New Search with Today’s Release Candidate
Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 at 5:41 PM by: Jeska LindenAs previously announced, Linden Lab has been hard at work on an all-new way to search Second Life. Today, as part of the 1.18.5 Release Candidate, we are excited to announce that the new search mechanism is live and ready for you to try out! This change should improve both the search experience and the quality of your results.
We understand that many of you may have questions about the new search, so we’ve compiled a Search FAQ in our Knowledge Base. We’ve also got a video tutorial available. Want more? Listen to a clip from our upcoming Search Podcast with the Linden Lab Search Team here and here - full podcast coming soon!
The points below highlight the key things you should know about the new Search:
- The new search is additive to the current search
- The new search returns information about land, profiles, groups, wiki documents, events, classifieds, and some individual objects
- You have the ability to choose what you want to include in search
- Classifieds are returned both within and next to the search results
Using the New Search
There is a new “All” tab in the Search window, but the rest of the tabs, including the All (old) tab with the current All search functionality, are still included and functional. Using the new All tab, it’ll be easier to find relevant results when you’re searching for land parcels, Resident profiles, groups, classifieds, events, and individual objects marked for inclusion that are present on public parcels. In order to try out the new search, you will need to download the latest Release Candidate. Once you have installed this new version, you will notice that there is an additional tab added to Search that looks different than the current version. This is the new Search All tab!
New Search Results (click for larger image)
The new search is easy to use - simply type into the search box and click the “Search” button. The results will quickly be displayed, along with any related classified ads along the right-hand side. You are able to limit your search by category (Classifieds, Events, Groups, People, Places and Wiki) or search all of the categories at the same time.
Included in the New Search
The new search includes land parcels, Resident profiles, groups, Second Life wiki articles, classifieds, events, and some individual objects. Please note that while the initial population of search was based upon various defaults, going forward, everyone will be able to determine what they would and would not like to be included in search. You are able to make changes to search visibility, although it may take between 1-3 days for changes to be reflected in the search results.
Privacy and the New Search
Every Resident has the ability to choose what is and is not included in the new search. For example, the shortened version of your inworld profile is included in the search by default, which only includes your avatar’s name. You can choose to include an extended version of your profile in the search by selecting the “Show in Search” checkbox on your profile.
New Extended Version Profile (click for larger image)
Please be aware that the new search results will be available to the public. Anyone with a web browser will be able to view the new search results from the Second Life website. The search results may also be picked up by other external search engines such as Yahoo and Google, although we are not explicitly asking search engines to crawl them at this time. It’s important to remember that this information is not tied to your real-life identity and is the same information that anybody could see with a free Second Life account.
How the New Search Works
The biggest change you’ll notice is that the “Search All” dialog box has been dramatically changed and improved. We’re using an all-new system that creates ordinary HTML web pages out of data from the Second Life system, and uses a Google Search Appliance to both index and provide search results from the information. These servers are an off-the-shelf product that Google makes available for purchase by an individual or organization, and the servers and data are hosted at Linden’s co-location facilities. We have not entered into any working partnership with Google.
The web pages for search are publicly viewable on the web at large. Eventually they will be available indexed by Google, Yahoo and other search engines (in a similar way to how all other information online is indexed). Please check out the Search FAQ for more information.
November 13th, 2007 at 5:52 PM
[...] « New Search with Today’s Release Candidate [...]
November 13th, 2007 at 5:53 PM
The new search (client) looks very promising!
November 13th, 2007 at 5:55 PM
Looking forward to this! Thank you!
November 13th, 2007 at 6:04 PM
So the word candidate means that it’s really a ALPHA not ready for prime time. If it were a General Release it would need to be bug free. Can’t wait not to download this
November 13th, 2007 at 6:07 PM
@ Dirk -
The “Release Candidate” process does allow everyone to test out our latest fixes and features publicly before they are released as the primary viewer download, but they are qa’d internally before being released!
More info here
November 13th, 2007 at 6:34 PM
As always, they add new things without repairing all the broken content we now have to deal with in sl. Plus, if this isn’t bad enough, the majority of the time the new things they add are just as bad, they’re broken too.
Linden, when are you going to learn?
November 13th, 2007 at 6:36 PM
> “The search results may also be picked up by other external search engines such as Yahoo and Google”
Uhoh. Wayback will snapshot your profile and keep it for millenia.
Is there a way to flag not release ANY information on your profile to the web, not even your SL Name? That is totally shield yourself and ALL disclosure from the web.
> “It’s important to remember that this information is not tied to your real-life identity”
Until Robin Linden (who should be fired BTW) impliments IDV, then our Av’s name and all the profile entries we ever make are captured for ever. An employer, an ex-wife anyone can just search archive.org and see everything you wrote, who your SL lover’s were, what groups you were in…..
> “and is the same information that anybody could see with a free Second Life account.”
Except that free account only sees it right at this second, not how it was 10 years ago in 2017.
November 13th, 2007 at 6:39 PM
@ Jayden - you can choose to only include your Second Life avatar name in search as a limited profile (to be clear the limited profile ONLY includes your name) or include your full profile. This is up to you to decide.
November 13th, 2007 at 6:43 PM
@ Jeska. I wish to have Zero published on the web, not even my name. How do I set my account so this happens?
