The Medium Algorithm Works In Mysterious Ways

Adebayo Adeniran
2 min readSep 21, 2021

I have given up trying to suss out the magic formula for higher readership and virality

Michael Dziedzic via Unsplash

Writing on this platform is akin to playing the lottery; most times you lose and that one time, you strike really lucky.

Over the course of the last few months, I have published several articles on Brexit and its deleterious effect on the British economy and they have done okay. Well enough to hit the payment threshold of 6% of those who write here.

But this month, something strange has happened. Not only have I written fewer articles than I have in recent months, but also, 25% of my entries this month account for 15,000 views.

One of the articles responsible for a bit of traffic has been about the Brexit disaster.

How can this be?

What could be the reason for this madness?

They say writing regularly increases your chances of going viral but this seems to have no bearing whatsoever on the September madness, as I have published considerably less.

And then, to compound things further, Medium decided that they had paid me less owing to an algorithmic error, which they have now sorted out.

The one thing I can say is that whoever fully works out the intricacies of the Medium algorithm will make an absolute killing.

Until that day comes, we can only speculate from now until the cows come home.

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Adebayo Adeniran

A lifelong bibliophile, who seeks to unleash his energy on as many subjects as possible