay? This video might piss a lot of people
reason on how this algorithm works, but I'm going to take a very objective perspective and just chop this up for you guys, so there's no longer ambiguity on why your game doesn't hit algo or why it dies, how much you should spend on
ads, how often should you run ads? All of in this video. Also, thanks for the love on the previous videos. First things first, you have a game, right? You want to launch a game.
Cool. Now, how do you actually get in the algo? The first thing you need is traffic to your game. What is traffic? Now, again, this might seem stupid Okay. What is traffic? Most common one is
people run Roblox ads, okay? Another one that you can do, if you have no money to run ads, is you can post short-form content, okay? You've seen clips all over TikTok talking about this new Roblox game XYZ allows you to do ABC,
okay? YouTube shorts, there's also a method it's interesting. I might do some research and make a video on this one. myself personally, okay? But, the TLDR is you want to launch a game, you have
your game, the first thing you need is traffic, okay? So, what happens is you have a brand new game, okay? It has zero visits. Let's say, most common method, you run Roblox ads, okay? What happens when you start
running Roblox ads? Well, this is from the official Roblox documentation, okay? be from Roblox official documentation, which some people don't trust, dude. I
don't [ __ ] understand why. Okay? You guys need to understand, I'm going to go on a quick tangent, I'm going to wrap it back up. Is Roblox is a business that thrives on creator-made content. So, why would they ever gatekeep how their
Steel of Brain Rot. They're looking for the next Grow a Garden, because that's algorithm works. Tangent over. Back to this. You launch
ads, you get initial data. Okay? This is a screenshot from the official documentation. Okay? What Roblox is going to do is it's going to look at the initial data. Now, we're talking about
I mean, all of the metrics. Okay? We're talking about average play time. D1, okay? D7, like I don't even know why I'm average revenue per paying user. Okay? Conversion rate. All that [ __ ]
They look at all of this [ __ ] from your initial players from ads. Okay? Now, here's something someone also never told me. Is Roblox just released going over [ __ ] that's public on the internet, but people just don't do their
you guys. There's this feature called beta mode. Okay? What does beta mode do? From my understanding, what beta mode does is it
will prevent Okay, it actually says it here. While in beta mode, your experience will not be shown in home recommendations. if you want to launch a game and get it in algo with the best stats possible, it
might be worthwhile turning your game turning your game into beta mode. That's Okay? Beta mode basically prevents the algo from showing your game in the home topic. Let's go back to this. You launch ads, you get the initial data, Roblox is
going to look at these following metrics. Okay? Just as like soft how well is this game doing?" Okay? It's pretty much the only time it will really pull data from your ads traffic for the most part,
for my understanding. Okay? Not always true. I'll get into it in a second. Okay? Then, what's going to happen is Roblox is going to be like, "Okay, we kind of now have a feel for what this game is, what genre it is, what kind of
players play it, you know, based on the data they collected." Okay? Mind you, the players that come from ads are nowhere near the same as the players that come from home algo. Cuz home algo is players that are your specific
audience. They're more likely to engage, they spend more, higher D1, higher D7, higher play time. You guys have seen this, right? But don't be freaked out if traffic. Cold traffic just basically means, and
you have to think about how the ads actually work is Roblox ads optimize for the cheapest possible player to your game. Okay? This is not the most
qualified player to your game. This is the cheapest possible player to get to your game. That's why you guys see like you can get players to your game for launch a game and you see what looks like a bunch of bots just standing in
see out of all these players they're sending you, which ones are actually engaging? Okay? And then, they'll start to use those signals, from my understanding, okay, to rank you against
let's just say broadly the genre as a whole, okay? Now, what's interesting, and I've seen this in a ton of Roblox videos, is people will look at their stats, and I want to show you guys something, okay? Can you see here where
it says experiences with similar players? Okay? They don't even explain it, okay? They'll just be like, yeah, this is my crushing, but we only have 100 CCU, why is that? Okay, that's because
this is how my game Farmer Die compares to the survival genre as a whole. It's It's not that terrible, right? But when I look at Farmer Die versus games
that have players that are my exact target audience, you'll see all my stats go down, okay? So, keep that in mind when you're watching YouTubers, take note of what they're actually selecting here, okay?