Either that or the lindens need to put in norobots so it can’t be crawled by wayback, google et al.
November 13th, 2007 at 6:46 PM
http://web.archive.org/web/20030109103143/secondlife.com/login/splash.php
Is the wayback page of the Secondlife website as at 2002.
November 13th, 2007 at 6:53 PM
No search capability for land sales?
Bots 1 - Residents 0
November 13th, 2007 at 6:55 PM
Is it possible to get more clarification on (taken from the Search FAQ):
‘we provide inbound links from traffic pages with top-10, top-20, top-1000, etc. places’
E.g. which pages are these?
November 13th, 2007 at 7:06 PM
If your a business, that includes wanting people to come to your land, then the question has to be why would you want to hide your details? If your not a business and don’t want to sell anything, then you don’t need to be in search in the first place.
If you really want privacy, then the option is not to have any details about yourself on the web, cancel your account get out of SL.
November 13th, 2007 at 7:08 PM
Oh I just typed a reply that should have been number 21 in the blog, but its gone in at number 13, is that a bug or did Ann Otoole steal my place LOL
November 13th, 2007 at 7:09 PM
Hello everyone, I do understand your concerns, please note that the new Search is a work in progress and will be refined, based upon your feedback and other usage data as we go (this is part of the reason we added the new search onto the old search instead of replacing it!).
November 13th, 2007 at 7:15 PM
Jeska… just how and when do we make certain that we ‘choose only to have our names’ in your new search procedure?
November 13th, 2007 at 7:21 PM
I agree with #25 even with this search it’s still better to invest in campers than in classifieds.
November 13th, 2007 at 7:27 PM
Why can’t you just exclude profiles who don’t want to be part of this external search? I don’t want my profile to be part of this, not even my name, why can’t I have that option?
November 13th, 2007 at 7:29 PM
I started up rel cand viewer, yes is default selected “Show in Search”. So, with this viewer, LL will be generating web pages with *every* *single* *profile* in SL appearing in extended form, for pickup by the archiving and robot services. Weeks before any non-rel cand viewers have choice to opt out.
November 13th, 2007 at 7:30 PM
SL arbitrarily and without prior warning or consent published all profiles on the web earlier today unless residents were quick to uncheck the box on their profiles.
What kind of people are running SL?
November 13th, 2007 at 7:31 PM
Yay, boolean and phrases in searches, yay!!!
November 13th, 2007 at 7:32 PM
SL arbitrarily and without warning published all profiles on the web earlier today. What kind of people are running this company?
November 13th, 2007 at 7:32 PM
@ Isandra - In the new All Search, results are returned by “relevance“, which is a term which is used in the search world to describe a numerical score assigned to a search result, representing how well the result meets the information need of the user that issued the search query.
We determine relevance based on how well the page matches the query, how close the multiple words are together, and how many inbound links there are to the page. Inbound links are created by references in top picks, classifieds, landmarks, parcels and groups. We create several pages with links to the top 10/20/1000 places, which adds to the relevancy of search for places with high traffic.
November 13th, 2007 at 7:34 PM
I guess we will see more bots spring up, buying everything set to 0.
Items, like radios which are set to sell to landlords for deeding will now be “swooped” by bots and of course it will be everyone but the bot’s fault.
Blame the victims. Afterall, they are unaware of “opting out”, which is why “opting in” should be the standard. Oh well, I hope you add more staff to the abuse team and support, because it’s a new snowball perched at the top of the hill.
November 13th, 2007 at 7:40 PM
Ive found lots of objects on my parcels that search says are on sale but are not. What went wrong? These are objects I bought wich are no-transfer but where the box “for sale” is marked but greyed out. Will you be able to distinguish such objects in the future because else that function is totally unusable as lot of info in search will be pure nonsense.
November 13th, 2007 at 7:42 PM
@ Bobo - that sounds like a bug, we did make a change to the initial behavior which did not allow you to change the default setting of “show in search” on non-modifyable objects which were left set “for sale” by their creator. We’ve made a change, which will push in the next release candidate, to allow owners of objects to modify the “show in search” checkbox even if they do not have the ability to modify the object in other ways.
If you are seeing different behavior with your objects, please report it in the Issue Tracker and be sure to set “Affects Version/s” to “1.18.5 Release Candidate“.
November 13th, 2007 at 7:43 PM
adding to my post 16. I will not take “you can deselect those objects” as an answer because that just won’t do. Search won’t work if residents have to deselect them. So don’t even try to push this responsibility on to residents. If such objects can’t be distinguished just remove that feature!
November 13th, 2007 at 7:44 PM
I really consider this an invasion of privacy. The default should be to exclude profiles, not to include them. But then I’ve learned if it’s something the majority wants then it won’t happen.
November 13th, 2007 at 7:57 PM
>>You can choose to include an extended version of your profile
>>in the search by selecting the “Show in Search” checkbox on
>>your profile.
Actually, the user has an option to opt out, not opt in, since the checkbox IS marked by default.
Considering the potential privacy issues (as noted above) I find this a rather thoughtless, if not neglectful default setting.
Furthermore, since LL does recognize that privacy issues are involved here: why implement the new search in this way in the first place?
