Search Changes Tomorrow
Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 at 1:15 PM by: Jeska LindenAs previously announced, we are making several changes to the new Search All during tomorrow’s update. These changes fix several known issues and provide slightly more relevant results. Keep reading for more information on the changes:
- Classifieds: We are removing classifieds from the main body of the Search All results. They will still appear in the sidebar on the right. This change also fixes an issue where teleporting to a classified location found in the body of search results did not increase the click-through count reported to the advertiser.
- Bug Fix #1: We fixed the Google pagination error which prevented some search results from navigating beyond the fifth page. (VWR-3159)
- Bug Fix #2: We also fixed the disappearing/reappearing bug which caused certain places, groups and/or people to not appear in search if they were taken out then added back Read more about this bug here.
- Relevance Improved: Holding lots of events at a place no longer increases the relevance of that place in Search All results. (This change was made two weeks ago and should be reflected in the search results now).
Please note that the order for classifieds will not change. They will remain listed in the same order as the Search Classifieds tab (by amount paid). Also, the frequency of updates is still the same (may take 1-3 days for any changes to be reflected in the search all results). Thank you all for your patience while we work to improve finding things in Second Life.Still curious about the new search?
- We’re continuing to make changes to improve Search based upon your feedback. Got a suggestion? Please send it to search-feedback@lindenlab.com.
- Have more questions? Please check out the complete Search FAQ in the Second Life Knowledge Base.
- Also, check out Torley’s great Using Search or Showing your Stuff with Search Tip of the Week videos.
- Want to learn more about the design and development process at Linden Lab? Download and listen to the Second Life Search Podcast (in MP3 format).
January 8th, 2008 at 1:23 PM
when will you make bot use to increase traffic a TOS violation. bot use to increase traffic is a clear case of fraud. please move to close this off as all it does is use grid resources to benefit the dirt that uses such low tricks.
January 8th, 2008 at 1:26 PM
118% agree with Ann. You said ages ago that you wewe going to remove traffic, now follow through with it, you’ll get rid of campers, zombie alt farms in skyboxes, and much of the wasted grid load.
You would make a lot of people very happy with this simple change.
January 8th, 2008 at 1:33 PM
Totally agree, i hate bots i wish LL would make an LSL function to retrieve whether someone is logged in with a genuine Linden Lab client, that was at least we can crete stuff to get rid of them
January 8th, 2008 at 1:34 PM
That does seem like a farely simple way to reduce grid load, and I do get tired of those “ghost” people…
January 8th, 2008 at 1:35 PM
Xavier, that’s not logical or possible.
Making camping illegal is also unfeasible. The only way to stop iit is to remove the source, traffic.
January 8th, 2008 at 1:36 PM
I wonder if it would be possible to add a direct link to opening the profile like in the people search (which does not appear in google) when people choose to hide their profiles from the new search.
I have hidden mine because I don’t want it in google, but since then a number of newbies have been complaining they cannot reach me anymore because the new search profile is hidden, and they do not know they still can open my profile in the people search. To them it appears if there is no profile at all anymore.
January 8th, 2008 at 1:36 PM
Bot Fraud….
Down with Bots
January 8th, 2008 at 1:37 PM
Getting rid of it wouldl be the best think LL have done since windlight, reduces load, will remove client sided lag, stop cheating F***ers gaining an unfair advantage.
Removal FTW
Great work btw LL, keep it up ur getting there slowley!!!
January 8th, 2008 at 1:39 PM
I am also in agreement with 1 and 2 above. Do away with the official traffic stat for sims. When traffic stats become obsolete-so will much of the clutter caused by bots.
My guess is that LL is worried their population count will reduce if this was enacted due to all the deceased bots.
January 8th, 2008 at 1:40 PM
I wondered how long it would be before LL posted another blog post to hide the bank closure post.
I’m waiting for the other 2 or 3 posts they post afterwards to move it down and hide it. Funny tho, this usually happens on a Friday?
