Professionalism and campers/bots...

No it is not. If I would pay people to create loads of alts with my pick, it would compare, but I do not do that.
Closest to my SL situation would be paying a company to put a link to my webpage on as many EXISTING sites as possible. That is quite a difference with putting up NEW websites.

They own existing websites.

You pay them to put up a link to yours.

Same thing.

Because guess what, all those camper and traffic bots will become pick bots.

MortVent, what I told before I will tell again: I do not mind a good discussion, as long as you can backup your arguments. Throwing statements that are based on thin air, don't do you any good.

Search All is based on incoming links. Incoming links are generated by accounts with at least "payment info on file". How many camper and traffic bots have payment info on file? Plus, how do you think those bots are coming to my board to cash their Pick? Because we were talking about that system.

Plus: A few postings ago you said those companies were generating sites. Now you say they own existing sites where they put up the link. You see my problem?

company A has x number of domains with multiple subdomains.

Each of which is a single site with a single index page full of links

Company B pays company A to put up a link to their site on them.

The sites are up and indexed they are not created just for company B


they generate the sites with nothing but links and no content.


Payment info on file is simple and easy to generate. It doesn't mean paid account, just that they set it up to be verified and it takes about as long to do as creating the alt.

there is no limit to how many can be linked to one verification source.

considering they can easily bookmark the sites, and do a round robin with many of the automation software viewers... pretty much all of them can and will.

Just look at the land bots and related.

Websites: So they do not generate new sites, but they also do not use normal, active websites. Where the people that are being payed for picks are normal, active users that want to earn a few linden. To be compared with normal active websites, not with the google bombs you were referring to.

As for payment info being easy to set up: Go tell that to the people who cannot get it right. Apparantly at the moment you have to actually buy a few linden to get Payment Info Used, and is Payment Info On File even impossible to achieve.

But that is not really the issue: No one can tell wether bot users are going to use their bots for Picks, it's something you assume. Plus the fact we were on the topic Paying for Picks, not Bots for Picks. Switching the subject slightly to prove you are right, doesn't really work. At least not when discussing with me.

Okay let me put from my perspective as a consumer:

Paying for picks, use of bots/campers, or otherwise 'optimizing' search indicates a lack of belief in the quality of your own product/service.

It indicates to me as a consumer that you don't have enough faith in your work being good enough that people will add it to their picks or generate word of mouth. So I take my business to someplace that has products the creator believes can stand on their own merits not an army of bots/campers/paid picks.

I can tell you that paying for picks is going to create a similar market as the camper zombies and bots, buy $1 worth of lindens... transfer to your main. Payment info on file. Do so for all the bots in a farm, cash out from the main. Simple and easy enough to do. If payment info on file wasn't possible for them, then they wouldn't be cashing out from SL all the lindens they bot farm from camping spots...

As for normal active users, that is an assumption on your part. It was an assumption made when camping started to be popular as a way of boosting traffic... right up till it got automated and farmed for lindens.

I've already seen bots with paid pick ads in their profiles sitting in the sky boxes with payment info on file and nothing in the profile but the paid picks. (many will turn their camp bots into pick bots simply because they can create an army of them and never have to log them in after setting the picks)

Marcel you can argue this about anything humanity does - nothing is wrong, only subjective, blah blah blah however this argument is really only the catch all of those trying to justify actions that are considered to be wrong by a lot of people. If you constantly hide behind the subjectiveness of morality, ethics, right and wrong then all bets are off and everything is up for grabs right? However unethical business people only see it this way until it starts to move against their favour and then guess what? They scream blue murder about how unfair it all is.

Think that is not true? My example: a handful people stood outside your (not yours personally) store telling your customers that a better deal can be had just across the way in a store on another parcel. This has been done and slammed as unethical by those it affected, yet by your nothing is right or wrong stance they should just shut up and accept that because after all, it is all fair in business right? They are just operating a competitive advantage over the store they are stood outside aren't they? Don't you just use whatever tools you can?