November 13th, 2007 at 7:58 PM
It’s bad enough they add to this mess without fixing existing bugs. Now they compromise our privacy by making our SL existence public outside of SL. In order to hide that, I need to hide from my friends in SL
Nice job, LL. When are you guys gonna learn??????
Marcus.
November 13th, 2007 at 7:59 PM
still got the head in the sand on traffic eh? what is it up to now? 1/3 of online “residents” are bots? So to be visible we all must resort to running sleekbots in a skybox to get up high enough in the listings to be seen?
you guys need to come clean on exactly how all this works and take a proactive stance to improve the fairness of the marketplace in sl by listening to people and going out and asking new residents if they know most of the top results are based on bogus zombie bots. and then making bot use a TOS violation unless specifically licensed by LL for a specific purpose and the bot is allowed in a parcel for less than 5 minutes daily.
November 13th, 2007 at 8:07 PM
[...] The new search is additive to the current search The new search returns information about land, profiles, groups, wiki documents, events, classifieds, and some individual objects You have the ability to choose what you want to include in search Classifieds are returned both within and next to the search results Using the New Search There is a new “All” tab in the Search window, but the rest of the tabs, including the All (old) tab with the current All search functionality, are still included and functional. Using the new All tab, it’ll be easier to find relevant results when you’re searching for land parcels, Resident profiles, groups, classifieds, events, and individual objects marked for inclusion that are present on public parcels. In order to try out the new search, you will need to download the latest Release Candidate. Once you have installed this new version, you will notice that there is an additional tab added to Search that looks different than the current version. This is the new Search All tab! Source: New Search with Today’s Release Candidate [...]
November 13th, 2007 at 8:11 PM
Please, please, reconsider this.
People are already gaming this search technique by dropping large numbers of priced prims “for sale”.
NCI, a newbie help place that has had YEARS of work put into it, and runs classes 7 days a week, is #2 in the current search result for “classes”. In new search, it _plummets_ because it doesn’t use this same trick of exploiting prims for sale.
November 13th, 2007 at 8:35 PM
You picked the wrong privacy defaults!
If someone wants to opt *out* now, they are basically forced to
download a release candidate and uncheck things sooner rather
than later. Hello?
This is a bad policy decision. You should have gone with the
current settings a couple of months down the road.
Also.. who decided that a single checkbox should cover the
privacy setting for in-world and web?
Aside from that.. the new search is great.
November 13th, 2007 at 9:14 PM
make Places also according to revelence NOT TRAFFIC
Traffic counts are bogus on revelance anymore
make places revelence please it will make sl so much better
November 13th, 2007 at 10:07 PM
If ‘Relevance’ includes Picks from profiles, and a profile is marked “Don’t include in Search”, are that profile’s picks included in Relevance ?? Just need to get camping bots’ Profile and Picks etc configured to boost Relevance.
There is soooo much more info now, 90%+ of small businesses will never appear on anyone’s screen - who’s going to look at screens 15 thru 70 of search results?
Saying this search facility is equally great for profiles, land parcels, shoes, and wiki scripting articles, is technical arrogance that trashes the rest of the population (and non-English world) that isn’t as smart as the authors.
?? Listing every item on a parcel that is for sale ?? Information overload, making the info useless. Sheesh guys, get a life, really really Phil isn’t going to fire you just because you havn’t done a daily new whiz-bang.
November 13th, 2007 at 10:43 PM
when this new search was announced i was looking forward to it, now i just think it’s a waste of time and resources.
the search for an on sale object is terrible, what about poeple who use vendors?
and as mentioned in previous comments, what about people taking advantage of this to gain even more traffic?
LL needs to take action against both bots and people “playing” the system, and get rid of camping while you’re at it to.
do you want new players to come onto SL and see nothing but zombie avatars lined up getting l$? when they see that they quit SL.
Whats wrong with the old search? get rid of traffic and limit how much can be spent on a weekly ad and that’ll be your answer.
November 13th, 2007 at 11:19 PM
The one thing we did need - that I can’t seem to find listed, and don’t have time right now to download and test your new version - is boolean logic for search.
ie i can type -camping as a keyword and it will exclude all entries that contain the word ‘camping’.
This would have been a really, really useful feature. Is it too late to add something that would be such a great benefit so we don’t have to wade through pages and pages of crap to find what we want?
I think you also missed the opportunity to dissasociate the results from ‘traffic’, which you know as well as I do is absolutely no indicator of quality. That would also kill off camping.
Broccoli
November 14th, 2007 at 12:07 AM
The new search and its features look nice, but I agree to what a lot of people here said: “Opt Out” is nearly always the wrong way. Please, make profiles and objects be “not in search” by default and hae people “Opt In” for being shown i nthe search results. This should include their names as well, not just the decision of “full profile” or “limited profile”.
It should be common sense, but sadly, it’s often ignored: ALWAYS Opt In, NEVER Opt Out.
November 14th, 2007 at 12:12 AM
where is the opt in and opt out? and why are profiles in search????????Shouldnt we be ask this before you done this *******. I with Zi here ASK BEFORE DOING!
