Will the new search hurt the SL economy?

In the past when search has gone down, there's be an immediate and drastic decrease in sales, when it was restored, sales rebounded. This IMHO shows that most people buy stuff by using the search engine rather than going to a mall and looking around.

Relative to the old search, the new display seems deoptimised for use as an advertising medium. Many people like to browse for items rather than having a very detailed idea of what they want. The new system discourages such browsing and makes this kind of "window shopping" much less enjoyable. Since the SL economy depends on people buying stuff, crippling search's advertising function will likely hurt SL.

1. Search results are no longer ordered by amount paid, or even if it's an ad or not. This means that the results will be clogged by lots of hits that are repeats and ones that really aren't from merchants. It also opens great possibilities for what are essentially denial of service attacks by just creating lots of free bogus entries to crowd out real ones.

2. The results are now on short pages with very few results on each page with a delay to show the next page. Anyone whose ad isn't on the first couple of pages probably will get almost no traffic.

3. The text in the individual entries is mostly internal database information which is of no use to people trying to find items. In most cases there is no descriptive information at all even though each entry takes 4 lines, one of which is blank.

4. In the old search, clicking on the single line entries rapidly displayed the detailed information in a side panel. In the new search, clicking on an entry creates a new window which only appears after a delay. Again, this discourages people from browsing. Coupled with the lack of descriptive information in the entries themselves, this will probably result in more people just giving up.

This is only anecdotal of course, but I've been buying more since the new search became available. With the logjam of exact phrase matching broken and the less rigid ordering of results, loads of sellers who were below the radar have percolated into view. I still go to places and browse, but they are different places now. This is nothing short of wonderful, since the biggest advertisers and traffic pumpers are rarely the ones with the best quality/price mixes.

the search is the most important tool for any commerce anywhere, nobody likes to walk around mall after mall trying to find something they would like to have.

The rigidness of the previous search was not very good but people found a way to apropriately place their keywords to score a better place without forking the dollars. Now the classifieds appear in ten lots on the right from most paid down in the main search, great for LL but that means I used to score a good spot buy paying $76 for an advertisement now I have to pay 3000 to be able to get to the second page, well how is this supporting the small business? LL gets their pockets filled up more, that's great but guess who's going to pay for the advertisement...

The buyer as usual. This is false economy and I have no idea how home locations get organized now I tried everything yesterday to try and score a place in the first two pages by advertising through the land. Whatever I did, did not change anything. By manipulating keywords that is.

I would love to be proven wrong but I can tell you now that it's going to hurt small operations, not support them.

If anyone has any idea how the keywords are categorized and selected to be placed first in the main search area I'd be happy to swallow my words and give any linden a shoulder rub.

sorry about the double post, I also wanted to mention that I completely agree about the extra windows popping up on an already window cluttered sl screen real estate is absolutely not a good idea and why on earth do we need a list of objects on the land?

Nice one LL. As usual, "new features" clouded the functionality and ease of use improvements. "Let's put some shiny lights here and some ribbons there"..

Well done, Bravo!!

The problem of malls in SL is, that they are not professional enough. In the real world I can expect that every major product is sold in every big mall. But in SL there is not like WalMart or such. In SL there is just many random malls with random stuff. So I have to use search every time, because I propably have to visit many malls before I find what I want. Also some bigger malls have more lag because they have more stuff, scripts, bots, and people there. Though some smaller malls look like crap malls in contrary.

I doubt that the search will do much harm at the moment since it needs a lot more work before it replaces the existing search:

i) it is still not reliably including all places set for search
ii) keyword ranking is still a little hit and miss
iii) the 10 items per page is too small
iv) in the old search you could filter the places search by hangouts, shops etc. - you can't do this with the new search
v) you can set objects to display in search, but it isn't clear that they ever show in the results (apart from listing on a parcels page).
vi) searching all gets cluttered with stuff from the wiki (which seems entirely pointless!)

Matthew

It has replaced the existing search on the current release SL client 1.18.5.3 Matthew, yes it needs alot of work but as usual LL went ahead and replaced it.




That's exactly why we are talking about this Kratax, same thing anywhere on the net, you cannot find the information you are looking for unless you have a search engine, you can't blame the web sites for putting crappy info you don't need can you. The search engine is the hub of SL when you want to find something and the new one is absolutely useless.

At the moment all the old searches are still there as seperate tabs. What I meant is that at the moment, many, I suspect, whilst they may try the new search, will still use the old searches (either as well or instead of the new search) because they find things the new search simply doesn't!