Another example...someone uses a powerful blog or website outside of SL to slam you and your products, smearing your good business name just so they can gain competitive advantage over you. Perhaps just skirting RL laws or relying on the fact you cannot easily take them to court and even if you do it will cost more than your entire profits for a year. Even if you win it will be considered a small claims and once they pay you your meager losses they can get right back to ruining your business. After all the money may not be as important to them as being known to be Number#1. I guess thats OK too? After all RL companies do it too sometimes, would you consider that OK Marcel? If it were your business would you not feel that it is unethical perhaps? Even though your only absolute is that nothing is right or wrong.

I hope you can see that you cannot use the philosophy of right/wrong being subjective to make all things OK if then that is not applied to when things are against you too.
Facts are there are plenty of things that lay outside the TOS/CS and/or RL laws that are considered by many to be scummy business tactics. Your argument that there is no right or wrong does not wash I am afraid.

A much better post But this argument I heard before in these forums and really confuses me. Why is a business owner that tries to get the best results in Search, one that does not believe in their own quality? Those two are not related at all. The customer decides on the quality of my products, my job is to get the customer to my products. So I do not use a Pick Reward system because I do not believe in my quality, I use it to get people to know me and to find me.
Word of mouth is nice, but for that you first must be known. Established businesses generate a lot of exposure by word of mouth, but a relatively new business will first need a solid customer base.

You cannot tell that, you can at most assume it will happen. Just as much as I doubt it. The system I use does pretty good checks, plus I do manual checks at random. Hardly bots to be found. Though that might change, I don't know.

As for Picks, there are couple of scenarios:
- People create many alts with all payment info used, in order to get picks to their own parcel. Since you need quite a lot of picks to get high, I doubt this will be used much, but you never know.
- People create Alts to "abuse" the reward systems. As long as the alts have payment info on file/used, this will work. Though I doubt it will happen much.
- People put up a pick to get a reward, without using alts or whatever. This is at the moment what is happening. At least at my place. Costing me a couple of thousands per week, and works great.

The way I see it, everybody involved has benefit: People who find my store when they search for the search words, benefit because I seel what they were searching for. People who put my place in their picks benefit from the lindens they get every week. Myself I benefit because of higher sales then without the Picks system.

And THAT is the best proof I can give: My sales improved, so apparantly more people can find my store when they are looking for stuff I sell. None of them will have thought that I was cheating. And they are my main interest.

Yes I can see that Maybe I have not be to clear in what I mean by my arguments. There is right and wrong of course, but there is no straight line between them.

The examples you give I can all relate to: they are wrong. Probably for everybody they are at the wrong side of the not so clear line.

The system I am using (and the same goes for bot users) are less clear. They are what I call in another posting in a grey area. At least, in my view. As far as I know, a handfull of people are against it, but the majority could not care less. They are methods of business owners to get people to their stores, who then can decide wether the TP was worth the effort.

Now when I see for example, how many people buy at Phil (bot user), and how much my own sales improved, apparantly the people I am most interested in (buyers) do not care that I used pay-for-picks to make them able to find me.

That is something to keep in mind for both you and me: our opinions are not that important. At most a dozen people in RA say that my method is unethical. At most a few dozens of people are actually using the system I use. The silent majority, are the ones that really matter. Their behaviour when they get to my store, is important.

Hmm! I seen 8 people waiting for a lucky chair to give away the most fabulous pair of sculpted boots you could ever imagine =)

I do not disagree that your customers and their views are important, but my views and your views whilst not making much impact on anything monetary do matter at least from an idealogical point of view. You should realise that many people are not aware of the issues and do not even want to know. They are not making an informed decision. They have abdicated that to those who do care and trust that the store owner they purchase from will be lawful, honest and uses generally acceptable practices.

True again We end up facing eachother often in these threads, but I am glad we do agree about some things as well now and then.

The fact that I do realise that many people are not aware, is about the only reason I post in these topics. That way, readers get both sides of the story. In no way I want to convince you or anyone that what I do is perfectly okay. Everybody is entitled to their view. But I want to give the readers some counter arguments, so they can make up their opinion after hearing both sides.