November 14th, 2007 at 12:14 AM
This release seems a lot better than the official 1.18.4.3 viewer. I’ve yet to have any problems with crashing like I did with before. So far though, the only bug I’ve seen is that search doesn’t actually minimize, it acts like when you detach an IM from the communication window.
November 14th, 2007 at 1:08 AM
It’d be better if you could exclude yourself completely from external AND internal search. As in, completely hidden.
November 14th, 2007 at 1:24 AM
Jeska,
The issue about owners not being able to change the search settings was raised and closed as fixed internally (http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2821) so I would be concerned if this is not the case.
However, I think Bobo’s concern is that there are a large number of items unintentionally set for sale (due to past bugs in SL), many of which will not actually be buyable due to the permissions, and LL current default settings for items on land set to display in search will result in many of those surfacing in the search results. I do believe LL underestimates just how many such objects exist (items retaining the for sale setting after a purchase was still happening earlier this year).
This issus has been raised with a possible solution - http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2908
Matthew
November 14th, 2007 at 3:07 AM
New search seems pretty cool to me so far
November 14th, 2007 at 4:53 AM
@ n° 41 “I’ve yet to have any problems with crashing like I did with before.”
Same here… I haven’t crashed yet for the very good reason that Second Life won’t let me log in. I visibly am not he only one in this case, since there are only 8,718 Avs online.
@ n°39
Common sense? Nearly unheard of on the grid, I’m afraid.
On the subject itself, I find it sooooooo nice of the Linden to put everyone on the new search without asking. And I currently cannot log in to change this.
Would it be too much to ask to see the mythical beasts known as “thought” or “Answer to an Abuse Report”?
Probably, since I am still waiting for an answer to an AR sent in July, and so are at least five people, on the very same subject.
November 14th, 2007 at 4:53 AM
Now that the new, easy-to-manipulate Search functionality is suddenly blasting the grid with thousands of times the data previously ever seen, suddenly we are having login problems? Weird…I just figured it’d break Search for a few months.
Any thoughts on developing a search mechanism that works on old, established models such as categorization and/or fixed-price advertising, so that relevant data will be displayed in an efficient and effective manner?
Some day someone is going to realize that what’s important is serving the customer (the searcher, in this case), rather than the merchant with the most dollars.
Very disappointing implementation, LL. Please put another quarter in and try again.
November 14th, 2007 at 4:55 AM
I agree with the majority. OPTED OUT should be defaulted. Let people pick and choose what they want to include in your search. Don’t load it full of junk and put the responsibility of taking out the trash on the residents. You have the capability to automate, so start it clean! and let it grow from there. It won’t take time at all before it’s all junked up like the search is now.
I find many default presets in here show little thought when they are preset originally. Here’s an example : Upload a texture, default is transfer, no copy, no mod. Now why would I want to work on a texture, upload it and just immediately give it away, and in a way that the person we gave it to can do nothing with it? I guess there’s some logic there, but I don’t see it. It’s ours, we uploaded it, default it to full perm and save us some time. After all, that’s what automation is supposed to do, right? Save us time?
November 14th, 2007 at 5:11 AM
Good to know that i have to opt something out. Somehow this kind of disregard of peoples previous choises, not opt in, seems to become standard practice.
I will opt out again. I thought choosing to not have my profile published wold have been sufficiant.
Well at least now I get to make a finite descision and I hope I will not be bothered by some other ploy to again choose because soneone still wants to ask me if i am really really sure.
As soon as i am able to log in again i will opt out. And I am really really sure.
November 14th, 2007 at 5:24 AM
I’ve said it before in this blog, and I’ll say it again. Using Google’s inbound links idea is a sure fire way of screwing things up. They way that Google ranks pages by putting such heavy weighting on the natural linkages (votes) of the Web is great in theory, but in doing it, and in becoming popular, they screwed up the natural linkages of the Web, and they still haven’t been able to make the idea work no matter what they do to try and fix it. It worked for a short time, but then everyone with websites ‘arranged’ links to game Google - and the other engines that followed suit.
That’s what will happen with SL inbound links - people’s Picks. They can’t be screwed up in the way that Google screwed the natural linkages of the Web up, but they can and will be used to game the SL “All” search results, just as camping and lucky chairs are used to game the “Places” results. It’s so stupid, imo.
It’s too late to change now, I guess, but it really is gross stupidity. And incidentally, I *do* know what I’m talking about - in RL, I am very well known in the search engine world.
But since we’re talking about SL search, when are you going to do something about the incredibly basic ranking system that’s applied to the Classified and Places searches? If the exact phrase (searchterm) isn’t matched in an advertiser’s text, then the ad/place doesn’t show in the results. E.g. a search on ‘chesterfield chairs’ won’t retun a store that puts “chesterfield couches and chairs” in it’s ad or place description. Search doesn’t get any more basic/bad than that. Instead of adding a failed method (inbound links), you should have done something about incredibly bad existing ranking method.
November 14th, 2007 at 5:27 AM
Yesterday I found that every single one of my accounts was marked as “Show in search”, despite the fact that as soon as a viewer was available that allowed me the option, I EXPLICITLY UNCHECKED THAT “OPTION” for every account that I have! WTF???
I went back into all my accounts and unchecked it AGAIN, but the damage is done, since the data already got published to the web.