Matthew

I find them both pretty useless. Take this for example, say I'm looking for some new hair for my avatar, so I search for "hair" in the old Classifieds and the new search. In the new search I find a bunch of places having to do with hair, but no way to tell which is the best. I know Google sorts by the the number of links to a place and it's pagerating, but have no idea how SL search is sorted. And I can't find out anything useful from the store descriptions either since they're just a bunch of keywords.

The first place it lists description goes like this: "hair flexihair flexi hair flexi-hair flex hair updos hair hairstyle hair style hairdo hairdos ponytails." -- If you remove all of the excess basically what that description says is "flexihair, updos, hair style, hairdos, and ponytails" Which I already would guess they have since it turned up in my search for "hair". I don't need to be told 15 different ways that they sell hair. What would be more useful is a rating, how much the hair costs, some different styles, etc.

Now to the regular classifieds. The first result this time is Adam n Eve (though for some reason they appear twice, with an identical ad.) Now the description is much better:



Much better as it actually tells me something about the store and their products. But there's still some weirdness. I've never quite been able to figure out what the "Price" in the search indicates. They don't really charge L$172,000 for hair (I hope). Is this how much they paid for the ad? And if this is how much they paid, then why sort the results by this? The most expensive ad doesn't mean it's the best store, with the best products, or even the products that I want.

And for whatever reason the 6th result down is "FURNITURE, BUILDING CENTER, KITCHENS, BATHS, FOOD, CHRISTMAS" This store doesn't even have anything to do with hair. And their description is just a long list of keywords. There's even 4 other furniture stores on there that don't sell hair.

Other things listed in classifieds search, but having nothing to do with hair: tattoos, christmas shopping, jewelry, costumes, clothing, scripts, textures, houses, trees, plants, animations. And most of these don't even have "hair" in their description, so I have no idea how SL found them.

Also, some stores names have so much extra space in them that they look like:

"0 B-anima..." in the results. (The extra spaces don't seem to show up on the forums.)

I'm guessing they sell animations (which again has nothing to do with hair), but I don't know until I click on the ad because there's an extra 54 characters of wasted space in the title.

In the end I've always found that trying to actually search for something in the search ends up being a waste of my time, with the exceptions of: searching for places I've been to, but can't remember the location, and searching for people. So I don't even bother to use search anymore, I just ask my friends for recommendations.

Ralph, hmmm, I wonder what the correlation of search downales down really means. Search being down is an early indicator of general asset server failure - TPs fail, vendors fail, things in general become suckerific and unshoppable.

Personally, when I'm shopping I very rarely use search, unless I already know the store's name - that is, I use it to search for landmarks, not classes of items.

I did use it to look for, say, skins, before I knew a bunch of people and a bunch of stores. If I were to go to buy something I didn't know a store for ... say, a piano (hey, where IS a good place for a piano?), nowadays I would grab a few friends and go to places they know about, and also search the forums, slx and onrez.

I have seen other people do this too ... grab a few friends and go on mission for shoes. everybody trading landmarks.

Not to say that SL shouldn't have a usable search. I guess all I'm pointing out is that imho we've never had a usable search, so I can ignore the new one as well as I ignore the old one!

I am hoping, however, that the new search will allow me to find groups more easily. I frequently search for interest groups just by typing in the area of interest, and the 'exact match' criteria means that relevant groups are not found.

The way search works shouldn't hurt the economy. People will find what they are looking for one or another. Search might hurt certain business however that were dependent on traffics numbers to rank higher.

Right now the way the search is working it will definitely hurt the economy. The search is not consistent at all. Our club name is Cherie's Garage. One time I searched for 'garage' and our club didn't come up at all. 5 seconds later, I searched again with no changes made in my search & our club came up at #3 on the list. So you're gonna tell me that this won't hurt our club? The new search totally disregards keywords & traffic numbers. I, for one, will continue to use the old search. However, I fear that any newbie from this day forward won't know enough to use the old search.

A business should expect to get what they pay for in their classified ad. Otherwise, it's simply a fraud for LL to charge different amounts for them with the claim that you are getting something for your money.

Better or worse aside, I'm a little bewildered as to why the classified is being rendered obsolete. I predict that they are either going to have to fix it, or do without all that income from classifieds once businesses realize that it is not money well spent.

