it was never about getting my game higher up on the search for "hex puzzle", it was about _showing up_ at all.
that boils down to the same thing. the search results are obviously limited and randomized in some arbitrary and intentionally unpredictable way. depending on the term and if it rained last tuesday. something like "the" shows only a handful, but "game" shows quite a lot, but only like 90 or so. who would have thought that there are only 90 games on itch. hmm. many games are called game. how original.
but writing on the lid what is in the tin is what those mechanisms are for.
imho "search optimizing" is euphemism for making stuff feign relevance where there is none. or in other words: lying. but there is thin line between actual lying and not understanding what a tag or a term means or simply having a different opinion. I see many games that have tagged horror but are not horror. maybe horrible. or vn, just because they have two dialogs. or adventure, because they have a sprite that walks. and so on. it is less ambigous for puzzles i think.
what is a bit odd, that the search does not search in tags. i bet many people do not realize that you can type in tag bar instead of "selecting" like the box tells you. and that this is a separate search that is not limited to the tags in the list. normal search does "find" you tags though. but only the official ones for lack of a better word.