Seemingly irrelevant New Search results?

Have you ever done a keyword search with New Search and gotten results back that didn't appear to have anything to do with what you searched for? I'm not talking about the casinos or camping spots that spam search with a bunch of keywords that have nothing to do with their venue: I mean, you search for "skins" and a result will come up and the word "skins" appears nowhere in the place's name, description, associated group, owner profile, or list of objects on the parcel.

I've seen this quite frequently with a number of different keywords- I've even used 'view source' to see if there's hidden metadata in the results pages, but have found nothing. What causes these sites to come up in search results? (Often on the first three pages.)

I have had that happen. Even putting in exact name, if I know it, will give me some funky results. Search is no friend of mine anymore..........but of course I keep trying.

The truly disconcerting thing is when a place that appears to have NOTHING to do with the keyword, and doesn't even pretend to (they're not using misleading keywords), appears pages before places that DO have something to do with the topic and are keyworded appropriately. I just haven't been able to make sense of this one, but I'm hoping there's something simple I'm missing.

That happens to me all the time. It is very annoying.



The only thing that I can think of is that the keyword is parts of other keywords (i.e., keywords: "Fast ankles" - turning up in a search for tank), or part of that part where people's picks are counted also - and the unlikely chance that the words that those people put with those links (as that is something that can be changed by the profile user).

Oh that and SL is messed up again.

sure. inbound links. changing the keyword in picks to something else will lead to that parcel coming up for a keyword you wouldn't expect.

I've had this happen, and I always assume that the description USED to have that keyword in it, but it has been changed since the searh index was last updated.

Otherwise I would have to assume it was a bug, and we know THAT can't be.
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Thank-you. I said that, but even I can't pierce what I wrote and see that. So glad you wrote the idea in a readable, short and concise sentence. Too bad my first language is English

/me wonders if it's trying to be smart and using some kind of googly thesaurus..

So.. maybe.. if you were shopping for a new vendor and searched for 'server' you might get hits on a restaurant that has nekkid 'waiters'..

You might be on to something there. Time to enlist the alt army for some tests.

One thing you can be sure of - it's not a bug. The 'wrong' result belongs there. If the word doesn't exist is the html page, and the page hasn't been changed very recently, then it's down to inbound link text (the Picks that were mentioned), which is THE most powerful ranking factor.

I said it's not a bug, but it *is* a flaw. Not in the Google system, but in LL's use of it. People can alter the text in their Picks, as was mentioned, but they are not likely to change it to something completely different, so that a place is ranked for 'skins' when it has nothing to do with any kind of skin at all. Many 'wrong' results are likely to be because the place moved, or changed what they do, and the people with it their Picks aren't yet aware of it. So you finish up with places, and even empty land, ranking for things that used to be on the land, but aren't any more.

Example:
A place ranks well for skins, because quite a few people have it in their Picks, and the Picks text contains the word 'skins', and because it is set to show in search. The place moves to another location, the land is sold to someone else, who sets up a shop on it. S/he changes the name and description of the land, and sets it to show in search. All the old Picks still have the old name and description, so the new place is ranked for searchterms that it shouldn't rank on any more. The search algo is right. It's the way that SL uses it that's wrong.

Over time, it should work itself out as people deal with their Picks when they discover the move, but there will always be places ranking for searchterms that they should no longer rank for, because places move and shut down.

A lot of good points but I think that many picks have absolutely nothing to do with the parcel it's on, because the pick is of a friend/lover/etc. So what may show up in a plot for a nude beach resort has love poetry and the person's name. The beach resort moves and an industrial goth punk club appears, and it's still got love poetry as an inbound link. Someone looking for a term that happens to be in the poem is going to find an industrial goth punk club in the results and wonder how that got there.

I agree, definitely a flaw.

Yes, I've seen a ton of "and this is my lover Tim, Hi Tim!" with a link to, say, Greenies. right, "not likely to change it to something completely different" - heh

That's also true.

For the places moves/changes, they could consider the possibility of changing the data in people's Picks to reflect the changes, but that would screw up a lot of 'lover' type Picks, so they couldn't do it. The real flaw is that LL is using a search system in a way that it wasn't designed for. It was designed to rank pages, according to their content and to the interlinking between pages. LL is creating pages for the purpose of being ranked, and counting Picks that are not links like links on pages that point to other pages. It's simply the wrong search system for SL. They can squeeze it to fit, but it can't fit as well as what it was designed for.

Agreed. They need to add another profile tab for featured friends, and remove the ability to change the description and title of a pick. I have made this suggestion to the search team, but God knows what has happened. We have never gotten any real feedback about our ideas.

Have you also noticed that if you do a search for "skin" it will not return anything with "skins" in it. The new search is very poorly implemented.

/me takes 10 seconds to try searching for skin and gets a page full of hits with "skin" in the title.

Maybe you're not using it right?

But did it return any results that said "skins" plural that did not also include the word "skin" singular?

Quick Q about Picks...Does Search/All search the NAME of the pick, or the TEXT of the pick, or both?

both, I believe.

Cristalle, I just looked for a JIRA with this suggestion, and I didn't see one. I think you are right, I think people's lovers/friends picks are one thing messing up search results ... are you up for creating a Jira bug report for it?

You can call it a bug, if you entitle it something like "Text in friends picks is messing up search", and lower down suggest the solution of a featured friends tab. I think bugs get more attention than enhancement requests

You'd also want to add a link to SVC-1011, the New Search Meta-issue.
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I didn't bother to jira it since I sent it straight to search-feedback. But how effective that is... meh, I'd think the wisdom of it wouldn't take one eye to see. But then, if you don't take the time to read people's profiles or play the game, it might be lost indeed.

Shiny new jira to vote for.... http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-1704

Voted, thanks!

I'm impressed by the excellent description. Well done.

My vote is in.

Thanks. We'll see what (doesn't) happen...