November 14th, 2007 at 5:40 AM
“Groups
Previously there were two check boxes in regards to groups and privacy: Publish listing on the web and Show in groups list. This is being simplified to include one box in the group settings called Show in Search which will make the group public.”
NO NO NO !!!!
DO NOT TAKE THAT COURSE!
If the owner of a group wants the group to be visible INSIDE SL, but NOT to be published on the Internet, WHY REMOVE THAT CHOICE?
November 14th, 2007 at 6:02 AM
Yay! A new feature!! No bug fixes! New Featurzorz!!
Seriously.. it’s nice and all but.. can’t we take a month or two off of this “new toys” mania and FIX everything that’s been broken?
November 14th, 2007 at 6:18 AM
Jeska @8: You guys just don’t get it, do you? The majority of users do not even want their user user name available for search on the web! What part of that do you people not understand. ZERO DISCOLOSURE! There. Is that plain enough?
Having the name “Amanda Ascot” pasted all over every search engine in the world is going to mean that “Amanda Ascot” is going to be targeted with a flood of IM, and perhaps notecard, spam in-world, the likes of which nobody has ever seen. I’m going to be getting advertisements for everything from health food and viagra to requests for donations and helping some poor foreign person get some money into the U.S.
Now, every single one of you out there put your own name in the place of “Amanda Ascot”. Now think about it. Long and hard, if you have to, but this really is a no-brainer, and the person responsible for this absurd idea at Linden Lab therefore clearly has no brain — or is not thinking with it.
This is a Very Bad Idea, Linden Lab. It’s a stopper. It proves, as we’ve seen over and over again, that you people do not think through the ramifications of your policies before implementing them. Now do the right thing, which is …
Anything that gets onto a web-based search must be opt-in ONLY!
This means everything, from any and all profile information, including avatar names, to that prim you accidentally set for sale. Nothing … goes … in … by … default. Very simple. Very easy. Very … smart. Don’t make us think that the song you guys all hum to yourself at work is the Scarecrow’s song from Wizard of Oz.
November 14th, 2007 at 6:21 AM
I just tried the new search system, and a few things don’t really work for me:
- If i try to see whether a store is good quality or not, i look at the picture that belongs to the classified/parcel. The picture often shows whether or not the products/logo looks well made, or amateuristic. A picture tells more than 1000 words about a shop. Without a picture the results in the new search all results will kind of look teh same, all having the same keywords etc. With this new search i have to go to ANOTHER page to see the picture. It would take me hours to look true all the pictures, that belong to the classifieds or parcels. Wouldnt it be handy if the picture would appear on the right part of the screen, so we would have see the picture? Instead of going to to next page to finally see it?
Also, the new search seems to load slower, like real webpages. This is kind of annoying when you’re used to the current search that loads faster
November 14th, 2007 at 6:48 AM
I hope that the placement of the new search tool is not written in stone. I would like to HIGHLY suggest that it be moved to the left of the clock, and the status indicators be put back. I know that many of us rely on the status indicators to show when we have crashed, or if we should just wait a bit for lag / freeze to clear, and I for one truly miss them.
The search as tried seems to work well. As much as I have tried it, it seems to be a vast improvement over the old multi-tab tool.
DRD
November 14th, 2007 at 7:39 AM
@53 - Amanda, I agree with you completely.
I’m not very good with finding things on JIRA. Has this issue been posted there yet? if so I do want to vote in favor of making profiles opt-in and defaulted to off. And the ability to exclude my name from posting to the web at all. If someone could let me know what the JIRA code is to vote for I’d appreciate it very much.
I am extremely frustrated by the fact that I made a conscious choice to NOT publish my profile to the web but LL arbitrarily reversed my decision and published my profile anyway. I have since gone in and AGAIN turned that check box off but, as others have said before, the damage is already done.
November 14th, 2007 at 7:41 AM
Both the classified listing and the search result order on the new search all page needs looking at urgently as this implementation is quite simply a disaster.
I pay around 3500L a week for a listing under the ‘Silks’ keyword, which gets me into the top 30 on the classifieds search - which means I’m on the first page not too far down. That’s fine. I also appear in the first 100 on an all search.
It appears your new search only ever lists the top 10 classified payments in the classified box, and the same top 10 at that - no weighted randomization or rotation at all. Furthermore because the listing is totally on money paid across many keywords only the top one - Analise - is really relevant. Of course that’s true of current classifieds, but restricting to 10 really exacibates the issue.
Also the search results order returned seems to be almost random. For example I would sort of expect to see Analise on the first page of results as she pays a lot for classifieds and sells a great many silks on her own island. I can’t find her in the first half dozen pages. And God alone knows where my shop is being returned - I can’t find it at all.
So unless the classifieds gets upgraded, and the classifieds search behaves more like the current search, I really can’t see the point with this new search of paying for classifieds at a midrange rate as it won’t get me exposire where it matters. For the 3500 a week I pay I can get about 10 additional market stalls which will probably be more cost-effective. Furthermore it looks depressingly like that to appear in the results page instead of my current, tasteful, byline
Nubian Angel - Silks, Satins and Steel
I’m going to need to change it to something more like
SILKS!! Yes Silks, Nubian Angels Does Silks, lots and lots of Silks, Silks, Silks and even more Silks!!!!