Now, what they're going to do is first and foremost, they're going to rank you way, cuz I just want to get this out there, okay? crushing it, and this is what happened with Farmer Die. Like, when we first
launched, dude, most, if not all these stats, were green. We didn't have D7 we're going to [ __ ] crush, right? But what starts to happen is after Roblox
basically says, okay, we're going to now compare you to every game in the survival genre, they start to get even more data, okay? This is when the algo Honestly, the faster you can feed it data at this stage, the faster you'll
get into algo. This is why, in my opinion, you've seen games absolutely explode in like 2 or 3 days, cuz it's usually big studios that have deep pockets. They can spend like 10 grand in a day just to get pumped it with data.
Now, before they even pump it with data, they've probably been What have they been doing? They've probably been testing in beta mode. So, they are optimizing their game for better stats.
better. So, by the time they turn off beta mode and they they tell Roblox, "Hey, we are ready to go to algorithm." They've already optimized all these
stats using ad traffic only. And then when they start getting ranked, Okay? So, what happens next? You get your initial data. They rank you against the genre as a
And then what they're going to do is they're going to have even more data they're also playing these other games. They're going to rank you against games dude. Like, let me show you guys this. If I go to analytics acquisition,
home recommendations, right? This is for Farmer Dyz. Benchmark experiences with similar players. Okay? This is exactly my competition. They make it so cut and dry. They're basically saying, "Hey Tizzy, how does your game
play?" And they'll tell you, dude. And that's when your stats will probably start to take a [ __ ] Okay? [laughter] a lot of people are like, "Why does my game die?" Cuz it starts off good. You
know, Farmer Dyz, we even peaked at 2K CCU. And then it [ __ ] died, right? Cuz initially, dude, what happened with Farmer Dyz is like, we were crushing our competitors. And then came in other games with way better stats, and they
economy for the most part, okay? I want to break down the algo in a simple analogy like you're 5 years old. I want you guys to think of a farmers
you ever been to one, you know, they sell oranges, maybe pineapples, watermelons, whatever. Think of this as let's say the survival genre
farmers market, okay? Who's at the first line? 99 Nights in Days at Sea is around like 4K CCU. You have the simulation genre, right?
Those ones are, you know, also honorable mentions, but I just put some of the OGs So, what happens? Is Roblox
has let's say, for example's sake, 10,000 players that are going to go to the survival genre market. Now, this specifically is the home algo survival genre market, okay? This is the entrance
to the market, and if you guys know anything about, you know, business psychology or like placement of where your business is in terms of where people actually walk, whoever is at the front of the line usually gets the most
eyeballs, okay? So, Roblox is like, "Okay, we have 10,000 people coming to the survival genre farmers market today. Who do we want to show them first? Which game do we want them to see first?" It's obviously going to be something
like 99 Nights in the Forest. Why? It has the best stats, high retention, good monetization. They know that thing makes them money, so they're keeping it in their farmers market. They also have Baker Die, which is second, and then,
for example, 100 Days at Sea, which is third. These are just examples, okay? So, this is the survival genre market. Now, what's interesting about the algo is it won't always be
like the survival genre market won't just be games in the survival genre. It could be adjacent games like, you know, survive 99 days from robots that is
mostly a survival game, but maybe it has some RPG elements, okay? So, what I mean by that is like these games aren't exact copies of Farmer Dairy. You guys need to understand that. They just have similar game loops, similar mechanics, okay?
