Whenever ranking comes up, I always interject something. I love 3dhubs, think they do a fine job, and think they deserve a ton of credit. HOWEVER, this has been the one thing that kills me. The ranking is not logical. I have been watching it for years.
I have continuously watched ranking in my area. I have seen hubs on their 3rd print rank higher than hubs on their 100th print.
I have seen lower reviews, less material, less completed hubs, lower delivery times, etc. rank above solid good hubs.
3dhubs support CANNOT help with this. They do not know why the hubs rank the way they do.
It is not that it is secret, it is that they DO NOT KNOW how it works.
In this thread Talk Manufacturing | Hubs
it is revealed that:
"our Hub scoring algorithm is quite complicated. Reviews and number of orders are not the only metrics we look at. We are currently building tools that will help us quickly see why some Hubs rank higher etc. We will keep you updated. Adam "
which means 3dhubs employees can’t even tell why. And this:
“Currently it is very hard to tell what exactly is the differentiation between two Hubs. It requires one of our engineers to look into the data. We are building tools for customer support to have all of this on one click. adamhayek”
which means that its probably not even a real, solid algorithm, if it cant be explained to their own employees in plain english, and requires an engineer to look at.
I’m not convinced it is a secret. I think the secret here is that it does not work correctly.
I actually do this for my real job- applications-- and I can tell you, there are really not that many metrics involved here that the ranking can be based on, and the ones they say rank you, do not work as they should, period.
But be very sure that if you do the best prints, offer fair pricing, have the most materials, get the best reviews, answer customers quickly and completely, ship quickly, and customers love you, you may still never be number one in your own town, even if you obviously should be.
That being said, I come off as critical of 3dhubs with this as my primary issue, and the recent tolerances fiasco, but they have a hell of a system for putting customers and hubs together. I do love it. But it definitely is NOT working exactly right, and their own employees couldn’t tell by looking why that is the case.