As for your last remark: This store owner should fit in then, as I believe I am lawful, honest and use generally acceptable practices. At least I think that the fact some people think different, does not mean it is not generally acceptable anymore

Actually Marcel since you said that the bots you used to run were for presentation purposes rather than for traffic my opinion of your practices has risen. I have not completely made my mind up about buying picks, I must say I am leaning towards not liking it but I have not decided whether that makes it cheating the system. It is a far more grey area. For example you are supposed to use picks for places you like, so you are going to like places that give you money and maybe people should not read too much into picks placings. However to balance that I think it was an unwise move of LL to link picks to placements and the original intent of picks seem to be that you picked a place for being worthy of merit for the creativity and not because you liked that they gave you money.
I think if LL wants to have paid placings then they should just come out and implement an obvious system. It is the uncertainty of their intentions about the functionality that they implement that causes many of the problems in the first place.

Traffic is really basic.

Its each Resident voting on how popular a place is.

Those who run camping chairs have decided to buy votes.

Those who run Trafficbots have decided they get to vote more than once.

The Picks is the same thing

Each Resident has a limited number of picks. Thus they can only highlight a certain number of places to apply to the new search. So those are the places they are voting for.

People buying picks are buying votes.

People using their trafficbot Alts to also be Pick-Bots are voting more than once.

Well Mort, it would be great if this were a perfect world, and one didn't have to fight for the right to be viewed in SL. A club does not offer a product or a service. I have picks at my club. Once a week, I pay someone 100L. Not a huge amount, nor do I have 5000 people running around with my club in their picks. I don't have campers, I don't have bots, but I do have paid picks. I can't afford to run ads to compete with other clubs who own four or five sims, so I have to do what little I can to compete. If it means losing the business of someone who can't understand the economics involved here, then so be it.

I never do this but...

QFT!!

I would agree with Amity that a new business needs "exposure" to attract business, but when I go to what appears to be a "busy" place and find a hord of campers...I'm also annoyed. I've seen a few places with benches filled with furry foxes ...all sitting and camping away. I checked their "birthdates" and dang if all these bench full of foxes weren't born on the SAME DAY. Now as popular as camping is...a free seat doesn't last very long. SO.....I'm hazarding a guess that a business owner, estate owner or someone at that location created a bunch of Alts...THEN created camping benches and quickly sat all THEIR Alts down to collect money that would go back to the business owner, etc. (no out of pocket losses), but still give the appearance of being a "busy" place......anybody else think that's a possibility?

I'm certain of it

Dittos here!

The purpose of picks has changed with the new search, it's not surprising that people try to utilise that. Picks were often not being used for their intended purpose anyway, people would put their friends in picks as a message to them, that wasn't picking a place.

If it were easier to find products in SL, then the search could be utilised better. For example, searching by price, location, yadda yadda yadda, but instead we have this search engine shrouded in some kind of mystery that has led to parcel names and descriptions being a spam of words, because that's the way to advertise your wares.

People will react to the circumstances they find, at the moment picks are a big weighting factor in relevancy, it's obvious that people are going to want to utilise that weighting factor to their own advantage.

Those who walk away when they see paid picks or camping bots or whatever marketing tool is being used are far and away in the minority, otherwise people wouldn't be using those marketing tools.

A club offers services in providing an environment for people to gather and have a good time.

It takes times to get word of mouth out, but by usings the same logic then going to other clubs and sending out landmarks and shouting come to my place would be okay just to get word out.

When you see people with resell kits and commission vendors using the same tactics inorder to game the system, then many such as myself start to consider any using such tactics to be lower quality. Much like there are real world examples that the advertising leaves a sour taste in ones mouth that makes you do business elsewhere.



Indeed, the main interest is profit. How it is gathered should be a big concern as well.

And short of using random placement combined with renaming the sign board,and 1 shot popup questions that have to be answered there is no real way to prevent botting of any system out there. All it takes is one client with the record function to go through the steps of warping in, click the board, warp out. Then they can automate the rest to follow the same steps.

Best solution, drop picks from search. Keywords then become all that matters. Keyword optimization is a far cry from trading for links.

What is the point of this thread anyway? This is pure navel gazing. Please, Mort, as if you don't already know that others feel the same way as you. You've been around long enough to know what the different opinions are on this subject. What did you want, validation? Well you have it aplenty in here. And there will always be people to disagree with you.

boredom mainly when I started, and a bit of curiosity to see how things still stood on the feelings. Plus went shopping with a newbie and they asked why I went to such low traffic spots, so I showed them some of the high traffic spots and pointed out the bot boxes on the sites.

So kinda a get the topic back out with as little flaming on both sides as possible, though we've had one or two pushing it.