Unverified Accounts Are Excluded From New Search

After noticing that one of my own alts was not listed in New Search, despite having the "Show In Search" option checked in her profile for the first two weeks of her life, I did some research to find out why. I took a random sample of residents who had sent me offline instant messages in November of last year (thank you, Gmail) and checked to see how many of them were listed in New Search. (By choosing IMs from November I guaranteed that all accounts in question are at least 3 months old, and had certainly exsisted long enough to be indexed by the search engine.)

FINDINGS

Out of the 20 residents I looked up, 12 were not listed in New Search, although they all appeared in the old Search > People tab, and were thus still valid accounts. 7 of the residents were listed in both Old and New search, and one resident had opted out of being in New Search. (When you look up his name in New Search, you actually see a message that says "This resident has chosen to hide their profile from search." His full profile is still visible in Search > People, however.)

So, most of the people I looked up did not come up in New Search, even though only ONE of them had explicitly opted out. My next step was to determine if there was any pattern in my results. There was: 11 of the 12 unlisted people were unverified accounts. Note that when I say "unverified account" I mean "account with no payment info on file" as listed in the resident's 2nd Life Profile. One of the unlisted residents had payment info on file, but had never used it to purchase anything from Linden Lab.

Five of the 7 residents who WERE listed had used payment info, and the remaining 2 had it on file, but never used it. I do not know the "age verification" status of any of the residents in this study, however it appears pretty clear that there is a strong relationship between your payment status on file and whether you appear in New Search. I also do not know how many of the info-on-file or info-used residents are Premium accounts instead of Basic accounts (I assume that all no-info-on-file accounts are Basic).

MISLEADING "RESIDENT PROFILE" LINKS

I have also observed a strange behavior in New Search: Sometimes when you search for an unlisted resident, instead of just getting the generic "Your search did not match anything" page, you'll get a page with a "Resident Profile: Name" link at the top, for the name you searched for. (This happened for 6 of the 12 unlisted residents in my study.) This appears to happen when other people who ARE listed in Search mention your name in their profiles, or if both components of the name show up in other searchable items. For example, if you search for the resident named "Kharma Destiny", she has the "Resident Profile" link at the top of the screen, but her profile does not appear among the people who have mentioned her in their profiles:


However, if you search for my business alt, Illana Ireton, a payment-info-on-file account who IS indexed by New Search, you see that she has both a "Resident Profile" link and a normal resident profile listing in the results:


There's something very important here: The "resident profile" link that shows up for some unverified users is a special link that opens the person's old-style Search > People profile in Second Life. It is NOT a link to an HTML profile like the ones that appear later on the page for indexed users, for example, in Illana's results, the link that's just labeled "Illana Ireton" goes to her HTML profile:
http://world.secondlife.com/resident/9fd94032-bf54-42f3-9adf-93a7ea247764

What this means is that the contents of Illana's profile are getting indexed by New Search, (2nd life description and full Picks text), while Kharma's are not. I wish I had some working examples on hand, but several times I have seen New Search generate a "Resident Profile" link for completely invalid resident names; I was searching for an item or service, and instead of getting a "no results found" message, I got a Resident Profile link for the term that I searched for- but the link did not work, as there was no resident by that name.

WHY THIS IS A PROBLEM

New Search is becoming the de facto search method, especially for new users, due to the very conspicuous search box integrated into the client window. Many stories here on the forums suggest that more and more people are using New Search, and it is having a noticeable impact (both positive and negative) on in-world businesses. Right now, unverified users are disenfranchised: Unverified business owners do not get the benefit of having their Picks indexed, and people trying to contact them might think they've been banned from the game, since New Search makes it appear as if the users don't exist. This also potentially is a problem for payment-info-on-file business owners who rely on their customers to add their favorite stores to their Picks, as Picks play an important role in determining your shop's spot in New Search results. All those picks in all those profiles of unverified users are currently being ignored by the system. A shame when you consider that the vast, VAST majority of SL residents are unverifieds.

