If you want a shock go to Popular places and count the Alts!

Since I couldn't find any issue specifically for removing/replacing traffic I've created a traffic meta-issue, please vote on it if you support removal/replacement of traffic, and look over the linked issues to see if any of the solutions there are ones you like. Please also feel free to link other relevant issue and/or post your own to add:
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-1052

This has been a great discussion. I am glad to know I am not alone in feeling
the way I do too.

Ultimately, Content creators will decide to do one of these things I think:

1. Learn to game the system too.
2. Pony up and pay the price to get noticed.
3. Create things anyway and don't care.
4. Try to fight back
5. Leave.

Number 1: I came here to create things. Not learn how to develop skills to game the system. There is plenty of that in RL and I certainly don't want to Pay to fight more of it.

Number 2: This will ultimately fail. Classified ads will not save you as long as people can find other ways to make search work so they are seen and you are not.

Number 3: If you are willing to accept the fact that dishonest people that will profit from your time and effort this choice is fine. (In the end it gets damned old though).

Number 4: This gets nowhere. People that do the bad things can make SL life miserable. Sadly, unfair practices are indirectly encouraged by LL--and winked at. I caught someone taking pictures of one of my things--to get the texture. He simply laughed when I told him I was going to report him.

Number 5: This will untimately be the action taken by talented content creators. I think it is already starting to happen too. People will hang on only until the realize it is foolish to keep going.

Ask yourself this question:

Would this kind of environment make you want to invest in land and spend a lot of time here if you were a newbie? Answer: Probably not----there is something wrong. People may not know what it is--but it just does not feel right, and after awhile they begin to see things that they did'nt at first:

A lot of the time the lag is so bad they can't move or TP. Often they can't log on or when they do log on they crash. hmmm........... Then they see place after place with 3 people but report 100,000 or more visitors every day. Hmmm......... Same stuff for sale everywhere. hmmm.......

Let's face it SL is expensive! To offset the expense many are tempted to start a business here. At first glance it seems possible to at least cover expenses, by creating things and selling them, but as they figure out it's a terribly stacked deck, the desire to spend days or weeks building that "killer item" simply dissapears.

Here is my guess: Bots will soon make up the majority of the population--I think it is not really far from that right now--probably about a third is nothing but automated accounts. Real sales will continute very soft--and prices will continue to fall as people compete by undercutting each other selling stuff that they got from things like BIAB's. Oh--and that means theft will continue to rise because the BIAB makers have to get the stuff from somewhere.

Somebody has to make new and exciting stuff people that can buy here. To build things you have to have a place to do it. The number of residents is reported to be booming, but Land has been stuck around 6.50 for months and months. The number of premim accounts is not growing either. With supposedly eleven million people here--I would expect to see the number of premium accounts double or triple what they are. the number of businesses is reportedly up--but a huge number of those are stalls at shopping malls.

Can SL survive without an thriving and healty economy? I have the feeling we may find out.

Lion

I voted for the jira entry. I hope a thousand do that.

Lion

alt-bots?
I had enough of this robots on my land.
I only placed a few dancepads 5 dollar/10 minutes.
After a few days, they found me, and I placed 60 of those pads, and they were all filled with bots.
Most of them have the newbie look, no profile.
Some of them have also a payment info, and well dressed!!!
It's simple to test who is a bot and who not.
Just turn off the dancepad when someone is on it, and see they are gone in a quarter of a second.
Turn it back on, and he is back in a second (or another bot)
It can also be fun playing with them. Set your dancepads at 12 dollar/60 minutes. (place enough of those pads, because they like this)
Every 50 minutes you go to landoptions, ban and click the checkbox. (when you have them listed)
Look at your minimap, and see all the bots are together outside your land.
After 10 sec's uncheck it, and they are back.
Now they make traffic for nothing.



Sh*t why can't I copy/paste my banned bots list?

Here we go again.........

By putting 60 pads out you yourself are trying to jack up your traffic to con people into thinking your land is popular when in fact it isn't. This is no better than getting your own bots, so why should you care whether they're bots or real people inflating your traffic unrealistically? Both sides are being dishonest.

No that was not the intension.
I would have a list of them, so I recognise them.
It was only for a short game, because I have better things to do.
But for the bot owner was it a very bad day hehe.
I don't have so much pads anymore, only 10 or so. And only on when I'm online.

Fair enough... was just getting a feeling of forum deja vu!

I guess I am a #3. Really, do you think anyone cares who has the #1 rank in popular places? Not really. It's kind of like fighting for the title of Biggest A-Hole. You may win, but then guess what, you're an A-Hole. Most people know the only way you get 100,000 traffic is to game it, and if you don't like it, don't shop there. I do quite well with my 3k-4k of real traffic, and you guys can go fight for the top spot all you want. It won't change my success one bit. Just my 2 cents.

I opt for #3 as well. I won't be adding bots or campers ever. I personally think that the way you fight back is effective marketing that goes beyond in-world search. Just because someone can get to the top of the search results doesn't mean their stuff is any good and certainly doesn't mean they are going to garner sales off customers who don't like the product selection. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't buy things that don't suit my needs or tastes and I certainly move on when I end up in some crap store with gamed traffic and shoddy wares.