How do you search for Stores Inworld?

And what you want is delusional. It's not going to remove the actual task of shopping, no matter how hard you try.

Not if they actually sell hair. But you aren't bothering to see if that's actually happening, are you? You make your judgment and then ignore, but don't realize that the mall (of which there are many in SL) has hair for sale. How is some small beginning hairmaker who has a shop in a mall ever going to be found if the mall is invalidated from the results just for being a mall?

If you hate malls, that is your issue. But if they actually sell hair there, they do belong in the results.


I'm sure it won't quite ever be finished.

FWIW I don't think keyword stuffing is the biggest winner in search gaming. I suspect it's picks gaming that wins. I once duplicated Phil's listing on a test parcel (slightly more than half a sim) and didn't manage to do better than page 11 when searching for "furniture" and not a lot better searching for "low prim furniture". I also eliminated parcel size as a significant contributor by doing the experiment on a 4096, and it fared almost as well as the half sim.

I also think LL uses a product of weightings rather than a sum, and this makes gaming more than one way far more successful than gaming just one way.

Are you actually suggesting that bad@azz even belongs in the same list (for *hair*) as ETD? Who did you say was delusional?

Yes, I've been to bad@azz and found their hair selection. Have you?



I don't hate malls. And bad@azz isn't a mall.



Last time I checked they appeared in search *five times* before *any* of the hair sellers people actually like.

/327/b2/330416/1.html

What do you have at stake in the deception?

Well that search you ran was over 6 months ago. Some of the top users were the same when I ran it but I actually visited the #1 listing and they had hair. I didn't see bad@zz in my top 10 but I found them on page 2. I went and looked, and it was pathetic. However, they had some hair, so they do belong in the results, but they shouldn't be this high for this term. You're right, it's not a mall, it's a "megastore."

In the same vein, ETD also sells clothes, but it's not their forte. How should it rank for clothing? Considering that it appears that she does nothing to be found in search, I can't imagine that she ranks well for that either, but still - the question is, what is the right balance for places that sell multiple items and are not specialty shops?

From the example that I used....(and I did not search for furniture or hair).....looks like picks far outweighs any keyword stuffing. That little store did not keyword stuff, in fact they had way more space on their item descriptions to do better legitimate labeling, and didn't use it. They were on page one, with the picks practice....above the keyword stuffers.

Tell them that it is nonsense to be worried about that. We have every right to use descriptive words on our products, and it helps the shopper find what they need to find.

Problem with those who use practices that are deemed "unfair" or "unethical"...is that it often times results in issues for those who are using the tools the way they should be used.

Natalia - I'm not sure what you mean by "lowering your listing" because you are setting your items, with a good description, to show in search. That shouldn't lower your listing.

As for "ethical stuffing".....doesn't matter what phrase you use to call it....but describing your product effectively is fine, and should be taken full advantage of.

If I want to show in a search that I don't have product for.....I just make the product. If you want to be picked up in shoes or skin.....either make it, and set it in your shop....or offer space to a creator that makes it, and make sure they label it good...then set it in your shop. That's going a bit far....just depends on how bad you want it.

You can glance above in this thread, and notice that the All search is not the end all be all.....and that there are many other ways that people get to your store. Referrals are awesome. You can't beat those.

That's very true.

An interesting thing about Search is that if you over-stuff a certain word, it lowers your place in the listing. For example, if I put the word "hair" in every hair I am selling, then click "Show in search", it drops my place in Search dramatically. I guess there's something there to prevent stuffing.

I always did like stuffing with turkey though ;P

I saw that from my side too. The business took time to build gradually, I think mainly from word-of-mouth and people bringing friends.

Personally, Ive always asked other people when I see something I liked on them (or do a sneaky Inspect ). So if someone made a good product, it's great publicity for the maker. That's how it should work.

Search may bring some people in, but if it's a trick to lure traffic, people will just leave. And they will remember the store name too.

If someone came to my store because of Search, but didnt like my hair, I dont think they would be mad at me. We all have diff tastes. But if I put "shoes" in my listing and I dont really sell shoes, that may be a whole other story.

There is one case where Search may be helpful: When a business moves. Unfortunately, LM's cant follow them. Im in that situation right now

Thank you so much for your kinds words. Believe me, knowing that someone likes what I make is the best feeling in the world. Makes all those late nights worth it

Sadly, putting a good description inside your product, then clicking "Show in search" actually lowers your place in the Search listing. But let me qualify that though: it happens when you sell a lot of the same things, like "hair". I think Search senses over-stuffing.

But you are absolutely right. I don't think most people find my store from the All Search. I think it's helpful if you know the name of a place, but dont have an LM handy.

As a little bitty store owner myself, I'd love to know how they did that too!!!!!

I was looking in ALL Search last night myself and found the best feature over the Places search the ability to find the product I want and press Go. Never having used ALL Search much, due to being on my old viewer most of the time, I see what you mean about some (most in what I saw) listings just being a list of generic keywords.

I need to read the sticky on how to use keywords, but *I'm assuming the listings are showing the words that the shop/place, etc. owner has put in his/her picks and classified tabs? Do any of the online shopping places feed into that also? This area of marketing is very confusing to me.

*ETA: And store parcel description. I keep forgetting that because I've not yet had a store on my own land

If you look at some All Search top-rankers for some common terms, you'll see that they blatantly stuff like it was going out of fashion.

