Today's thread on bots

Now if you'd engaged your brain before writing that, you might have even approached the realms of making some sense. But since you chose not to do that, I'll enlighten you. No need to thank me - I like to help people who are incapable of figuring out the simple things

My bots are necessary for me to compete on a level playing field and, since others were doing it in my field long before I came along, I totally defend my use of them. Do I want to use them? Definitely not. I'd prefer that they weren't necessary - which brings us nicely to part two

If the Places tab doesn't exist, then there is no need for the bots, and I'd prefer not to have to use bots. That's why I pushed for the removal of the Places tab, making traffic useless for search.

Oh - if you're thinking about me saying that traffic isn't needed for that All search, well... it isn't.

See? It was very simple. I hope that helps, but if there's anything that isn't yet clear, please feel free to ask

To be honest i think many business owners using Camping bots are completely out of touch with the game itself. It's a known fact, that the most common search tab being used right now is new ALL search tab, especially amongst newer players. I can back that claim up as i'm conducting an inhouse survey using my models to ask "how they found us" ....it's still not yet complete, as i want to get a larger sample than the current 200 replies i have to date. For my shops at least, "ALL search" and "word of mouth referrals" are the 2 most popular answers and I have 15 options listed.

I see Bot Camping as a wasted effort and doesn't really yield any big dividends if that's your sole business strategy....well not anymore.!! The same applies to classified advertising unless you happen to be placed in the top 8-10 of any particular keyword. Both categories have pretty much lost out to the new ALL search option.

I think Phil uses camping bots as a form of spread betting, so his company appears high in all of the SL search categories.....you can't fault him for that, it's good business sense.
One of my immediate competitors has an army of bots spread along the bottom of lake -lol. Quite funny really.......won't make much difference to her sales though. Just looks silly...especially when found by geniune AV's.

Personally i'd like to see the end of camping bots and a change in the way traffic is being calculated to something that is not worth gaming.

Yesterday was quite revealing (maybe) concerning the Places tab. The night before they had a problem when running the daily traffic routine, so that some places had 0 traffic yesterday - mine was one of them. They eventually blogged about it, but didn't own up to what actually happened. I got my information from live support before they blogged.

Later in the day, the traffic numbers were rectified, but while mine was at 0, sales were poor. I can't actually say that the 0 traffic caused it because sales are varying a lot lately from day to day, but my sales certainly picked up a lot after the number was rectified. I'm of the impression that ranking high in the Places tab is still quite effective.

i concur with Phil. high traffic = higher sales (or at least higher visitors (use visitor counter to see for yourself).

Different types of businesses i guess? My survey to date doesn't show a meaningiful percentage for my shop being found via the "Places Tab".I do appear in the Places tab somewhere between places 10 to 15 for many of my keywords....so i am visible despite only having 1/10th of the traffic that the top gamed listings have.

Your Places rankings might be the reason. There is no doubt that the top few places in any search results get the most traffic, and when people find things that satisfy them, they will buy and stop looking any further.

I know that some people here say that they refuse to go to places when the traffic figure is too high, and stuff like that, but they are people who know about traffic. I believe that the vast majority of residents aren't so traffic savvy, and wouldn't care less even if they were.

I use invisible vistor counters at all my shops and even at Mall spots to monitor traffic trends. Quite useful at malls....enables you to detect a change of Mall strategy very quickly if readings go abnormal.

I have a chinese noodle camping machine (real camping) at one of my shops...i turned it off for 3 days. Its traffic listing for that shop fell off the map.....it did not effect my sales any as it has high ALL search listing.

I accept the last part of your analysis, but I'm not convinced the impact of high traffic listing...at least not for my businesses. I don't plan to change my strategy either....and I couldn't anyway. My commerical lands are on SIM's whose covenant states you can only use 1 camper per 1024 sq/m.

With LL about to make some serious changes to the search system, it may be that the effectiveness of pure traffic will change. They were asking us for stats that we'd like, as well as traffic, saying that they weren't for the search system, but then commented that they could be used for the search system. My guess is that they will use more criteria for the Places tab in the not too distant future.

Anything that neutralises the effect of camping bots in the long term is good thing in my opinion.