This frankly is rather depressing for anyone trying to trade with a little style. If this isn’t drastically improved all we’re going to see is sellers spending all their time gaming the search engine.
Now I may be an odd case, but if my observations are more widely true this could have a significant impact on LLs revenue stream. I pay LL USD$50 a month in advertising and with this new search I can’t see that’s going to be worth it. There will be hundreds of other advertisers like me, and if they cut back in a similar manner you’ll be looking at a lost revenue stream sufficient to support a couple of employees
Please Lindens, engage your brains and consider the functionality beyond the eye-candy!
November 14th, 2007 at 8:40 AM
Well, one thing I DO like about the new Search…
The listing of objects on a parcel that is returnd in Search is collapsed by parcel. So if Suzy Boxseller has 5000 identical boxes labeled “Shoes” on her store parcel, and I search for “Shoes”, I only get *one* hit for each parcel that matches “Shoes”, and not 5,000 hits for Suzy’s massive collection of for-sale objects, swamping out all other responses. That does level the playing field between her and some other store that sells an equally impressive number of shoes, but out of scripted vendors. I do wonder though if her parcel would get weighted much higher, just because she has 5000+ matches for her mega-wall of individual for-sale box prims, as opposed to a vendor-based merchant that has one “Shoes vendor” on their parcel.
November 14th, 2007 at 8:43 AM
my 2 cents:
I noticed with populair words like “clothes” you about 14000 hits.
Ok.. but I can only go to page 100, so 10 x 100 = 1000 hits.. what happend to the rest?
Further more the button “next” (next page) will sometime result in a death end (higher page numbers dissapeared).
November 14th, 2007 at 8:46 AM
Regarding the new “All” Tab.
I own a club and i have worked as hard as possible to bring it to a decent traffic. All of a sudden my main keyword being used brings me to page 5 instead of top10 where i used to be.
Im sorry but this search is the worst thing that can ever happen.And if it stays this way, expect a big BYE BYE by many people.
November 14th, 2007 at 8:47 AM
My 3th cent…
Keep it like google.. and show new adds on the following pages.. Now I see the same 10 advertisments over and over again… on all the pages… that is not really fair, don’t think?
November 14th, 2007 at 9:04 AM
[...] to the new search, the Profile Widgets and Domesday Book now have three major [...]
November 14th, 2007 at 10:03 AM
i don’t want to read in a blog how a new feature works, why not send users an e mail with a link where it is clearly explained what a new feature is good for, how to use it - and in this case - how to protect privacy. and pls explain it that everyone can understand it’s purpose and potential risks.
sl has a lot of features, lots of great features and lots of features nobody understands what they are good for or to what consequences are they may lead to. i feel more and more like living in a (gamma???) user jungle.
confused greetings from a newly more and more frequently freezing machine (whithout any software or hardware or laptop behaviour change), pantai
p.s. more and more i am considering to
- first step: downgrade my membership to basic
- second step: leave completely due to lack of transparence, lack of performance, lack of reasonable communcation
certainly step two may take a while to be realised as there are so many exciting experiences in sl, too and - - - some very cute friends
- - - - houston - - -
November 14th, 2007 at 10:10 AM
Thank you for just completely screwing me. My store, which had 23K traffic is now no longer appearing in your search by keywords and now when I search it by name, my description field is completely empty, despite it NOT being empty on my about land tools.
There are items all over my land showing up in the search as if they are for sale, yet checking them they are actually NOT for sale at all.
For more details on everything that is completely borked with this search, please read http://www.gridgrind.com/?p=220
November 14th, 2007 at 10:13 AM
No thanks, this new search will kill payed adds, why pay? could not even find mine little one, but found the mall because someone has it in her profile! A friend who is always in the top20 off classifieds, will get sick if he see this. And then it was said in the former blogs before this was going online, let residents decide and not LL!
And the robots.txt files are ingnored bye many search enigines.
This will hit bad on the sells again, now just do the adult flag after this and bye bye Second Life i am afrraid.
November 14th, 2007 at 10:16 AM
If I hadn’t seen it myself, I’d have thought y’all were getting your knickers twisted for no reason. But this is a show-stopper!
Opt In is the only legal choice (refer the Unsolicited Email Opt In laws in US).
Also SL classifieds have always been weighted in favor of the big guys at the expense of the little guys. I spent a good deal of money on classifieds and was always well down the list. Now I just won’t bother. In fact, I’ll probably close shop then I’ll have no rent/tier to pay Linden - no ad money to pay Linden - no uploads to pay Linden - less money to spend in-world - I’d say that’s a negative outcome for Linden Labs. Now multiply that by the amount of people screaming about this new feature and you got yourself an exodus.
November 14th, 2007 at 10:20 AM
OPT-IN is the clearest choice if you value personal choice, privacy, and the owner/avatar’s right to be found, searchable, or on the Web/Net.
Making each SL user OPT-OUT is the wrong choice.
November 14th, 2007 at 10:40 AM
I love the new search and how we can click on a place and the region and owners, group, etc. And seeing a list of objects for sale is xlnt!
Commerce is definitely listed but us non-commercial entities in the community get no listing at all…
I couldn’t find me and most of me friends and some of my groups wit the *ALL* tab. For example: Watermelon Nation.