It actually will be out of fashion soon, as LL have blogged that they will *begin* to lower ranking of stuffed pages by some formula unpublished.


If stuffing currently lowers rank, then a clever misdirection would have been pulled by the top-ranking stuffers.
It would mean that they had found a way to increase rank that more than negated any negative outcome from their massive stuffing.

Natalia - I've just not heard that there is a control in place for stuffing, yet. It appears to be running alive and well in the general searches.

The more stuff I put out on the floor, and the more stuff I label with the keywords I want to catch (legitimately) - the higher it goes up on a search.

Someone else would have to clarify how labeling pulls you down the list - I just haven't experienced it.

It's very easy, Czari - you just pay people or give people free items to display your store in their Picks.

Most of my shopping is done on the basis of references
1) Comments from friends
2) Chat with or inspection of other people
3) References in blogs/websites

I usually try Xstreet if I'm looking for something specific - this would mostly apply to non-generic stuff.
All Search results can not equal a detailed presentation of text and images on Xstreet.
Xstreet save me TPs when the detail shows that it's not quite what I want.
If it looks like what I want, I'll TP to the store to check it out.


In-world I tend to use Places Search.

If I do use All, and find a likely hit, I'll paste the Parcel name into Places search.
In Places. I look at the land area - and the Traffic -- and then always click Show on Map.
Places gives me an idea of the scale of the place and the current activity (dots) there.
If it's crowded on Map, or the sim is crowded due to another parcel, I might skip the place if I'm not looking for crowds/lag ... and v.v.

I avoid malls like the plague. What people want to do with their time in SL varies so I'm speaking just for me: the LAST thing I want to do with my time in world is shop - as it is I don't have enough time to do all the things I would like. I have been in very few malls that don't take forever to rez or that I don't have to look high and low for the shop I want. The ones that have a central landing point with a listing of all shops that will tp me to the one I want is a plus, but I still prefer stand-alone shops.

I've heard people recommend new business owners starting out to locate their shops in a high traffic area, like at a club. I go dancing almost every night and for me...bzzzzt! When I want to dance (and with my partner having very limited time online), I get reeeeeaaaalllly annoyed when I'm dumped a mile away from the dance venue (ok, a lil exaggeration there) and have to plow my way through slow rezzing shops (and people I can't see yet). It's almost certain if I even glimpse the name of a store on the way I won't go there.

I just realized this is coming from a person who has her shop in a mall, but in my defense, Primal Arts isn't a mall-type mall. I guess it loosely falls into the mall category but that is only because Rhia was so generous to build space on her property specifically for those of us who were starting out in businesses a year or so ago. So it's a bit different than the malls I'm thinking of. Someone in the Advice on Sales thread (now can't recall who) opened a mall which I went to see when it first opened. It doesn't have that "mallish" look at all, but rather more of a "courtyard" feel to it and the shops weren't all bunched up. To me it gives the feel of strolling through a quaint section of a town and seeing the interesting small shops, even though in reality most of the shops there are satellites, it just gives me a different "feel."

/rant off...really didn't mean to go into all that..."mall" just touched a nerve

What is the difference between a mall and a shopping plaza other than that the space is typically enclosed in malls?

Good point. I sell a bit of this and that as i am not drawn toward a particular niche...yet.

When we had a partnering ceremony over two years ago, the theme was Medieval. I wanted a hairstyle that was longish with loose curls. (At least that's what I tend to see in a lot of movies of the period )

I searched and searched and apparently, at that time, that style of hair wasn't made or I didn't find the designers who did...until someone suggested your store and BINGO!!! EXACTLY what I was looking for!

Now I see that type of hair by other designers, but I think you may have pioneered that!

And thank you so much for your blog!!!

Sounds like it. I'm not sure I could do that...or at least yet. I still haven't gotten to the point where I am comfortable directly asking people to join my group. I do invite people to do so in the note that comes with my products, but not sure what the average is for people who read the notes.

For me it's just a "feeling." The only analogy I can think of is that in RL I also detest shopping malls, the traditional enclosed ones. There were always so many people and hustle & bustle; many were on several levels and just to cap it off, there were vendors in the aisles. I had a claustrophobic feeling...and I'm not claustrophobic.

Then there are these quaint little shopping areas, especially in small towns. They may be side by side, but it feels more "open" - probably because they are accessed directly from the sidewalk.

Interestingly, at least in my city, most of the traditional malls were dismantled and the "open shopping" concept replaced them. It's the bigger store version of what I was describing above - there are a lot of stores, and some of the "anchor stores" quite large, but they are usually in some version of a U shape and again, each store is entered separately. With the closed mall concept, I always had to try to remember which entrance was the closest to the (usually) one store I wanted, then drive around looking for parking in a crowded lot, go inside, and usually get turned around somehow with my sense of direction...lol...until I found the store.

With the new open concept, I can generally park right in front or in close vacinaty to the store I want and not be in the crowd of people looking for other stores.

Like I said, this is just my personal opinion. ymmv

ETA: There are a number of places in SL that have a lot of shops, but I don't see as a mall. Off the top of my head, in addition to my previous example, are the Etopia shops. A co-ordinating theme and the feel of strolling through a courtyard. I guess it's the "mish-mosh" feeling I get in a lot of malls as well that turns me off.