Traffic Bots Against the TOS of LL?

I want a badger like that that will be a therapy bot, will keep me company, listen to all my woes when I am stressed out and say often that is "You're wonderful Artist." and "Very Interesting, How does that make you feel?"

Spam is spam, regardless of whether the result of it is beneficial to searchers or not, and the *only* thing that makes something spam is a search engine. Each engine decides for itself what is and isn't spam and, so far, the SL search engine people haven't made any such statements, and provided no guidelines for anyone to be in contravention of, so we're not talking about spam here.

I didn't suggest that my products are "so superior". I used my store as a practical example of how the population is better served by the use of bots. I also said that most places don't make utter crap. (However, I do think that my products are "so superior" to most low prim products, because customers tell me so, and from what I've seen, but that wasn't the point.)

What's the alternative? Getting rid of traffic bots and camping means having stores show high in the rankings simply because they are on the same parcel as a club, for example, and not because anyone visits the parcel because of the stores. They camp on the club's traffic. It would also mean that stores that use models and functional bots would rank higher than they merit, even if the models and bots not are there for that very purpose. As long as traffic is used as the only ranking factor, there is no satisfactory alternative. Using traffic as the sole ranking factor is what's unsatisfactory - not the use of traffic bots and camping.

Listen, we all have fans.

coco

`

This is what is known as the :

"Everyone else games traffic, so I can to" excuse.

Not all of us.

I'm a fan, SuezanneC

You are quite the analytical thinker.

yaheveryone

if the op's product is so good. then why would they need bots? you would think word of mouth. and the classifieds would suffice?......... ??

I don't think the OP has products., but if you mean why would any store use bots, it's been answered lots of times in the various bot threads.

I don't think the OP has products., but if you mean why would any store use bots, it's been answered lots of times in the various bot threads. It's like asking, why would a business want to increase sales. Word of mouth abd classifieds doesn't reach most people who use the Places tab search or the All search.

I just wish LL would sort it out but as always they drag their heels and are more interested in fixing whats not broken than sitting down properly with the residents and resolving long running issues

when I started SL it quickly came apparent to me that the smart people don't go to areas or shops in SL that have large traffic. the only reason I see people complaining about 'gaming' is that they want the money, and if that's not the case then spent more time teaching people that high traffic doesn't necessarily mean quality.

I think it's more complicated than that. Usually in these threads (and certainly in the "future of traffic" discussions that LL had for a while), some folks will make the argument that they really, really need to see which clubs are "popular" by getting the Search results all pre-sorted in descending order of Traffic.

Of course, this is total bullshit: That hasn't worked for years because of Traffic- and Dwell-gaming, so anybody who at this late date decides which venue to visit based on Traffic is quite completely clueless.

But there are lots of clueless people, and exploiting them is what's really behind the "Save teh Traffix" arguments: the pro-Traffic folks have either stocked their own skybox with a surplus Pentium 3-worth of bots, or they're in some obscure Search term backwater where their existing "naive" un-botted traffic is sufficient to get them a good rank (for the nonce).

One thing for which Phil deserves credit is the fact that he's against Traffic, despite running trafficbots. Yes, removing traffic would increase the impact of other, less common SEO techniques, so it's not necessarily philanthropy, but frankly I don't care about that: anything that gets rid of Traffic as a factor in Search ranking is a win, in my view.

I agree with you as for us we have an average around the 11000 a day for traffic here atm, and yes i do run 2 BOTs to handle the different group invites and the groups as i cant be here 24/7. We have shops on our land, affiliate vendors and rented shops and we see reasonable sales from them tho it certainly doesn't cover the tier or what we give away each week in prize monies etc.

We own just over half a mainland sim and have just purchased our own sim yesterday, but we are lucky in many ways as we are here to promote a RL business and get all the tax advantages like no VAT as we have a VAT number and moneys spent here is set as advertising costs, where else can i get worldwide advertising 24/7 for 7/800 USD a month

For me promoting my business here in SL is about ensuring I or my wife are available on our land to talk and interact with our visitors as much as we can be, adding value to our area by holding classes on various things and taking more an altruistic approach with everyone where we can.

Maybe thats crazy who knows but this method has served me well and helped our RL business grow via SL. So for us slow growth is OK, yes i want to maybe break even at some point in SL or even make a small profit, but if i don't then fair enough, i will just have to work harder on the RL businesses to pay for here

But thats my SL and I am happy with that, but others want vast profits here and will always go to any lengths to achieve it at the expense of others but thats just Human Nature

Yup! It's business, and of the most predatory kind.
Do anything that is not explicitly illegal. Pay no heed to anything else apart from your own welfare.

These gaming threads could be summed up as
One side: Gaming 'popularity' metrics by is selfish and wrong
Other side: It's not illegal so we'll do it until it becomes illegal

The only way to resolve the discussion is for LL to explicitly make the subversion of Search illegal.

