Traffic no longer used in search??

I read in another forum a while back that traffic is no longer used to prioritize listings in the search engine. Is that correct? Was there ever any announcement of that by Linden Lab?

If this is true then it seems there is no longer much benefit to people hiding boxes full of bots on their land. I guess a few customers might still be impressed to see the land has a high traffic count, but only if they don't already know about the bot trick.

My unofficial, unproven opinion is that traffic has an extremely small effect on the All search list. Maybe even none at all. Of course it's still used in Search Places exclusively and this must be the thing all those bots are trying to game.

If I recall correctly somewhere (I think on the blog) they mentioned how traffic is low on the pole now for search stuff.

I will see if I can find it, might take awhile though.

(edited to add, well forget searching the blog, the new blog stuff doesn't seem to let one search the history of the old blog)

blech

That's OK, its great to get some confirmation that traffic has been demoted in some areas. To bad its still so high in search places.

Change is a'coming, although it remains to be seen exactly how much change. There have been discussions about anti-Traffic-abuse measures at Jack's office hours (last week, starting at about 11:20 in the transcript at https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Qie_Niangao/Jack_Linden_Office_Hour_Transcript/2009-02-26).

(Admittedly I have a particular take on how this should be handled, but I'll hold off bloviating until LL asks for feedback on the new policy, whatever it may be.)

Qie, could you condense that for me? All that text just gave me a headache.

Oh, sorry: I was out-of-touch with this thread for a bit. Well the Reader's Digest version is that Jack promises to use the shiny new blog to post for feedback a draft policy dealing with abuse of Traffic.

They're especially offended by "traffic-for-hire" services, and by bots/camping at counts that crowd the limits of sim accessibility to other residents.

Whatever they do, they'll keep Traffic available as a statistic visible to parcel owners.

They're actively considering whether Traffic adds enough value to continue using it at all for Search ranking.

They seem to acknowledge that it's impossible to make Traffic immune from gaming, and appear to be exploring other unspecified metrics for ranking Search.

(In earlier meetings, Jack said that the initial Traffic policy won't address Search directly because that will require some development.)

I would be nice if they referred back to the hours and hours of traffic meetings we had with the lindens last year for input...id hate to think that all that time and energy went to waste.

after reading the link...

Whatever system comes in place of traffic, it will always be gamed, atleast the traffic-bots are obvious and easily recognized ?

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Qie, it's really neat that you highlight Jack's chat.
It makes it lazy cherry-picking easy .



"[11:25] Jack Linden: And bots are getting stuck at infohubs too which is spooky for new residents"

Elan! You naughty boy!





"[11:47] Jack Linden: for some people the L$ spent would be a better metric"
Sigh!
Surely ta gawd he's read postings about bots giving L$ to bots to buy stuff over and over.

"Some people" Sling, that's the key phrase there. I'd love to see it, but whether it should be public info is another matter.

There are lots of metrics I'd like to see, I really am not interested in how long someone stays at a shopping mall after the first few minutes, so traffic isn't useful to me for that purpose.

However on the balance of it, I think traffic should stay, I've not seen any compelling reason to get rid of it and by that I largely mean, nobody is coming up with a better metric that won't be gamed.

Just give us more metrics and educate people on what the metrics mean.

It hasn't been demoted at all - it's use has been added to in the All search. It's just a tiny addition, but it's an addition just the same.

Jojo. Maybe the Future of Traffic stuff wasn't a total waste of time, simply because Jack was at the meetings and he may have absorbed various points of view. Apparently the topic is going to be thrown open again but in the blog this time, so we should be able to put forward our thoughts and reasonings.

when traffic is no longer a factor, and camping is eliminated, myself (and i assume many others) will cease to be land owners and premium members. does SL really want to lose all that income?

That's interesting, do you run a shop that only sells to bots or something?

Yup, I'd lose tenants over such a move, although it might kick start people into finding other ways to circulate money around the economy, that's what I'd hope for, I fear however it would be damaging, in the short term at least.

I don't get it. Why would people shut down their shops if camping was banned? Or if traffic was eliminated?

Mostly residentials I'm talking about, although I know someone who sells prefabs who goes camping to supplement their income, maybe they're hoping they'll grow bigger but in the meantime camping supplements their income.

Can you please explain why? I would like to better understand your perspective on this and why you foresee that happening.

ever heard of premium membership fees and tier fees? i camp to come up with the money. no camping, no money - no money for LL (from me)

Camping going away would take money from some ppl who rely on it for their SL shopping.

I know i camped when i started SL, most of us did.

Maybe the items bought by campers arent that expensive, but i bet what they lose in price, they make up in volume.

Removing camping would impact the economy, how much or how little, I have no idea.

But removing traffic wont make ppl close down their shops and go home, there will be another system, and all systems are gamable to an extent. One thing goes, another thing comes in to take its place.

agreed
I think it would impact SL to some degree but people would adjust, new members would not be able to use it and I am sure they would get lindens one way or another

If my store can not support the tier and such, then I would just shut it down

I would not depend on camping to make the money to keep it alive, it is more fun, and a challenge to be able to get the sales.

(besides, heard too many horror stories about people not getting their money when camping, has happened to me as well, way back when I first started SL and did try camping)

much easier to skip that star bucks coffee and buy some lindens if I really need them.

that's probably something they already easily track themselves via account logging... i dunno that i entirely agree with the idea of making $pent the search metric, but if it was, it would perhaps provide some more leverage to crack and break such abuses.

failed to mention that aspect, but i also would loose tenants, and i am pretty sure those tenants buy other stuff too with those camping L$, this could very well have a long term impact !?

*btw: i also started sl with camping


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There is no way in the world that L$ spent in a place is a measure of the places popularity. Prices vary so much - from free (*very* popular places) to many thousands of L$ for a single item. One customer for that expensive item would trump many much more popular shops. It's a nonsense idea.

probably because they getting paid for another "abuse" of the "improved" search system


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