About ethics: right or wrong?

Nobody is suggesting that making money in business *is* unethical.

What is in question is business practices - which although not breaking the letter of the law - can be unethical.
It is not nonsense to suggest that some businesses *might be* acting unethically. If it were nonsense, then that would mean that there was no possibility of a business acting unethically.

I do not agree that *most* business people consider that the *most* important thing is the money --- as in the money overriding all other considerations.
In my RL work I see the business practices of the honest and the dishonest. Most people are honest.
On the other hand, I come across people who have no scruples when it comes to making a buck. Some of them can turn quite nasty when challenged. Some of them just don't give a damm.

My pleasure ...i'm a bit of a Stato freak being a RL Accountant and all. (sad but true ), so i like pouring my eyes over statistics and graphs....especially the misleading ones that LL spews out in their Quarterly Economic Reviews! Haha

Thankfully there won't by any surprises from LL for Q4 review....as Tyche Shepherd (SL Universe Forum) has already released a bunch of Q4 figures which i dissected on the XStreet Commerce forums.


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I responded to the apparent negative slant put on the making of money being the most important thing. It's nothing new in this forum - "It's all about the mighty buck", as an accusation, isn't rare here. Business everywhere is all about making money - profits - the mighty buck. It's why business exists, and it's to everyone's benefit. I know that some people would like SL to be a different sort of world and, in part, it is, but not all of it because other people want SL to be like RL in a business sense.

Just rephrasing this to make sure I'm actually understanding this: you're trying to claim that people who use questionable means of improving their search ranking are actively helping searchers because they're what people want in the first place?

Or putting it different: according to you the majority of stores using (or who did use) traffic bots to game traffic so they'll appear higher in search are for the overwhelming part *top quality* stores?

Are you serious?

I agree with Marcel, and I am being serious. You may or may not remember why I started to use traffic bots, but it was all written here. I did it because the places that ranked higher then mine for 'low prim furniture' in the Places tab were a club and a furniture seller who didn't selll any low prim furniture. My outranking those place improved those results for people. That's just one example.

Another example of the improvement to the results, through the use of what you call "questionable means", is easily seen in the All search results.

Many people want SL to be like RL in a business sense. I would even say most people do.
This would apply not alone to merchants but also to their customers, who would like to be treated in a businesslike manner and with the sort of consumer rights that they have in RL.

This says nothing about the standard of business ethics in RL and SL.

It is just as possible for a business to run unethically in SL as it can be in rL.

As I said, I responded to the apparently negative slant put on the making of money being the most important thing.

Though it is said numerous times before, I will repeat it again: There is no measurement of quality of the store possible in search.

What I am serious about is that exactly the people putting hours in the search optimizing, are the ones offering what is indeed being searched for. I cannot say that for each keyword, so I specified the ones I am monitoring. The first page for those keywords, consists of businesses selling exactly what the person was looking for according to the keywords. Whether the quality of the store or it's merchandise is good according to the searcher, remains to be seen.

Nowhere I mentioned traffic bots, as I am focusing on Search All, for which traffic bots do not make much sense.

Nowhere I said that they were actively helping searchers either. What I said was that indirectly, the result is beneficial to the searcher. The result sets for the examples I mentioned do show that. The results are relevant as about all of them are stores with a wide range of products answering to the search keywords.

Oh, and again: nowhere I mentioned high quality stores, as you cannot measure quality with the Search engine.

Seems it is good you asked me if you understood me right, as apparently you did not.

Why did those places outrank you?

They had 'low prim furniture' in their descriptions and the Places tab ranks places in a stupid way. The non-low prim furniture place used camping.

You need to put in exactly 0 minutes of time optimizing to accomplish what you just said.

If you sell tables and name them "table" somewhere in the name or description then your store will show up somewhere in the search results for "table". No optimizing effort required there.

Everyone can judge quality and everyone can spot things you wouldn't buy even if you were given L$ once you see the alternatives and it's the latter who's far more likely to manipulate search than the former.

Traffic gaming (see below) made (and still does make) that more than obvious. Claiming that you can't spot whether A or B is better made and which is the better choice is just being deliberately obtuse.

You were focusing on improved search rankings. Since "All" manipulation is far too subtle for most people to detect I mentioned traffic bots because pretty much anyone can see it happening there and knows the average quality of goods of most stores who game traffic.

I asked because you used a lot of words to talk about something that requires no additional effort of any kind (see 1st paragaph).

You don't need to optimize to show in the results because that'll just happen all by itself if you name a table "Table". The one and only reason to optimize has to do with ranking.

So what you said boils down to: "I optimize because I want to rank high". The *only* person that benefits is *you*.

Whatever myths you choose to conjure about "indrectly helping search" are just make belief, or an attempt to cover up and make you seem noble.

Wrong. The GSA only displays the top 1000 from the results set, so merely adding a word to the html page doesn't ensure that the page will be listed.

It's no myth. Perhaps your time would be better spent actually looking at what Marcel pointed to instead of just theorising about it.

Had they not used camping, do you think that they would have outranked you?

If you are referring to my post, then you misinterpreted.

My post was on the question of money being more important than any other consideration.
That in no way is negative towards making money.

