Anatomy of a Fail

I am not too surprised that this pops up

For my stores I do not rely on traffic at all. And still do pretty well. But your compare of spammers and bot users does not make any sense at all.
The only compare you could make, is with the lists of links to a website, to be found all over the internet. They get the website higher, yet bother no one. They do not send you the links to the website, they simply are a system that try to make the website more visible in search.

More important though is your remark:

Says who? How on earth can you say this, based upon a half dozen people saying they would not buy at a bot store? The only thing that is clear here, is that you try to present your feeling as the feeling of 'people' in general. Utter crap though, most people either do not know about the existence of the bots, or do not care. Proved by the fact many of those stores sell well. Phil expirimented with removing his bots and saw his revenue go down with 25% if I remember well.

Back to reality: I dislike bots as well, and what I dislike even more is the fact they were forbidden, but still out there. So far, the new bot policy is nothing but hot air.

Likewise Marcel...if the product is good and it's what i want.....i could care less about the gimmicks to get me there. I don't use Places search anyway, but sometimes i stumble across shops with lots of green dots.....it really doesn't bother me as long as i find the item and its of good quality. It's only a computer game after all -rofl

I think he cares more about sales. The average person who is shopping for their own home or development isn't shopping to find a creator, they are shopping to find a thing. So if he is found relatively easily and people like his content, he will get sales.

That said, I don't spend THAT much time in a store unless I'm angsting over a decision, and there is no reason to stick around Straylight, etc. unless there are poseballs there. IIRC, there aren't any at landscaping places that are focused on sales.

I don't think there is anything wrong with traffic bots even though I don't use them. I like to be able to see my traffic numbers and actually learn something from them, and hopefully gain insight into patterns that cannot be had by falsely inflating the numbers.

Also putting bots in the sky is one thing.. but I think its a bad impression when people look at their mini map, see all the dots then look around and wonder where everyone is. People will often go off searching to see if they can see some of them.. a total distraction to shopping IMO.

Having bots walking around or posing dancing whatever creeps me out, as do the automated store keeper bots. I think that often people will feel more comfortable in a slightly less busy environment (4-5 people in the shop max) and will be able to take the time and make a buying decision without some phantom peering over their shoulder.

-w

Read what I wrote:

That's the "compare" - the logic to justify it, not the mechanism.

As for those awful search-gaming linksites:
I administer a number of websites. I get a constant stream of approaches from the dregs of the Web offing link exchanges. The structure is always a list of links in a particular part of a website. The purpose is simply to attempt to game the search engines. There is absolutely no intention of benefiting anyone but the website operators.
On the other hand, we have other sites linking to our websites naturally and in context. They link because they consider the information on the website to be a valuable resource for the people viewing their websites. I can see incoming traffic from links that are purely organic.
The latter type of link is the whole reason for using IBLs in search ranking.
To try and dismiss systematic search gaming via linksites as "simply are a system" is to try and downplay the sheer dishonesty of them.
To hint that they are OK because they "bother no one" is another downplay.
What they and other underhand search-gaming techniques are doing is cheating those websites that deserve higher ranking because of the relevance of their content and the peer acclaim of organic incoming links.







Again, read what I wrote:

Read other threads. Read LL's blog on the topic. People think it's unfair. According to LL, "most" people think it's unfair. People think it's cheating. On top of that, it's also now a TOS offence - quite apart from being cheating and as unfair as it always was.




True. The policy implementation is a complete farce. It's a gross insult to anyone's intelligence. It's a gross insult to anyone trying to show their wares without lowering themselves to cheating.

Spammers make the same arguments about unsolicited bulk email.

Not nearly as sadly mistaken as you are with your 4 place sample. In fact, anyone who believed Anya's figures was sadly mistaken.

Oh, and your thread title, "Anatomy of a Fail" - the fail is yours. You found what you liked because of the bots, and turned away from it on principle. That's the fail. The store owner undoubtedly succeeds because of the bots, but you went away empty-handed

"You found what you liked because of the bots"
So
If it had not been for the bots, she would not have found what she liked????

It certainly seems that way from what she posted, but she could have got there from the All search. Either way, she failed because she saw what she wanted and left empty-handed, whereas the seller no doubt makes sales (succeeds).

Of course it is - and the recipients would appreciate knowing about the product, even if they don't want to make use of it. Your idea of spam emails is nonsense.