November 14th, 2007 at 10:41 AM
I filed a JIRA:
* New “All” search is not finding many avatars and groups
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3092
=)
November 14th, 2007 at 10:59 AM
Well I like it, I think it’s a huge improvement, even if some of my ads have dropped a couple of places. I love that I don’t have to fill in the names of everything that’s for sale now, I can search for the product that I want and the parcel it’s on comes up in search. I’m a little disappointed though that only a few classifieds come up in the ‘All’ search whereas they were all there previously. Can it the classified results that appear in ‘All’ be more? And continue on the next page?
Otherwise brilliant start!
November 14th, 2007 at 11:20 AM
#31 Ann, actually this new search should be helping you. For example you are listed on the top page in a search for “free avatar” =)
November 14th, 2007 at 11:32 AM
Quoted from Broccoli Curry:
“The one thing we did need - that I can’t seem to find listed, and don’t have time right now to download and test your new version - is boolean logic for search.
ie i can type -camping as a keyword and it will exclude all entries that contain the word ‘camping’.”
I back this idea 100% with every bone in my body. I have spent days and days with the old search looking for something specific, but have to wade through useless and unrelated pages.
Another annyoing thing about search is that it searches letters, not words. I can be looking up pie and find a million places for piercings and not a thing about pie until the very last page. CONSIDER making the search function more adaptable with such beautiful features as searching for “exact phrase” or “contains some words” or “contains all words” ect.
It looks like Linden is heading in the right direction, now work on smoothing the system and weeding out the abusers.
November 14th, 2007 at 11:33 AM
After posting above on the peculiarities of the search for the term ‘Silks’ I checked the old classifieds search. It turns out that the top results for ‘Silks’ doesn’t even post a classified, number 2 results has one but pays L500. Number 3 pays 10005, then number 4, 5 and 6 doesn’t have a classifieds.
This isn’t a search engine, it’s a Lucky Dip
November 14th, 2007 at 11:49 AM
Yes the new search is pretty useless. Here’s another gripe about the RC. What’s the idea of putting the search in the top bar at far right? That’s just making the interface even more disjointed. And, it removes the bandwidth and packet loss indicators.
Also noticed that if I right click on a LM in my inventory I do not get the ‘Teleport to Landmark’ option anymore. Anyone else found any hidden features/bugs?
November 14th, 2007 at 12:40 PM
@ Yumi - I appreciate your concerns and would encourage you and your team to spend some time with the new Search. With any new process, there will be a period of adjustment while everyone figures out how to optimize their keywords and descriptions (much as has happened with the “old” search). Also, remember that while we are working to refine the new search, the “old” version of search is still very operable and can help you to refine your results.
@ Bucky - Thanks for your feedback, several weeks ago we released a version of Second Life where everyone was able to change any of the search settings they wanted in advance to populate the new search. I apologize if you were not aware of this announcement.
@ shawnwirtz - Using the new search traffic is one of several things used to determine relevance for all of the searches, including places.
@ Dwayanu - Thanks for your feedback, I’m researching your question and hope to have more information about it for a future blog post.
@ Masuyo - We are exploring other options for vendors, but currently listing more information in the vendor object name and/or description field is a great first step. We of course will continue to continue our dialog with content creators to determine what the best method of searching objects may be. As a first step, listing for objects in search at all vastly improves their find-ability.
November 14th, 2007 at 1:13 PM
Several weeks ago Jeska, when you blogged before, people were asking you to take their profiles out of it by default. Nothing has changed. Profiles should not be searchable from outside SL unless someone explicitly wants their profile to be viewable.
I see no need for my profile to be viewable from outside SL and I don’t want to deal with the associated spam that will inevitably arrive. That means my avatar name shouldn’t be able to be collated for purposes of spam in such a manner.
A new search feature is both welcome and needed but when you’re going to introduce such a huge unwanted feature as spam, it’s best to close that stable door before the horse bolts.
November 14th, 2007 at 1:54 PM
The new search is great! I’ve found stuff I knew existed but couldn’t find under the only system
So I hate to moan! But I do miss the ability to right-click my inventory landmarks and pick ‘teleport’. The landmarks in my inventory are all sites I know and visit regularly, so I don’t need the intermediate panel of info about the location. That is going to get SOOOOOOH irritating.
November 14th, 2007 at 2:11 PM
Like many I voice my vote for Opt In being the choice the Lindens should make.
Lesson one to the people who want to game their Ad up in the search. Write a script that checks people’s profiles for your location in their picks. Pay them L$50 a day to carry you.
The more people who pick your store, the higher you rise in the charts.
November 14th, 2007 at 2:33 PM
@ Broccoli - as described in the Search FAQ, the new Second Life Search supports Boolean logic, keyword searching and phrase searching.
@ Zi - the only thing that is not opt-outable from the new search is the limited profile listing to populate the basic search of avatars within Second Life and the limited profile ONLY contains the avatar name and is very similar to the current search for “People”. Everything else, including objects, have checkboxes to include or not include in Search. The default setting for objects set for sale was to also check the “Show in search”, but this is an editable checkbox. Going forward, you will be able to determine if you want to include any and all objects in search, regardless of their For Sale nature.
