The popular tab's algorithm is based upon comments, likes and views received in the last 24 hours. The tab only shows comics that updated within those last 24 hours, but with an exception for premium comics which can show up whenever since they generally have one or more large weekly updates.
For this reason, to utilize Tapas' algorithms to your best possible advantage you should:
- Experiment and find out when your audience is most active, i.e. what part of the day you get the most people interacting with your content within the first 3 hours of it being posted. This will be very individual from one creator to another.
- Post small updates frequently, not large updates seldom. Preferred update size for a community comic is 4-10 panels.
- Try to improve to a point where you can update multiple times a week. If you are able to update three times a week, you will in my experience see the best performance out of that if you update 3 days following one another due to the buildup of activity as well as the 24 hour algorithm situation, rather than 3 days spread out.
Daily updates are the golden ticket however. Assuming those updates hold good content. And as long as said daily updates aren't constantly broken up by hiatuses. Then you're better off spreading them out.