Like Dead Meals Cook or Die, I have Farmer Dairy, Baker Dairy was on here for a while, okay? Even Alien Ranch was on here for a while, okay? Now, what you guys need to understand is
if your game starts dying, just run more ads can be some of the worst advice, mostly, okay? And here's why. Remember this farmers market analogy. When you're running ads, you're
basically competing in a whole separate market, okay? Because Roblox, apart from the initial data collection, does not use data from your players ads
to further push you in the home algo, for the most part. There's a caveat someone's like, "Hey, just spend more money on ads." That's a bad advice. Why
you guys notice here, this is the home algo market, right? Farmer Dairy is not on here. If I wanted to get Farmer Dairy on here and someone told me run more right?" Oh, boom, there's Farmer Dairy. Now I'm
in the home algo cuz I'm running ads. That's not how it works. Why? Because these are two separate farmers markets, okay? This is the sponsored ads market.
This is the home algo market. I can run ads and get in the sponsored ads market, Why? Because Roblox is always trying to determine
should we put Farmer Die closer to the entrance in the home algo market so more people can see it? And when they're asking themselves that question, they're looking at your stats. Okay? So, if you start running ads and you haven't
updated your game that improve any of your stats, and again, this might be self-explanatory to some of you experienced devs, but what's the title of this video? Explain like you're 5 years old. Okay? If you do not make
updates that improve your stats, it's not going to do anything if you run ads, dude. Okay? You need to make updates that make a meaningful improvement to your game. So, what I would do is don't just look here, bro. Okay?
Don't just look at your overview. I can't tell you how crazy it is to me that this is a common misconception that these stats don't really mean [ __ ] when it comes to getting the algo. You want to go to
acquisition, home recommendations. Okay? Click this [ __ ] tab right here. Scroll down and they will tell you cut and dry, "Hey, this is how your QPTR looks in comparison to
other games that have your player base. Deep play through rate, 7-day playtime per user, 7-day play days per user. The only reason I think Farmer Die is even still live is because we have a very high intentional co-play.
And you can see we're way above benchmark. Okay? We have low mono. I mean, all of our stats are low besides this. That's why I think it is barely surviving. So, if you want to get into algo,
you simply need to improve your stats. Like dude, it's so self-explanatory. But this is kind of the process I would take. Is like I would again, this is long if you've already lost me, I don't know, it's your [ __ ] fault, dude. I'm
giving you literally free information, so suck it. So, To get my game improved. Run ads, okay? Okay? Then Roblox will
start to hit algo. Then what are you going to do? You're again going to look at these stats, okay? Now what you're going to do though is look at your worst stat. Let's say it's D1 cuz we all have
[ __ ] retention problems. Farmer Die has shitty retention. So a meaningful update that's going to improve D1. Okay? Now that you've made that update that's going to improve D1, now it makes
sense to run ads to get even more players. Okay? Run ads. Why? meaningful update and I want to collect again
more initial data so that way Roblox has more data actually they improved their D1. Maybe they do it deserve a spot here. Maybe we
should give them some more [ __ ] eyeballs." And now I'm getting traffic up, dude. Now you're beating this game." Oh, let's say I improve D7. They're like, "Okay, cool. Now you're in the second spot,
right?" And then one day, boom. This is going to be me one day. I'm just [ __ ] trolling. But maybe I'm not. Anyways, that's how the algo works from my understanding. If you disagree, let me know in the comments
below. Let's have a [ __ ] argument about it. I don't give a [ __ ] dude. This is what I wish someone told me from the beginning. So, you can definitely run more ads, dude, but it only makes sense to run ads after you've made
from the algo, you don't have to keep starting and stopping and running ads because Roblox will keep using that new data. They use a 7-day window of data,
freak out if your stats don't drastically improve the next day, they use a rolling 7-day window, which I can explain in a later video if you
But yeah, man. Yap sesh over. Um honestly, "Yeah, I spend a [ __ ] thousand bucks a month on ads, and I'm still not on
So, TLDR is [ __ ] improve your game. That's it. Peace.