Poll: would you pay more than 50L for an ad with new search?

When I shop, I go straight to the classified tab. The tabs are a natural filter. Among classifieds, people who pay more should get more visibility. Who really shops using search all? That search does not lend itself to shopping. At least, not for certain market segments that are overly saturated.

But for the explorer, classifieds are only one of many things that they could be using to get to know SL. Searching only classifieds, or shopping, should return the paid order. But as part of the body of search, I don't mind.

I feel that a classified search is meant for getting customers in connection with a business. Assuming the customer buys something once they are there, then both parties are happy, and the search worked for everybody.

If you want to argue that paid classifieds should be done away with, then that's a separate issue. But if we pretend for a moment that we want to keep paid classifieds around, then shouldn't the payment get the payer something for his or her money? Or is it just okay to rip off people as long as they're "rich?"

I have to admit I'm kind of confused! LOL So many options Search/Search all/classifieds. I have been answering more in the point of view of a potential customer looking for a product and less as a customer to LL Classifieds. This thread was probably meant more people who have businesses in SL (sorry ) If you're paying more for an add, definitely, you should be getting more for your money... Maybe that's why I often bypass the classifieds when I'm searching to buy something specific - too many false 'hooks'.

Classifieds and traffic numbers are fake in most cases. I am sure that linden lab is doing a good job trying to make a different search engine.

You have to be creative and make new items instead of paying classifieds and campers.

Natural filter? Not at all, they are based on who pays the most, unless you call that a filter.
I know for a fact there are many people that use the ALL tab to shop as it isn't based on false things like alt camping and who has the most money to dump into the system which, to me, is a more natural filter. And besides, being in alphabetical order makes it easy to refind things when you forget to LM it and barely remember the name of the place.

I still believe the search is fine the way it is so people themselves can decide which tab to do their searches in.
I believe it balances the whole search.

I mean that I don't have to sift through groups and avatar names to find what I want - a business. New search all throws in the wiki too, for pete's sake. I have never found searching all to be useful because it really is too much information.

There's another potential side benefit if paying a lot of money for an SL classified becomes viewed as not a good value anymore. More people might spend their advertising budget running ads in blogs, magazines, newspapers, and so forth, giving more incentive and support to the residents who work their buns off publishing them. That in turn may help push more people to read them.

While they are trying to diminish the effect of traffic, traffic is still a factor so camping will still exist. In fact, it still has had a dramatic effect on parcel results in new search because only a few people populated their parcels with objects.

And what do you mean classifieds are fake? Someone puts up cash to get seen. Either they earn it inworld, or it comes straight out of their pocket. It's called doing business. If it doesn't start paying for itself inworld, more likely than not, it will stop coming out of their pocket.

I'll agree. I also noticed that the new all tab has no shopping filter. I was looking for a place with fantasy garden stuff to buy. I went to the new all to give a go and.. no shopping filter. I don't WANT the clubs/gardens type hangouts; I want SHOPPING. Oh, there's the classifieds.. which has the clubs/hangouts/etc, making looking for a shopping place very difficult.

So, I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out which places where not shopping >.< Then I said 'Screw this, I'm going back to the places tab." Five seconds later, I had what I wanted.

The new all tab is simple too overwhelming, if you don't use the -, + and such functions. I didn't want to do that kind of filtering though, because they might *gasp* sell club/etc related stuff too.

Which makes me wonder why the new all search doesn't have the same filters at the places search?

Good point, there should be a tab for groups and there already is a people tab so I don't understand why they are in any other tab.

Raudf, I would posit that the new search all is only the tip of the iceberg in refining the overall search process. It would make sense that if it was successful, that it would be used for other elements of search - particularly, land sales, events and places. IMO, that would be the most constructive use of this technology, since clumping places with avs with groups with classifieds and the wiki is just too much for some of us. It would not make sense to limit this powerful search only to search all, but to expand it to the other areas of search that lend themselves to it.

It'd be nice if there were checkboxes for result filtering so you could have it show you results from just the specific categories you're interested in.