They gamed search. So you gamed search more. This served searchers...how?

Could it be that the highest-quality solution would be to remove you both from search?

Hopefully LL's keyword spamming solution will involve a lasting punitive measure.

By placing a store that actually sold low prim furniture above those that didn't.

Not really. It wouldn't improve anything to remove places that sell what people search for.

It won't.

Rofl....that right there shows you're absolutely clueless.....no need for me to read any further!

Read your own words. My store will show up SOMEWHERE in the search results. In order to get a better ranking I need to optimize for the keyword I aim for, to reach my target audience. So yes, optimizing is needed.


Does the search engine fall under Everyone? Tell me how the search engine can determine quality of the store/items sold? We were discussing Search ranking weren't we? So what I judge as quality is irrevevant, what matters is whether it can be measured by the search engine.


What is that quality? Why do those stores sell so much stuff then? Phil ranks #2 for low prim furniture and is (even in this forum) well known for his quality. He gamed traffic for quite a while. Want to discuss the quality of his merchandise?


See my response to that.


Well done, I thought we were talking about ranking all the time. That might be the reason I mentioned the first page of search in almost every example.


No myths involved, simply observation.
No one can tell what would have been the result if no one optimized for search. LL did ask us to optimize, and people did so. The more work they put into it, the better then can eventually rank. And what I say, is that the people putting the most work in, seem to be the people actually delivering the goods. Check my examples and check out the top 10 stores. If they do NOT deliver what you were searching, then I was wrong.

1) SL would likely benefit if both of you disappeared and someone else selling low-prim furniture would take both your spots. Why do *you* deserve to be first? Maybe someone else should be first.

2) You didn't just game "low prim furniture"; you also gamed "furniture". In fact, you gamed "furniture" much more than you gamed "low prim furniture".

If it was the case that the top results were for places that didn't actually have what was being searched for, the engineering the traffic rank of one place that was actually relevant didn't really help the searcher.

If the searcher was only going to visit the top listed places - which afterall is why places like to be listed high - then that would leave them with the incorrect impression that only one place had the stuff.
That would be a huge benefit to the place of course!

It wouldn't be a real benefit to the searcher as the effect would be to restrict the number of places that they would visit and view the wares.

Overall, it would be bad for the searcher and bad for the other places that sold the product being sought.

SL would never benefit if places that sell what people look for are removed. And I didn't say that I deserved to be first. I said that I did things to rank above the two I mentioned. Adding things to what people say doesn't help

You asked about what I did because of those two places I mentioned, not about what I did *much much* later - a long time after the GSA search arrived, which itselff was *much* later than that.

Yes it did.

I think that covers the rest of your post as well.

QFT
That is what happens in these threads all the time: adding things to what people say. And now I know I am not native english speaking/writing, but in general I am pretty sure that what I type can be understood. Still it seems necessary to twist it.

You asked about what I did because of those two places I mentioned, not about what I did *much much* lat

What I wonder, did any one yet check the top 10 for "low prim furniture" and "one prim plants", the two examples I gave? Are the stores there relevant to the search words or not?

Twisting and adding is often the only way that they can continue with their arguments. That's why it happens here a lot.

Probably none of the ones who argued against what you wrote about that bit.

Marcel - I pulled up the "low prim furniture" search, and commented on that above. I don't have a dog in this fight.....I don't really care from a low prim furniture maker standpoint. I use other tools more effectively to get sales.

I did a search for a very broad term the other night to go shopping. The first 3 pages came back very much like the "furniture" pages would come back. First several pages were listings that only repeated the main word over and over again.....and there was not product listed for sale. I know that means the keywords were attached to boxes or walls or prims, and not on product.

Even if a person isn't aware of this.....they still don't see product. I needed to know colors - I needed to know styles - I needed to know prices - I needed to know if they had 20 items for sale, or 200. None of those pages told me that. I did not go to those stores - I didn't feel like attempting to find out.....if they were not sharp enough to tell me in advance.....they don't get my business.

About 3 pages in....I finally found product.

I don't care what anyone does with that first page. I think it is more damaging than helpful, in the long run. If your product doesn't show up on that first page (and I'm talking the very general category).....I really doubt that you are getting hard core shoppers......just pissing them off and aggravating them.

And I'm going to be very blunt here. I was over in another thread suggesting to someone that the method in which they proceed with their business will make an impression and an impact. That first page of furniture listings, and how they were set up.....left an impact on me. I had not pulled it up forever....because I don't deal with it....I concentrate on other search categories.....but it made an impact. Like I told the other guy....that's your choice of what impact and impression you want to make. If you make that choice.....you deal with it.....and can't plead that anyone should adjust their perceptions, thoughts, and feelings to make you feel better about it, or to rationalize it, or to justify it. Make your choices and deal with the reaction.

I tried the methods that people used to get on that first page a long time ago, so I am not talking to you about something that I have not done myself. I still have some stuff in store that has keywords and is not set to sale. I got bored, and didn't do it full-fledged. I choose not to go that route, after the impression I walked away with, here. I can remove almost all of the walls, and use those prims to set out Real Product, and label it effectively, and it will probably pay off much more productively, then labeling items that are not for sale.