Bye Bye Traffic Bots/Camping

Kitty,
The apples example is too simple, but okay. If I had a store with apples, I would make sure I would be found under different apple races (is that the word?), different languages, and more. So that in the end, my results would beat the people just saying "apples".

You just seem to be against optimalisation, and I really cannot understand that after the arguments given. But that is your opinion, and you are entitled to that. You are, however, not entitled to call those why have a different opinion people who sink lowest. Really, you are not.

Staying with the "Traffic Bots/Camping" threat title, there is of course "gaming" - which is *entirely different* to optimising.
Anything that subverts the intention of a search factor is gaming. It is dishonest, evil, etc. No right-thinking person should do it.
The use of traffic bots and campers to increase "traffic" as a search factor is just plain dishonest, wrong, evil, <other judgemental terms>.
Ditto for paying people to put stuff in the Picks.
Just because people do it or feel pressured to do is no justification for doing it.
Gaming search by subverting elements is creative in the same way that hiding a 16m ransom doughnut hole in the middle of a parcel is creative. I'm not saying that the degree of <judgemental term> is equal. I am saying that both are simply <judgemental term>.


Structuring content to assist a search function to get the best relevancy isn't gaming. It's simply doing the intelligent thing.

Yumi, I beg to differ with the first part. It is not about secrets, it is about how much effort you put in the research. The fact that for example Phil knows something that I don't, which makes him get back at 1 after I beat him for a day or two, just means he did a better research job, not that he knows a secret. Search is not some conspiracy theory.

Every Search is flawed, I agree. But so far no one came up with a better alternative.

Just one question: Is paying a company, to get my Real Life business ranking good in Google, also evil?
Make that two questions: Is using tools in a system, that are provided by the builder of that system, and approved of by the owner of that system, evil?

Until you actually find out what he found out, you can't be sure about that.

Even then, ability to "research" will be divided between people. I already mentioned people who have GSAs in their offices, or people who have friends working for Google. Phil, for example, in his "comprehensive guide.." post, talks about the default settings and weightings on a GSA - which means he's worked with one in a hosting capacity. That's a very unique advantage, which is a whole different ball game from simply having done more experiments than someone else with the SL search engine.

It's all up if you know how to use properly a search engine, i mean many ppl doesn't use Google (or any other search engine) in the correct way since they just put a term there and they expect that the search appliace would read into their minds.



Following the concept above... that happens if type "bed", but with few more keywords added to the research you would end up to the "perfect" match. In the giving example, if you are looking for a new bed, you won't type just "bed", you would type: bed price ....so you'll refine your searching query with mandatory terms, and you know that most of the result there will contains both term, the result is a whole bunch of web sites that currently sells beds and with their prices.

I use google almost every day to find "things" in real life, i ended up to find what i where looking for in the 100% of the cases. Obviously it's not just me, that why Google is the most used search engine... and NOT just to find what you call "informations".
If you use it just for this pourpose, it's ok, but the rest of the world is using it to find almost "anything".

your all a bunch of moralistic idiots.

there will always be ways to cheat the system. new search or not. traffic count or not.

so those of you that spend your whole lives on here debating how to make this an ethical place to live and run a business in are wasting your time and breath. lol

No to both.
- Not if you use the tools in the way intended by the owner of the system.

I'll lay a big bet that when LL designed the traffic tool, they did not do so with traffic bots and campers in mind.
I'll lay a big bet that when LL thought about using Picks as a measure of popularity, they didn't do so with paid-for Picks in mind.
I'll lay a big bet that when LL designed the land sales and subdivision system, they didn't do it with 16m doughnut plots in mind.
They provided tools, but some dishonest people abused those tools.


Use the tools provided by the owner of the system *in the spirit* that they were intended to be used.
If you don't feel that you have enough skill to use them optimally, then why not consider paying someone more expert to to it on your behalf.

Of course, but that I why I say that I do not believe in a conspiracy theory There are many things I do not know, but that doesn't make them secrets.

The fact he mentioned that, can also mean he read the many articles that were written about optimalisation. By Google, or third parties. But I do not disagree on the fact, there always will be people with an advantage. It will be the case with any system. Still that does not make it a bad system, and it doesn't make people using their advantage bad people.

Small compare: people who know maya inside out, have a big advatage over people just starting to build sculpts. Real life architects have an advatage over other house-builders. They should use that to be successful.

And in the overall context of the economy, all the paid picks and high paid classifieds in the world don't mean anything if it doesn't translate into sales. Unless we have trust fund babies running businesses, no business is going to keep that up unless they have the sales to back it up. While quality is subjective, sales are an indicator of quality. Poor quality = poor sales = eventually, no more business to pay for the pick.

Yes, it means you are bitter and hardened enough, for some reason, to have succumbed to the lowest common denominator of opportunism.

Yes, there will always be dishonest people.

There will always be people to point at and expose/harass/ridicule them.
Exposure, harassment and ridicule of the dishonest won't stop dishonesty. It just helps to ensure that the dishonest get a bum rep.