We need peoples' own search. If some user wanted new business, then that user could put up a "Landmark Shop". That is a shop that tells where different things are. For example I go to landmark shop and need new shoes. Then in that shop is a list of good shoe sellers. Those shoe sellers pay for the landmark shop to get to the list. But no shop would get to the list before the landmark shop's employees go and check the quality of the shop. The landmark shop could even rate the shops.

Now, if the landmark shop stayed true to the quality of the landmarks, then it would gather lots of customers. With lots of customers all shops would want to be on the list and pay money. But if the lists get full of crap shops, then there would be no more customers and no more paying shops.

This idea would benefit all: Shoppers would get quality landmarks, shops would get good advertising channel and better revenue as business would go up, and landmark shop would get money from shops. This way people would need less time on shopping and they would have more time in casinos or other recreational places or building / decorating their houses too.

If some one wanted to pay more money for extra visibility instead of just being on the quality shops list, then the landmark shop could have separate ad-walls for those. That way quality lists and extra-payed ads would not mix up.

Genious, right?

There are several businesses just like this in the property rental industry, Kratax. They exist based on pooling the ad money into a larger classified. So I don't know how viable that will be with this new search that buries your expensive classified on page whatever.

The new search all feature does have a classified filter, and that of course is a filter that simply does not exist in the old search all tab. You go to the separate classified tab to see things in strict paid order. Classifieds don't appear in paid order in the _old_ All tab either!

At the same time, the new All tab includes preferential placement for paid listings even if the filter is set to be only for places, events, etc. That new sidebar is additional classified exposure that simply doesn't exist under the other tabs. And that sidebar *is* respecting the paid placement order.

Smart people will learn to work with the new software and use it to their advantage. People who refuse to accept change will be left behind. That is how life and business works.

All true, Viktoria. I definitely plan to adapt to the new way. I'm letting my former classified run as more of an experiment, particularly once the new viewer becomes mandatory.

My main gripe with the new search though, is that LL claims to place your classified higher based on what you pay. Then, you go to the search with the new pulldown menu and many or most searchers will think, "oh here's how I get to classified ads." If you didn't make it to the top 8, then that was money wasted, and LL's promise of placing your ad based on payment amount becomes a fraud. We have no idea of knowing whether people will use the alternative classified tab, so the only way to tell whether anyone is seeing it is if/when your traffic drops to nearly nothing.

I don't have a particularly strong opinion as to how classifieds should work; all I ask is for it to be less muddled and less misleading.

Exactly, the old ALL tab was Alphabetically sorted within sub groups of somewhat types of advertisement. That set up was at least an easy way to strategically place your "show in search" ad to easily appear within top 10 or 20 under the ALL tab which is where it really counts by just spending a few dollars. I completely understand that LL wants to make their income through the classifieds so the classified section is sorted by what the advertisers have paid.
I would LOVE to know how the new search ALL tab works apart from the classified section on the right is as I serioulsy do not wish to pay $25000 a week for something that I only make tenth of that for that week.

If I only pay 10% of my income, let's say $250 a week for classified ad, there's basicaly nil chance of that apperaing in the first 5 pages of ALL tab as a result I will even earn less. What I mean by all this is that the small business is going to be hurt and it turns growing business to a much harder process using classifieds so the only option left is hoping one can secure a spot in the first couple of pages in the ALL tab excluding the classifieds using "Show in search"

Now, for that I have tried every thing I can think of by placing the keywords and searching for the keywords to see if I can land a spot in the first 2 pages and had no luck whatso ever.

I'm not interested in te Classified filter or how they are placed at all as the price is simply out of my reach.

So the question is how does the new ALL search work and how do I use it. If anyone cares to enlighten myself and others that may feel the same way please do as I am more than happy to eat my words should there be a way to sacure a good spot within "show in search" with a proper keyword placement.

Don't get me wrong I'm not being a cheapskate and would be more than happy to fork out $100,000 a week if I had a weekly sales figure of $1 million, I believe 10% of your income should go to advertisement.

I'm also all for adapting as the system grows but I see no information for business'.
I just want to be able to grow like the early business' had a chance to do so and I fear this system is not going to allow that for the majority of new business' that start up with minimal outlay.

Anyone care to explain how the "show in search" locations are picked in the new ALL search tab?

Personally, I am really disappointed with the new Search. I expected from LL's hints that it would be something like Google, with all links weighted for popularity, and with paid ads separate from the other listings. I am really not interested in visiting shops (or any other site) based on how much the owner paid for the ad. I want to be able to locate things I like by my own criteria, thank you.