That's sort of what the tabs are doing now (albeit the "old" search is invoked in those cases), and I suspect once the current Search All has been further refined it will also be pressed into use for all the other categories. At that point the difference between checkboxes and tabs becomes simply a question of UI design, which one is more useful and/or attractive. They'd both do the same thing in the end.

Max, there is a groups tab.

What I'd really like to see is normal search filters like "and" "or" "not" etc added to the Places search.

e.g. If I want to find a no sex Japanese Garden, I could type in

"garden japan -sex"

or a shop that sells only neko hair:

"hair AND neko OR kitties AND women NOT sex"

or whatever, however you wanted to do it

Regarding the Classifieds Sidebar in Search/All... I'm of two minds. One part of me agrees with Chip in that perhaps these could be rotating appearances for anyone who buys a Classified. The other part of me says "I pay a LOT of money for a Classified ad... I'd damn well BETTER be in that Sidebar." Sort of a Darwinist approach... I'm willing to pay more to promote myself, so I should be there. People who aren't willing or can't pay for it shouldn't be in the Sidebar. It's a tough call, really.

Oryx, you are really grossing me out with your sig lately. hehe.

Anyway, I am of the Darwinist mind, mostly, because it's business. But a compromise like an auction for those slots, wherein only the winners pay, is a good idea. It does suck to get edged out by 1L, sure. But that is the nature of the game when you're playing for slot #8! The auction style might alleviate that - and that is a good idea, Keiki. These should be separate and independent of the amount paid for classified ad search. But the problem is, search works by relevance - there is no way to put up an auction for every keyword there is. That featured slot is not static at all, and depends heavily on what is in the keys. I don't see how it works unless you limit the types of ads that can be featured, and I'm not so sure I like that.

Got bored and decided to find weird facts on human parasites.

Oh yeah...lol

How would an auction work, though? Sort of an automated eBay type thing? Would we have to be there in order to bid? That doesn't seem fair to people in different times zones. Maybe it COULD work like eBay in that you could enter your max bid, and the auction program would automatically bid for you up to your limit. I would do this, if I could be guaranteed a certain position in the listings.

Oh yeah, and put a "shopping" filter in the All tab.

Gosh, I put 'yes.'

I spent a total of 17,000 last month on classifieds and advertising. Recently, however, I reduced all of my classifieds quite substantially, in order to gauge the impact of classified prices....

We'll see...

I guess if the new search was fluid and efficient, I'd spend L50+ on an ad.

Quite candidly, search all would need to break down into multiple categories - it would need secondary filters to match the filters in search places, and then the different filters for search classifieds, in order to make sense. Only then would an auction for featured listing work, because then you could have featured shopping, featured new products, featured hangouts, etc. and have a static set of featured ads per appropriate category. As it is right now, the top ad depends on the keyword you've entered, and there is no way to cover every keyword.

I also reduced my classified ad budget. I paid less for the main ad, but scattered around a couple of 50L ads. I think the small ads have yet to be indexed, but if people are searching using new search, I should get some hits pretty quickly. The main ad continues to enjoy teleports from interested persons, but I can't tell if they found it using classic search or the new search.

Hm. Now this is interesting. I made a few 50L ads that emphasized a different keyword, but those ads are not showing up in the body of search. When I searched all classified but used my own name, I found them - so I know that they are indexed - but only the main ad shows up in the body of search. So you really have to pick your main keyword and go for it, apparently. Because all those other little ads are not going to show up. Well hot damn.

I am going to need to test this with an alt, to see if a normal 50L ad will show up. Some people said that their 50L ads didn't show up... I wonder why.

Chip, I'm glad that you acknowledge here that SL classified expenditure isn't viewed as a good value. This may create a better shopping experience for everyone, and I'm not opposed to that. However, I don't picture LL handing all that advertising revenue over to other parties on a silver platter. I also don't picture it being good for Second Life for big businesses all being pissed off or failing.

Totaly agree 100%. Please have paid ad's in the side bar else what's the point of us spending large sums each week.
Thank you James for being professional and listening to the end-users

...Ding