Bye Bye Traffic Bots/Camping

It has nothing to do with relevancy, it can't detect whether what you're targetting is relevant to your store or not. If you sell skins and target "clothes" for more exposure, search will happily let you do that, it has absolutely no understanding of what it's indexing.

Hence stating that the new search is nothing but a joke. In the old search you threw bots at the problem, in the new seach you throw picks at the problem. In neither case did you actually become more relevant, you just manipulated the ranking factors and rank higher without actually deserving to.

You just fake something else instead. Nothing changed.

Again, nothing changed.

That's the argument people used for traffic as well: "faking traffic doesn't matter because you actually need to deliver, people will realize it's all fake". It wasn't true for traffic, it won't be true for the new search (and you removed the visible way to tell who was faking and who wasn't so it'll actually be more effective now). Again, nothing changed.

No search engine can do that, Kitty. No search engine ranks places on relevancy - they rank pages on relevancy - so there's no point in moaning about it. It's the way it is.

Then all search engines are nothing but jokes. But we need search engines these days, so we live with any shortcomings that they have. Throwing something at the problem is sometimes necessary with search engines. The "problem" is that a relevant place is ranking too low, and it needs to be dealt with. You don't have a solution that satisfies you, but others do.

I don't get your logic there. If a place faked traffic to get high rankings, but can't deliver on the goods, people won't buy there. Why doesn't that work? If places rank high in the new search, but can't deliver, people won't buy. It works.

The only solution it to teach people that any search is skewed. Never use the top place. I never have found what I need there. Go down the page some and pick a place that actually has comments, not key words. I dont know why LL has decided to place classifieds in my places search. Automatically I wont visit places with classifieds.

It's far more susceptible to it, just not in obvious ways. Making it more complex to manipulate doesn't mean it's any better and again it's just a matter of time before all the tricks are common knowledge and instead of fighting over the top 25 spots (the number of results visible in the "old" Search / Places) they'll be fighting over the top 8 (new search) and there's no longer a way to instantly see who manipulated and who didn't.

15-20 prims would fit my definition of low-prim just fine. It suggests a certain level of actual prim detail as opposed to a 1 prim bench anyone can make by cutting and hollowing out a box.

Here's something for you: did you realize yet that you can use mall outlets to provide high value linkbacks to your main store which count for far more than any avie's profile pick?

There are so many ways to manipulate the new search it's simply ridiculous. The fact that people haven't caught on yet doesn't make it a better system, it's nothing but a matter of time before they do and things will be far worse than traffic because it's far easier to manipulate the new search in your favour than the old one.

I think this is unreasonable. Why shouldn't you use ETD or Gurl6 if they were number one for hair? I can't remember which one of them is in the top spot but they are both up there. I think that looking for a narrative and looking at the objects on the parcel to see different goods is a good way to identify places that are not just grasping at straws.

Actually Ive never used either place but I do get aasked where I get my hair. So placing is irrelevant.

Yes, but like picks farming, they all cost money, it's just that the outlay is different. Mall outlets... great, get a mention on another indexed parcel...but how much is it going to cost you to get it? Most good places are going to charge at least 4L/prim.

My point is that these are quality places that generate traffic because they have what people want. Ignoring them because they are at the top is misguided. If you've seen their things and move on, fine - but it doesn't make their placement illegitimate.

I never said they are illigitimate, simply irrelevant. You can thank LL for all this craving traffic for the long gone payments for it. They simply are irrelevant.

If everyone plays by the rules then a search engine delivers, yesh. But people don't play by the rules, it's far more profitable to exploit at the expense of others.

The solution to a more relevant search isn't to change the manipulation methods, but to punish the manipulation. If someone entices people to add their store to picks or in any way tries to manipulate search, LL should just delist them from search.

If that were true, the old search would have been relevant since those who faked traffic would only be able to continue to do so if they delivered. Faking traffic worked because it resulted in higher sales. Manipulating the new search works for the exact same reason, more exposure means more sales or you yourself wouldn't care about your ranking.