This isn't a fair comparison - people who know Maya well, will make _better_ sculpties. (And, yes, changing the way sculpties are made and edited might be a good thing too.) People who are RL architects will make more realistic houses (although that isn't universally an advantage, as some people like unrealistic ones). But in both cases, these benefit the buyer.

Someone who owns a GSA and uses their privileged knowledge of the platform to reach the top of Search, even though their products aren't so great (and I'm not saying this applies to Phil), doesn't give any benefit to the buyers of those products.

You are probably right too.
But that keeps us guessing what the spirit was. And nowhere I read from them, that they disagree on using bots. Neither about paying for Picks. Worse, not even about the donut method.

What bothers me the most, is that you keep referring to people using tools different from the way you like, dishonest (and worse). As for the donut people, I agree because they actually "harm" people with this method. But neither paying for picks, nor using bots, harms anyone. Not as long as they do not use false search arguments (like you look for low prim furniture and end up in a sex shop). I would really suggest Jojogirl's posting, as I cannot say it better then she does in her last paragraph.

High paid classified are honest. It's clear to all that the exposure ranking is paid for.
Paid picks and other subversions of the system are dishonest. It's not at all clear that the ranking is being paid for.

Google did well for itself by clearly differentiating paid listings from other listings.


People do buy inferior products when they can't easily find better products.
Sales are sometimes an indicator of advertising reach, social engineering, muppetry.

Of course it does not translate exactly What I am trying to say is that if you have an advantage, you would be a fool not to use it. In the world we live in, there will always be people with advantages, we will have to deal with it. So probably Phil will always rank higher then me

I already said that there is no secret that can't be uncovered. I also said that I used the word "secret" because 3ring used it in a different thread. I'll repeat that it meant that somebody knows something that s/he is keeping to him/herself. It's nothing more mysterious than that.

I do have an advantage but it's not what you described. I've never worked with a GSA, or anything remotely similar. I stated a long time ago that I was in the seo business for almost 10 years. That gives me the advantage of knowing the sort of things to look for. It's benefited everyone here who wants the benefit of it.

What should bother you is that you have to put words in my mouth.

My point is not that I don't like the way somebody uses a tool.
My point is that the abuse of a tool is dishonest.

I might not like they way that somebody uses the build and texturing tools to make something.
I would never describe a build that I didn't like as 'dishonest'.

That some people can't distinguish between optimizing and gaming/cheating, is a pity.

On the money again.!!

Someone here even mentioned that it "Crime" to try and optimise your results in ALL search! I mean really....what planet are you on? Where do these hobbos come from?

I hate camping bots and i dont't use them myself.....most of my immmediate competitors in my sector (some very prominent SL creator names are doing it) do use an army of bots and have been doing so for quite some time , its become a numbers game.! My ranking in "Places search" is around 12th-14th and i doubt that i generate many sales from people using that type of search. I don't begrudge the other businesses that are ahead of me for using their bots.....the game is what it is....and you have to optimise your visibility by using the tools or parameters that are allowed within SL. At the moment external clients (traffic & camping bots) are allowed and so cannot be regarded as a crime! I could have followed suit, but I chose instead to optimise my visibility in other search categories.

Business is business and its never going to be a level playing field just like in RL.

One can argue that the Fashion world within SL has always been manipulated .....how does one become a "elite or brand" fashion designer within SL? How do they maintain that elite status when the quality of their products becomes questionable? It's a known fact that friends who happen to be Fashionista type bloggers, influence public perception and promote their Fashion creator friends.....thats how they keep their statuses. Is that any fairer than bots or picks systems? ....whilst up and coming designers whose creations might be more original and superior go unnoticed because they don't have the marketing savvy nor the spin doctors working behind the scenes.!

Yes- Phil uses bots, but at the same time he's put in the hard work too...he has over a 1000 prim products up for sale!!!. He works hard on product whilst spending significant time optimising marketing tools. Is that really crime?

I suggest some of you might be more successful in SL in terms of sales, if you spend less time camped in RA whining about search optimisation and actually build more products of quality and try selling them!

Point of order:
Google didn't have a choice in the matter. Because of the merging of paid ads into the results by some PPC (pay per click) engines, new rules about it were brought in, and all the engines have to abide by them. The ads can still be merged into the organic results, but they must be marked, so that it can be seen which are ads and which are organic.

I'd love to know how you can possibly claim to know this, in a purely virtual world..

No one put words in your mouth then yourself Sling. The only issue may be the way words are understood. I use the available tools as I see fit. You call that abuse, hence dishonest. But the thing is, that YOU find it abuse. That is not a fact, but an opinion. Others in this thread think different, but they are not calling you names.

Bottomline: I respect everyones opinion. But as soon as they fall back to calling names, I loose that respect. You have every right to believe what you do, but so do I. What makes you and me different, is that I still see you as a right-thinking person

Come on Yumi, you can do better then that!
For heavens sake, you take 1 line out of a posting full of good arguments, ignore the rest? Rene is as far as I know a great content creator with some valid arguments here, so if you are going to react to that posting, the least you could do is consider those as well.

I'd say that the playing field is level, but some players are more skilled than others. And that's fair.