Ok whats the trick re: high traffic no campers

So theres this awful store. ( no names ) and from what I and other artists and general long standing residents of SL can tell all the stock is freebie website backgrounds off the net.
It 'used' to have all campers and as such its traffic was 30,000 daily each time I went there would be 15 campers and 1 customer ( always a noob )
But theres no campers now...none and yet the traffic remains around 30K daily.
Each time I visit theres one or 2 customers ( again always noobs ) to my 8 - 10 customers.

It angers me because they are ' noob catching' noobs come into SL want a texture look on the list see this store at No 1 and 'assume' it must be the best and go and waste their L$
I know in time they will hear about better stores and drop this crap one but in the meantime this store is living off the backs of the new comers who dont know any better and it angers me.

Im mad that ANYONE can buy their way up that list but thats the way SL is now and Ive had to have 3 campers on my land just to stay some-where in the top 10 of my genre of stores but theres clearly some trick Im unaware of.

I have checked and double checked and anyone with 30K traffic would need to have 10 customers there 90% of the 24 hour period...this just isnt the case.

As someone whos been trading in SL for over 3 years I know how things work they are not maintaining that traffic 'because' their at the top of the list theres something else going on and Im hopping mad..not for me...seriously... as I say anyone whos been in SL more than 6 mths eventually find their way round to better stores via word of mouth anyway and once found they dont return to previous low quality stores...but it angers me by 'tricking' noobs who dont know any better.

I feel they are taking advantage of ppl who dont know any better and taking advantage of the traffic driven list too.

Ive heard about 'tricks' before...way before campers... how do they do this??

Im a firm believer the search list should reflect true popularity of your business...but camping has clouded that reasoning.. take away campers and what other tricks do ppl use to save a few bucks they paid campers and still remain at the top of a list?

Curious

LillyBeth Filth

Bots?

what are bots?

LOL

I don't think it'd be too hard to use Libsecondlife to create a program which just logs an avatar in and has them stand still in a location, preventing them idling out. With a slimmed-down program for doing this you could easily run 20 or more on the same PC.

To check for what Yumi is talking about, look for green dots on the map. Although you may only see one or two people in the store, there could be people way up in the sky. No matter how high up they are, as long as they are over the parcel then they count toward the traffic for that parcel.

If someone can program to have an army of bots sitting on camping chairs to earn Lindens, then someone can just as easily have an army of bots that just park up in a skybox or a cellar.

There may be operations in SL that hire out such bots to stores. It's entirely logical. It would be more controllable and perhaps less expensive than paying out to whatever J.Random Avatar happens to find a camping chair.

Question: Did mini-map show a lot of avatars at a higher or lower level?




Shameless crawling:
I think that TRU is the absolute BEST. It's in my Picks. I send everyone there if asked for a source.
If the unaware are buying from this other store instead of from TRU, then they're just not worthy to be in TRU dammit!

I'm not at all sure about that, for a start popularity doesn't equal quality, which is something you've already outlined regarding this other store.

Aren't they replacing the traffic system anyway?

It's easy. A shop that advertises enough will get more traffic. First they'll have to take a risk, but sooner or later classified ads pay for themselves (if their product is decent enough too). They can get even more traffic by luring the newbies in using ever popular keywords (Free! Money! Sexstrippersescortsslingo!), but if they don't find what they're looking for they'll only visit once and certainly not buy anything.

If it's the place I'm thinking you're referring to, it's cheating, plain and simple.

Strap on a jetpack, then fly up to 115,117,501 ... there's a big garden there, and a big stack of cubes... each one containing a non-responding basic avatar, all gleefully providing fake traffic at no cost to the owner.

There's about 18 there in the pile. Just be careful of the security orb that'll boot you out... I wonder what there is to hide eh?

Whats the word, rumbled?

The only thing worse than not being popular is fake popularity, especially when it's caused by cheaters.

Broccoli

So basically someone figured it was cheaper and/or more reliable to get a bunch of alts then to pay campers ..

Uless they get rid of traffic numbers this stuff will continue to exist.

i missed the Sim name.

I suspect traffic will go soon... same way the DI went. I dont look for it to be replaced by anything meaningful either

I hope the traffic system for popularity goes but that they keep the ability to see your number of visitors. I dont pay attention to other people's numbers but i find it fun to check how much traffic I got etc. If they take its usefullness away its still a fun little stat to have and I hope they leave it.

Went and checked it out. There's definitely an tall grey tower with avatars inside. Likely bots, as said, since there seems to be no directions for how to go camp down on the main level.


Pity newbs don't know any better. I tend to stay away from the really high traffic areas unless I know by reputation its someplace I can't avoid if I want the best

Char

I remember a certain club that was busted for doing something similar.

what puzzles me is how come those mega-popular sims dont crash all the time? it only needs 30 or so avatars to crash right? couldn't it get to the point where a place is so popular it just wont work because of constant overload of avatars? and how do you make money when the lag is so bad you can't move?

These bots don't have to move. They are not wearing jewelry or prim hair, they may even be nude so they put a lot less strain onthe server than we do.

Besides the gaming of the traffic system, this is a major reason people don't like camping.

A while back I belonged to this CG art site. They have regular art contests there and the best is picked by popular vote. I didn't take me long to realize that it wasn't how good you were that won the contests, but how many friends you had to vote for your piece.
So as long as the top ten are based on visitor numbers, you will find this sort of cheating. Personally I think the top ten should be based on sales figures, not how many people visit the store. I doesn't matter how many people wander through the store if the merchandise is of such low quality that no one is buying it.

can someone PM me the sim name or location. i want to go see.

Hmm i think i know the tex store youre referring to and i was suprised to see it so high in the list after visiting it once....the textures are so naff there i couldnt credit anyone would want to use them for free never mind pay for them. It puzzled me then why they were so popular, this explains it.

Yep they are cheating; I stayed there 5 minutes and offered 500 lindens to anyone who said "Hello". I announced it often and got no responses, out of 15 Avatars!!???

As a control, I visited a few other places with real campers and offered 1 linden if someone said hello, and the responses were overwhelming.

I don’t mind low volume camping of real avatars as I think it helps the economy here in SL and helps a business break through the ad clutter, kind of like g**gle search, and there pay per click advertising.

( if you didn't know - when you do a search on the web the top sites paid to be the top sites, it’s called pay-per click advertising - camping is no different)