January 8th, 2008 at 1:42 PM
Thanks for fixing the page 5 issue. That was quite a showstopper for those farther down the ranks. I still don’t quite get the part about removing classifieds from Search All? Isn’t that what All is supposed to mean, All? Someone told me they thought it was because of keyword spamming, however I fail to see how removing classifieds would solve that. People can just as easily spam with irrelevant keywords in their parcel name. Can some realistic explanation be given for why Classifieds are being removed from Search All results?
January 8th, 2008 at 1:48 PM
Okay, you see some increase in relevance. The question is, in your testing, are people still using classifieds even though they are separate from search all? If they are not, this isn’t good… expect a tectonic shift in advertising.
January 8th, 2008 at 1:49 PM
yes, do away with traffic!
And what is with the dual log ins on the DNS page. there are two places to enter name and pass the orgianl and a new one anyone else seeing that?
January 8th, 2008 at 1:55 PM
It’s time to remove traffic as a determining factor in search. Use of camping bots has really put it over the edge. Then merchants can devote full attention to gaming the keywords. Like giving each of their camping bots 20 profile picks for the property. I like the new search and think it is a real improvement. Keep makin it more better!
January 8th, 2008 at 1:56 PM
Well with camping bots completely abusing the new search all and with classifieds for popular markets being redundant for all but the big advertisers (taking classifieds out of the main body vastly reduces the visibility of a classified) I’d like to thank you Jeska for saving me L$ each week on recurring adverts, this money will afford me camping bots so I can game the system like everyone else.
January 8th, 2008 at 1:58 PM
I agree most traffic is bogus now every trick has been found either do away with traffic and have it sorted by revelence or have it made to
each unique visiter to the parcel gets 1 point of traffic - not minutes but each unique visiter to that parcel - Traffic should equal unique visiters not minutes
January 8th, 2008 at 2:03 PM
I agree that removal of traffic is the next big step that LL needs to take in order to fully improve the search function. But lets brainstorm a little….if there was no traffic, how would you like to see a new search perform? Alphabetical order? Keywords? % Relevance?
January 8th, 2008 at 2:03 PM
Get rid of traffic and it will get rid of 95% of the bots infesting LL and will return true login concurrency to real users. PLEASE do something!
January 8th, 2008 at 2:05 PM
Before I am complaining about the changes i am going to wait for the results even when I tend to believe that a google search engine is not going to help in a virtual world. It is a machine, it is just as smart as the people that feed it and there should be a lot more categories that handle the relevance terms differently.
Take the clubs with malls in example. Depending on the amount of tenants / products this will dominate over the relevant club items. It will be hard to recognize the club as what it is. Taking out the events makes it worse. A Mall creates a huge variety of items in search engine terms they create a mess. Every SL merchant will second that sales been lower in malls since the new search.
What the search needs is a category for malls and similar which offer a variety of products where the search engine creates a specified profile with a higher tolerance.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:05 PM
In response to # 16…
maybe we will see a surge in the population as everyone who used to use campers, now makes it their job to create new ALTs.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:05 PM
#17… the best way would be to simply randomise the results.
Oh, and make anything that says “free money” or “sex” or “camping” come right at the bottom of the list
January 8th, 2008 at 2:07 PM
#20 … if everyone makes new alts, then you’re still only allowed 5 per person unless you input fake data, which is then a ToS violation.
But if traffic is no longer a factor … then people won’t have a need to fill their stores with zombies anyway.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:08 PM
We need more catagories for searching, do not worry about the bots; these are not the bots you are looking for. I do not mind the bots, they pop on my land and then pop back off; at least they can be banned if you do not want them.
Camping is fine, but having traffic be the only indicator that a place is popular is very narrow; additional input from the avi’s would make things more helpful. Maybe a star rating system along with a wider catagory listing and selectable variables for what is the top 10,20,30… places as rated by reviews/stars. Let the avi decide how to filter out searches, one star, two star, and let them list as many as they like.
All this talk is just examples of what can be added/changed; there are so many possabilities but limited resources for LL to work on everything.