As far as you & others using Bots....i'm not going to get all humpty about it....each to their own. The game metrics change all the while and its up business owners to move with those changes made.....no point having your head buried in a sand pit, won't help your business much.

Yep. Then I can turn my laptop off for the first time in months

The question is....does the increased sales due the use of Camping bots match the replacement cost of a laptop should it frazzle due to burn out?

In other words, people who use traffic bots count on residents to be ignorant and, through dishonest means, aim to exploit that ignorance in the hopes of turning a profit. Like the folks who con senile nursing-home patients into signing all their assets away. Classy.

Nope. "In other words" it means that most people are sensible enough not to cut their noses off to spite their faces. The clue is in the last 8 words of mine that you quoted

Bingo! The number of people who will turn away from a location because of bots are much fewer than those who don't give a damn. I don't like camping bots, but I'm not naive enough to expect someone who is seeing the benefits of their use to suddenly pack them away because a few people on a forum tell them it's a bit unethical.

Someone on a thread said they'd seen an 800% increase in business, I mean come on, they're hardly likely to take that on the chin just to be ethical. Market forces and all that.

Well that's true; after all, such a change would require a measure of integrity.

And such judgements would require a measure of intelligence - clearly absent in your post

Business and integrity are hardly happy bed fellows. I won't use camping bots myself, but that's my choice. Until LL find a way of banning them and justifying such a ban by pointing out that they really do use up resources to the detriment of others (something I haven't seen them say), then it's futile to expect people who are making money on their back to stop using them.

Well yes - I'm certainly not expecting posts in a forum to change anything. But, the forum is a useful vehicle for expressing dislike of something. Contrary to what some believe, disliking something requires no special effort.

I.E., yeah, we got to put up with it. But we're allowed to complain anyway.

True - nothing but contempt in my post.

Although, I find it curious. Your behavior has been described as lying, cheating, and less-than-ethical - and until now your attitude has been somewhat of a "sigh - mea culpa" variety. But when couched in terms of a lack of integrity - though basically synonymous with the above-listed terms - you object. Why?

Oh I most certainly agree, it's a perfect platform to voice discontent and I fully support that principle, I'm certainly not saying stop complaining about them, I find their use distasteful too, but we need more meat to our complaints and that's only going to be forthcoming from Linden Lab and I don't want a decision to be forthcoming from them that takes a hammer to crack a nut, we've seen enough of that, we could very well end up in "be careful what you wish for" territory.

I'm awaiting the minutes from Thursday's LL traffic future meeting, Jeska mentioned something about being able to get metrics about bots, but I can't remember exactly what she said.

Honestly, the only way i barely think LL can control this is to create or make a brand new SIGN UP of every SL user, with such mechanism that nobody can subscribe more than 2 or 3 avatars for the most.
this quantity of "residents" is a fake. I will be pleased to sign up again, make myself premium as i am right now, and continue my living as usual in SL.
But, each day that passes with this plague is one more day i am starting to think that the first bots created for making money in camps and farmsbots are them: LL

I'm waiting as well. I joined the group for about three days, but I found the group-chat conversation impossible to follow. It's like there were 8 completely different conversations going on at once; or perhaps it was like some kind of open-mike abstract-impressionist art piece in which people posted random things for no reason. Ah well.

People who use those words to describe my behaviour don't think things through. They imagine things, based on their own personal desires and preferences, and believe them to be true - just like you do. I've never agreed with, or accepted, any of it. Why would I be any different now?

wow 800%...had not idea......maybe they only made 1 sale a day before and now they make 8

Well there are enough people using BOTS, so i guess there must be some rewards.

It's not part of my business model for me to ever try it.....i could see the use in having them to model shapes & skin on rotation stands, but at the moment I'm paying real AV's to do our modelling who double up as in-store sales assistants. They have proved invaluable even to the sales line.....especially when converting those 50/50 type customer into actual sales.....i plan to expand the team in that area.

I sill maintain that new ALL search is the mostly wide use search method and the percentage use on Places & Classifieds search has this suffered through it's introduction.

Also a change in my strategy at this stage is foolhardy, as i'm almost certain that sooner or later the parameters for Places search will changed by LL