@ U M - as explained above, if you do not want your profile included in search, you can uncheck the box “Show in search” and then ONLY your avatar name will be included.
@ Hanumi - an “invisible” profile, as you describe, is not currently possible with the old or new search. It may be an option included in the future.
@ Matthew - yes, I think this may be a bug, albeit a different one than VWR-2921. Anyone should be able to edit the “Show in Search” for any item they own. If this isn’t the case, then I believe that is a bug. I will follow up with the Search Team on this. Don’t forget, you can prevent any objects from showing up in Search by placing them on parcels that are not included in Search!
@ Angus - As mentioned above, several weeks ago we released a version of Second Life where everyone was able to change any of the search settings they wanted in advance to populate the new search. I apologize if you were not aware of this announcement.
@ Rachel - the new search is not connected to login or asset issues, it should actually help relieve load on the central databases, as it has helped to distribute one of the critical loads (search) to an alternate (and easier to scale) web based system.
November 14th, 2007 at 2:33 PM
[...] night, Linden Lab announced its new search service available on their latest release candidate. We had been waiting for that to happen for some time [...]
November 14th, 2007 at 2:51 PM
@ Jeska: You said: “Thanks for your feedback, several weeks ago we released a version of Second Life where everyone was able to change any of the search settings they wanted *in advance* (my emphasis) to populate the new search. I apologize if you were not aware of this announcement.”
From my reading of the page you linked to, it was explicitly stated that the default could only be changed *when we launch the new Search* and NOT in advance:
“For the initial population of the search, we’ve made some assumptions for the default settings of each type of result (explained below). You will be able to change the default after it has been set (when we launch the new Search), although it may between 1-3 days for changes to be reflected in the search results. Due to the nature of search indexing, we are not able to make any guarantees about when any changes will appear.”
It’s completely unacceptable that LL made the assumption that everyone would want their full profiles to be included in an external search! Why on earth would ANYONE want that?
November 14th, 2007 at 2:57 PM
@ LS - as explained in an earlier post, we did need to make some assumptions about what would be included in the original search in order to have something to search! This is why parcels which were set to be included in search, public groups, events and objects set to “for sale” came to be included. The thing to remember is that except for objects, which is a new feature, all of these things were already readily available in the “old” search (including profiles). There were several weeks of time before search was launched wherein changes to these settings could be made. Going forward, everyone can determine whether or not they want their inworld objects included in search or not.
@ Phil - thank you for your feedback. Please be aware that you are able to search only for classifieds or places in the new search which does use boolean search (as described in the Search FAQ). Boolean search will not work with the “old” search which is still included inworld.
@ Amanda - I understand and appreciate your privacy concerns and have taken them back to the Search Team, thank you again for your feedback.
@hiri - The classifieds display is currently in-flux after we discovered a display bug late last night (you may notice the “Classifieds: Coming soon!” annoncement). Please watch for updates and changes.
@ Cindy - The 100 page limit sounds like a bug, I would encourage you to please report this in the Issue Tracker http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Issue_tracker and be sure to set “Affects Version/s” to “1.18.5 Release Candidate“. The Classifieds page is being reworked while the serach is in release candidate due to a bug. Please watch for changes soon!
@ Tony - We have removed all other information except avatar name from the limited profile, based upon Resident feedback.
@ Cuirmichael - thanks for the feedback on landmarks, I’ll take that back to the Search Team as well!
November 14th, 2007 at 3:09 PM
OK, I have to give my opinion..LOL….
Please tell me first why, when I list my things for tenants to buy in their skyboxes, if they choose to take them with them when they leave, are now public knowledge to the world, and will people be able to TP straight into their home and buy those object if the security is not on?
Second, the listings are crazy, by traffic are you serious…..my rentals will never be found…my head listing is a small plot with lower traffic - I am not putting campers there, just to rent homes now….I THINK A SERIOUS RETHINK OF THIS SEARCH IDEA needs to be done.
Small business will be crushed….oh isn’t that like RL? LOL
November 14th, 2007 at 3:13 PM
Going forward, everyone can determine whether or not they want their inworld objects included in search or not
Got your comment Jeska, good! Thanks for that at least, I will be able to choose what is listed, EVEN if it is set for sale then, correct?
November 14th, 2007 at 3:41 PM
Thanks for the response Jeska but all spammers need is the avatar name, it’s all that marketeers need too. As profile appears to be the only item that you can’t completely remove (and by that I mean removing my profile from the outside of SL search completely, my avatar name not appearing) I’m having a hard time believing this isn’t a deliberate ploy to open us all up to marketing from outside SL.
Maybe I’m adding 2 + 2 and coming up with 5, but as it stands it appears someone at LL wants us to be open to marketing from outside SL. Profiles included by default and having to opt out points to this being a deliberate policy.
November 14th, 2007 at 5:15 PM
[...] off, yesterday SecondLife released the 1.18.5 Release Candidate with their new Search tools. It is a Release Candidate (RC), so if you’re afraid of the possibility of things breaking [...]
November 14th, 2007 at 5:27 PM
@ Jeska.. does it mean ‘payment info’ and ‘birth date won’t appear in the google anymore? I hope so it will be a big improvent.