How do they do that? If they went back to restricting alts that could help in terms of traffic bots but what one person sees as subversion another person doesn't and whatever system they come up with someone is going to cry foul.

I can't recall any significant number of people saying that they "need" to see which places are popular.
It's a case of people looking at search results ranked by traffic and wanting those traffic figures to actually be a measure of popularity. It's completely intuitive.



It's another parallel with spam. Clueless people who buy spamvertised products ensure that spamming will continue.
The 'obscure term', unbotted people are operating in what was clearly the intention of LL in introducing dwell and then traffic.





Removing traffic because of subversion by the nakedly greedy would be a less than excellent move.
In RL, we are aware of 'popular' places and events not just because of publicity but because of the crowds gathering there.
People can be seen to be voting with their feet. SL traffic was (intended to be) the equivalent.


If LL cease listing traffic, then they will have taken away something useful rather than whacking the perps who are destroying its usefulness.
However, if LL don't have to soul to invest in doing the right thing, then I have to admit that getting rid of the thing is the only option.
Of all the scams going on in SL, traffic gaming is only surpassed by ad-farming in its visibility.

That's just your opinion, which isn't shared by everyone. According to my experience, it's a very small minority opinion.

There's no need for that in this thread, Sling. I'm hoping that we're trying to keep it civil, and just discuss the subject rationally, rather than judgementally. I can't speak for others, of course, but I can definitely say that I personally pay a great deal of heed to things other than my own welfare. I give refunds when they are not asked for or expected, I hang about in the store much of the time, offering help when it's needed, I make things specially for people - usually variations of what I already have, and all sorts of things like that. The fact that I also choose to increase sales in ways that are acceptable the owners of this world doesn't mean that I look out for #1 to the detriment of other people.

To put it another way:-

One side: Attempting to increase sales is selfish and wrong.
Other side: It's acceptable to the system owners, so we'll do it until they change their minds.

I give up with you, Sling. You want a free-for-all in this thread? You'll get it back with interest if you take it that way. I'm even tempted right now, but I'll hold off a while to see if you can possibly force yourself to discuss it without throwing in the judgemental poison.

No, I don't see it like that at all. By removing Traffic from Search ranking, LL just recognizes that it's in the networking business, and the universal rules of network scaling apply: if one wants one's network to scale, one goes well out of one's way to *distribute* load, not to encourage it to focus. That's how Internet backbone routing survives, and how circuit-switched voice networks kept from crashing every Mother's Day for decades.

Focusing traffic doesn't work--it *can't* work--in a network that's scaled larger than the beta-test toy that we have now.

People cry foul for all sorts of things. Its up to the AR staff to decide on the merits of the case.
It don't matter in the least that a Pick-Buyer does not see the activity as subversion. All that matters is that LL instruct their staff that it is a subversion to be stamped out.

All LL have to do is state specifically that gaming of search ranking is contrary to TOS.
They don't have to provide an exhaustive list of all known and foreseen gaming techniques. They just need to provide a few examples to illustrate the principle. Traffic bots and pick buying are obvious examples.
For these, LL can either proactively wander around or wait for the ARs.
Would their be a tsunami of ARs? Not if they gave a weeks warning. Phil, for example, says that he will stop using traffic bots as soon as LL ban their use. Presumably that would apply to any other traffic-gaming method that LL explicitly ban.
Hopefully there would exist a Linden who would simply say to a serial gamer something along the lines of "Lokit bozo. You know what the principle is. Cut it out or we'll (at least) drop you from all search listings forever."



What would be important is that LL are explicit about the principle of forbidding gaming. This gives some help to a person who detects some new exploit.

Yes, you're right.

You're right in the long-term.
However I don't really believe that it would take such a lot of effort to smack down the screamingly obvious exploits going on in this test-toy.

To put it another way:-

One side: Attempting to increase sales *by any means* is selfish and wrong.
Other side: It's *not forbidden by* the system owners, so we'll do it until they change their minds.

Fixed for you!!

Yet on these very forums people were offering to swap picks with each other, is that any different to paying for picks? The reason for the offer was because of the implication of how picks now counted. The gaming will still exist. If people choose to put picks in their profile because they're being paid for it then that's their choice, nobody forces them to do that. The same as if someone wants to boost a friends store, that's their choice.

All over the internet webpages have affiliate programs whereby people carry someone's advert for the chance of reward, that's how things work. LL have a referal program whereby people get paid if a friend signs up.

You make a lot of anti this and that statements but I haven't seen you come up with a workable solution, and that's what this discussion needs, alternatives to the current ranking system.

Alphabetical sort would be unpopular and lead to a lot of silly parcel names and to rank by how much someone pays would lead to squeals, although it would be harder to game such a ranking order, it would still be possible because people would use false keywords.