You said to teach people that search is skewed, which is an attack on legitimacy. I gave you two examples of where it would NOT be skewed and produce a proper result. The result is clearly relevant, just not to you since you don't shop there. Fine. But to someone new? Search has produced a helpful result.

And this is a good point, to not get too wrapped around the axle about placement if you've done a good job in describing your goods. The remaining challenge is still in marketing so that your results improve.

All I know, is that as a BUYER, I want to be able to type in say, 'medieval' and find places that sell things of that genre.

If I, instead, find stores that sell nothing even fainly medieval, or very little of it, but have been given more prominence than 'The Marvellous Medieval Merchant's Mall', which is a sim of dedicated medieval goodness (yes, I did just make that name up, btw)....

well, I am going to be pretty peeved.

No, no, no. Didn't you hear Phil??

I disagree, the top place is often relevant to the search.

Ive done quite well over the years using my tactics. Im sorry if you think you were attacked buy claiming that traffic is relevant is your idea I also happen to help many new people and will help them where I can. I simlply post my opinions, like everyone else. You may agrre with me or disagree but they are all opinions

Nothing wrong I can see in new search, it finds everything I look for and my advertising just fine.

I'm not personally attacked I'm just arguing the point that telling new people to ignore the top spot is not necessarily wise counsel. I think it is unwise.

And fake traffic matters a lot when the grid is collapsing and people can't actually buy anything or even login with 64,000 online and way to many of them are bots.
It might finally be fair when every store selling a dozen items has 10 bots in a box above it.

I'm an unapologetic idealist at heart.
At the same time I recognise reality. I have to rationalise a lot

I can see that many people are greatly exercised by the 'unfairness' of the use of optimisation techniques to gain higher placings in the new Search.
Search Engine optimisation (SEO) is a fact of life on the InterWab. We either realise it or we don't. I take everything on the Net with a huge dose of salt. I know from long experience of looking over client shoulders that even moderate salt is not the norm.

I don't have a problem with the use of SEO techniques within SL Search. In general, search engines depend on delivering real relevancy in order to draw eyeballs to the paid listings.
One would hope (my idealism popping up!) that LL would pay attention and reduce the value of factors that are obviously being gamed. The problem for us is that the LL Search is a monopoly and does not (yet) have a competitor.

SEO is normal. It's an industry that is mega times bigger than pipsqueak SL. People spend and earn a great deal of money on it. The best SEO providers spend little and earn a lot. Live with it.

I for one welcome our new SEO overlords.
-- because (eventually) it means "Bye Bye Traffic Bots/Camping"

SL is a social environment.
Green dots on the map *should* indicate people that one might potentially interact with.
Green dots that are unattended avatars are just plain wrong.
One of the worst things that LL ever did was to put the text "Popular Places" in front of our eyeballs.

Undeserving destinations appearing at the top of listings is SL isn't a huge problem. That would be totally in line with people's experience of the very much wider Net. It's normal. People just have to learn that from experience.

Then you need to prepare yourself for frequent bouts of being peeved, or learn to use a search engine a lot better than that

No it's not far more susceptible to it. There are more things that can be done, but nothing is as affective as traffic.

Fair enough, but 15 to 20 prims not my idea of low prim anything.

I realised a lot more than you imagine, Kitty, but what makes you think they are high value links? In what way high value?

First, there are no rules. Second, your "at the expense of others" is flawed logic. You're assuming that every place that naturally ranks lower for a given searchterm deserves to be ranked lower, and that every place that naturally ranks higher for a given searchterm deserves to rank higher. That's simply not true.

Not so. Bots cost nothing, so the traffic rankings would be according to bots. More exposure only means more sales if the place has stuff that people actually want to buy. All kinds of ranking 'adjustments' work or not according to that.

One question and then a few comments:

In order for picks to influence search results, is it necessary for the accounts to actually be logged in. Does duration and frequency of login time affect how much influence an residents picks have on search results?

If the answer to all of the above is no then at least one good thing can be said about the new search engine. If an account does not have to be logged in we may begin to get a more accurate snapshot of the online population count as afk campers and campbots will reduce eventually into insignificant numbers.

Yep I agree, if we allow such fragrant use of bots we might as well leave all avatars standing where you leave them for logoff too.