After making my discovery I immediately verified my alt who wasn't indexed and had her buy some Lindens. And as expected, three days after I put my credit card info on file, she appeared in New Search. Coincidence?

so what do ya think?..they're eventually going to weed out unverified accounts all together?

~Lana

That leaves a bad taste in my mouth..theres always a "next step" ya know?..i wonder what the "next step" will be.

on the other hand, it keeps the system from being gamed.

which is the lesser of two evils? i'm not sure what LL thinks... but i know that if i was trying to market my store, i'd want my links to count towards my rankings, whether the avatar in question was verified or not.

in other words, i agree with you that it should be fixed to accomodate business owners.

More likely it was intentional to cut down on search load or something.

"A technical solution."

Unverified will probably live on but have one less thing going for them.

Just a guess of course.

If they are going to allow continued unlimited botting , I guess it makes sense from that angle as well.

The thing is, there are a lot of "no-payment-info-on-file" residents who are active users, and even business owners. Many simply don't have access to a credit card that SL will accept, and do their money trading on SLX or eBay. These folks are getting shafted here.

I was just searching around, and I cannot find any statistics that say how many payment-info-on-file/used residents there are are, versus unverifieds. The only statistic I can find is the number of Premiums (0.8% of the population), which I imagine is quite small compared to the total number of people with info on file.

Are we talking about unverified (as in age/ID) or simple "no payment info on file" accounts. I'm pretty sure age/ID verification is still optional and in "beta". Anyway, I just search for a less than two week old avatar that is "no payment info on file" and he showed up in my search. I was using the latest Windlight client.......which I assume is locked in the new search.

wouldn't be the first time they made a change without thinking through all the ramifications

Just payment info. Age verification is not (yet) visible on your profile.

ALSO: Could you PM me the name of this avatar, Peggy? I have never seen an unverified account that WAS truly indexed. The "resident profile" link at the top of the results page does not count, by the way.

I just used All Search and People in the RC, and a no payment on file resident shows up.

Is it a "resident profile" link or is the profile actually listed in the results (you can click the person's link and actually see an HTML profile).

Please PM me the name of an example, if you would.

If its working for some but not all .. I wonder why some are excluded.

I'm not sure what the hell you are asking. I searched for the avatar, got a result, clicked on his name, got his profile and IM'd him.........then from the same profile I made him my friend.

I have no reason to lie or exaggerate.......just relating an experience I had less than two hours ago. Using, I assume, the same search you are referring to.

Indeed, some show up, some don't. I thought it had to do with them having picks or not, (it isn't). I checked on a few 'No Payments'. I have no Idea.

Maybe only cool people with No Payment are allowed on Search.


*Edit. Maybe they have unchecked the box 'show in search'?

Are all the ones you searched for on your friends list? Does that change anything I wonder, it seems to for canceled accounts.

/me checks search quickly, doesn't find name

What links showed up for them? Any links other than the Resident Profile link?

I've been searching random people I'm seeing in the Botanical Gardens. I asked one if he could tell me if his box was unchecked (Ty Robb!) and he said No.

Gee, I really have no (2nd) Life.

Do you want me to PM you the one I found? (as I did for Wildefire)

Sorry, I just don't understand what you mean by 'other links'.

Wildfire, to clear up any obvious misunderstandings.... exactly which search box (specifically) should we search in to see if we also notice the discrepancies?

If you have a recent version of the SL viewer, there's a search box in the upper-right of the window where the connection stat bars used to be. You can also click the Search button in the viewer and select the All tab (all the way at the left), but not the All (old) tab. Compare your results to those in the People tab.

Isabeau PMmed me the names of two unverified residents. One of them simply isn't listed, while the other has both a "Resident Profiles" link AND a real HTML profile link.

Why is he different?

Well one thing different about him is that he's also the founder of a group. None of the other unverifieds in my study were group founders. I wonder if that is a trigger that causes search to index you, even if you're unverified?

I used the "people" tab, if that helps you.

Peggy, I got the impression that you didn't read my initial post very carefully, so I asked for some clarifications. Nothing to be upset about.

This is a no payment on file account .





This is a payment info verified file account.



The payment info on file account has a link to a html profile, the no payment info account doesn't.