For a look at something that would work really well for SL classifieds and landmarks (but not so well for events), take a look at this visual search engine: www.oskope.com
Now, this would be really, really useful for shopping in SL.

Here, here Jolly! I am in total agreement with you and I don't understand why there is no information on how the new search actually functions and what criteria it takes into account when producing results. It just all seems so terribly random and is clearly counter-productive for small and up and coming businesses. The big guys with the deep pockets can have the classifieds, tho interestingly with a little bit of common sense they could probably work together to keep the costs down. Goodness knows why they like giving that kind of money to Linden Labs every week....

Needless to say, is this new search brain surgery? What is the logic behind it? Why does a listing show in one set of results and not another when you have not changed your search query in any way?? It makes no sense.

In the case of TMS Designs Furniture we are relatively new and have been having reasonable success at this point but have to ask if the new search is going to harm or help us.

It is scary after we have worked so hard to get to the point we are currently at and it is frustrating to have no information on how the the new search works.

All I can say is thank goodness WOM (Word of Mouth) in SL is as powerful as it is. Perhaps this way we can continue to grow our market share. Also one of the other bonuses SL provides... our mark is left on every item we create and people can see for themselves who made what. Hopefully we have reached that critical mass where we have enough stuff out in the world and people will visit our store based on what they see in people's bedrooms and livingrooms. Not having to give all of our profits to LL every week would be a refreshing change Its not like we don't pay tier every week and for countless texture uploads when we are busy creating!


BTW, Loved the visual search engine Galena!! Very nice! www.oskope.com

[/url]

Yes Moneca that works for some creations but unfortunately is not the same for worn items like clothing , hair, shoes or weapons etc. the creator cannot be seen when someone is wearing them. The only way to find out is "Hey where did you get that?"

In the mean time my top recommendation for searching for items in-world is SLBrowser. It's free and it shows you exactly where the item is in a store. Displays sale price and also say you saw an object and you like it, all you have to do is search for it's name and if it's in the system you'll get a beacon showing you where it is, even if you don't land right next to it. Obviously it's much more powerful than that but one of the ways to use it.
Can be worn as a HUD or rezzed. Also can be made public for everyone to use. For most items you get to see the image of the product, not the store.

>I wish LL had implemented that as a search engine instead!<

It can bu used off-world on

http://www.slbrowser.com/


One can obtain an SLBrowser by going to

secondlife://Neptune/9/233/27

or from SLX

http://slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=385377

and no I don't work for them =) Just wishing them all the success they deserve for their hard work.

Even smart people will not realise there are paid ad's missing from the list though. Search simply does not work, if you only pay $50 for your advert, kiss it goodbye, it won't appear in the new listings.

The new search is potentially a wonderful thing, but it doesn't work and I am baffled about why LL even released it. Logging it as a fault on Jira feels like a waste of time too it seems, the triage deems it "low priority" since it doesn't actually affect your ability to function, they seem to forget that you are paying for it!

Your ads are showing up in the new listings. You get a low placement, but you paid for a low placement. And your ads tend to get buried in the old All tab too, below the scroll bar, mixed in a soup of overly punctuated entries left over from people trying to game that version of search.

One thing I notice about your ads is that you list keywords alphabetically and they aren't arranged in phrase orders people might search on. that will help you in both the old and new searches. You can take good advantage of your parcel item descriptions too: rugs can mention in their descriptions that they are, say, Persian or Turkish or whatever with floral, geometric, etc. patterns. the google engine loves those little details, and you can sprinkle those descriptions with alternate spelling and common misspellings that won't fit in those cramped classifieds. Little tweaks like that give you more potential matches, they're completely honest, and you don't get billed extra for them.

The new search will absolutely kill the small vendor. Unless you fork over tons of $L in advertising, you will be relegated to page 2000 in the search. Bit by bit SL is killing my business that I've worked hard on for the past 1.5 years. The SL economy is really bad now. No one is spending. And the last update killed all the JEVN vendors so I spend considerable time replacing them all...or giving customers freebies because the vendors aren't working. The new search will probably be the final blow. I'll no longer be able to make my land tier. Maybe its time to throw in the towel. It not much fun here anymore.

I have noticed that my avg daily sales are down about 2000L per day. I'm not sure how the new search works, can someone point me to some instructions? I was told to put keywords in the descriptions of my items. What about Vender Machines though? I am missing my "old" sales averages greatly.