Example:
A manufacturer creates a new line of ballpoint pens - their first ballpoint pens, so they are not know for them. Sellers of ballpoint pens want to know about the new line but, since the manufacturer hasn't been in ballpoint pens before, the sellers don't know the company and haven't opted-in to emails from it, and yet they *do* want to know about the pens, even if they choose not to stock them. So targeting sellers of ballpoint pens by email is *desired* by the sellers. It's no more spam than leaflets from the local pizza place being pushed through local letterboxes.

Some people have a nonsensical bee in their bonnet about email spam.

I would say that she succeeded overall.
She could have bought for the quality despite misgivings. The result could have been a 'dirty' feeling about having the stuff on the site. Buying would have been a fail.


I would say that the seller failed overall.
This is mainly because the situation of them using bots in contravention of the TOS has been highlighted.
Awareness of the issue continues to be raised.
The seller can not longer hide behind "It's not against the TOS". They are explicitly exposed as being dishonest.

WTF! That's spam!

If I wish to know about the local pizza places then I'll go look in the local business directory.

If you wish to advertize a product then you place it in the local directory. You don't shove your product in your customers face or they'll beat you to death with it!. (hopefully!)

Naa. She went away empty-handed and denied herself of something that she wanted. That's the failure. I don't know the seller of course, but I'd guess that s/he makes more sales *because* of the bots the s/he would make otherwise. That's where the success is.

*You* may prefer to do it that way, but that's just you. If a new pizza place or cafe opens nearby, most local people would appreciate knowing about it. I wouldn't be interested in a pizza place because I don't eat pizza, but even so, I appreciate people taking the time and trouble to let me know what's nearby. It's not spam. Same as if a circus was coming to a nearby park. I may want to go to it, but if I'm not told, and I don't just happen to see a poster somewhere, I wouldn't even know it had been there.

Some people have a nonsensical idea of spam - "Don't you dare tell me anything if I haven't agreed that you can tell me things, or you're a spammer".

and some people can justify any action in order to make money.

I want a spam and pineapple pizza now.

That's a completely ludicrous position.

My company provides IT product and services to customers.
In order to provide the best, we have to research the market place.
We get tons of spam from people pushing IT-related wares (as well as other spam).
It's spam!!!
We take the view that if someone uses spam to promote their wares then they lack clue. They take shortcuts. They are unlikely to be good business partners. They are unlikely to have a culture of excellence. This will be reflected sooner or later in their products and their tech support.
We, and others, DO NOT appreciate knowing about every product that someone cares to spew at us.
Yes. we do absolutely need to know about products and services available. That is why we do continuing research. The spammers do not assist that research in any way.


We do get unsolicited approaches that are clearly based on research of what we do. They are not scatter-gun approaches. THose people have a chance based on how they present their offerings.

Yes they can. But we are talking about spam here.

I'm sensing a "definition" sub-thread.

Spam kills!

I've murdered several overzealous business owners in the past four months.

Exactly! I didn't mention "scatter-gun" approaches. I mentioned targeted approaches, which you approve of - or you would if you could make up your mind, but you disapprove and then approve - who knows what you think?

So, if a new manufacturer of ballpoint pens emails information of their new product to wholesalers of ballpoint pens, they are acceptable to you - or not, depending on whether or not you choose to use common sense at the time of writing. Make up your mind, Sling. Are some unsolicted email approaches acceptable or not? You've been saying both things in the posts.

For the rest of the world, apart from a few people who have a bee in their bonnet about spam (on principle), yes some unsolicted email approcahes are acceptable and are not considered to be spam.

I must say I was really encouraged by Jack's post about removing traffic bots from the system and considering them a breach of TOS.

They are especially damaging to any SL content creators who concentrate on making good quality products instead of concentrating on cheating/gaming the system.

It is particularly bad for any new and up and coming SL creators.

Dolly and my traffic at the Heart Garden centre mostly ranges around the 2500-4000 traffic per day. Genuines traffic, no bots. Never used bots , never will use bots.

I very much hope LL make the promised changes regarding traffic bots very soon.

I think that most people were encouraged by it, but many of us have become discouraged by the lack of action of the part of LL. It's now over 2 weeks since the new rule came into effect (over 3 weeks since the announcement), and still traffic bots are used en-masse.

I've carried out extensive research on this subject. People hate spam!

Stop spamming!