I would like to see LL at least add additional catagories for searching to help narrow down results. I am getting tired of seeing things listed that have nothing to do with what I am looking for. Need a BS filter for lots of the ones people place, hard to find good honest ones.
Would be nice if the residents worked together to make a (non-profit) white/yellow pages for SL but you could have a commercial section also sponsored by whomever wants to pay for the space.
/end babble
January 8th, 2008 at 2:09 PM
lol@ BC….I concur. Randomizing the results is a good solution, that is until someone decides to break their TP landing point into 16 little parcels. I think there will always be a way to cheat the system.
Can we also have a vote on banning BLING from SL? Pleeeease
January 8th, 2008 at 2:09 PM
I agree that “BOTS” &\OR Camping should be removed. speaking as a retailer, I never rent Vendor or store space on a Sim that has even 1 camping site or traffic over 10 000 (when I am the only avitar on the Sim). I am not the only Retailer judge Rental spots in this way. apparently Most others do as well. I feel sorry for the Noob Retailers with Solding Products wasting what Little $L they might have on areas that have no bennifit to thier Business what so ever.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:10 PM
@17: My suggestion is to mandate linking all alts with a main account, like WoW does; record only one instance of a logged in user, regardless of how many alts/trafficbots that user has logged in. Let’s face it, it’s not camping that’s the problem. It’s the bots: the campbots and trafficbots that skew the numbers.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:12 PM
I know ya’ll hate campers, but…ever think not every resident
-can afford to buy lindens
-has the skills to build
-has the skills to create clothing/textures
and so on…
alot of campers take what they’ve ‘earned’ and spend those lindens in stores…maybe in your store.
I own a store, my traffic is very low, but I still get sales. Not everyone uses those numbers as a deciding factor on where to shop, party, explore…
I started out camping for lindens cuz i couldn’t afford to buy lindens then, and camping enabled me to buy clothes, textures (after i learned how to build from classes offered), land. Now, I’m a productive member of the SL community. So, please, quit with the ‘ban camping’ cuz it just may effect your sales in the end, and as far as the traffic goes, if you offer a service/product worth buying/paying for…people will buy/pay for it
January 8th, 2008 at 2:14 PM
Perhaps LL refuses to totally eliminate traffic because, without camping and bots, the number of accounts logged on would drop dramatically and LL would appear to be the ghost town it has become. Real user numbers would become clear resulting in further loss of corporate interest in SL.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:15 PM
I agree, a lot of big name places have created an almost “monopoly” on certain products in SL. The truely creative and unique items in SL, traffic or not, will still get their products out just by word of mouth.
I am kind of liking that idea that poster #23 mentioned…a rating system. Coupling that idea with what Oryx mentioned, and it may work…. /me see hope in the future for SL commerce
January 8th, 2008 at 2:20 PM
Please remove Popular Places page in search…. and change the ordering list in Places page to something else besides Traffic counts.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:28 PM
Any rating system is going to be gamed by alts.
How about ranking the search places tab by something that cannot be gamed to anyone’s benefit - the age of the parcel, with oldest parcels listed first. Established businesses get the benefit of sticking around as long as they have. Newer places would suffer a little, but as businesses come and go over time, it would work out. Bigger wouldn’t necessarily mean better, and stability would be rewarded. It’s imperfect as any other solution but it cannot be gamed to anyone’s benefit.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:33 PM
“Relevance Improved: Holding lots of events at a place no longer increases the relevance of that place in Search All results. ”
I am sorry, but I am confused as usual. What is “Relevance” and how is it determined? Is it the same as traffic? If the number of people attending, and the number of events at a certain place does not increase “relevance?” What does? Is there a panel that ranks things. Or a person?
This is a serious question so do not come at me about how dumb I am as someone always does. This is simply a question of word clarification and it sounds like someone who coined the word has gotten so used to using it that they forget about those who don’t have it in their SL vocabulary.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:34 PM
@6 Mimi, you and others completely misunderstand the Google connection. Your profile will not appear in Google’s search on the internet.
What LL have done is buy a Google search appliance. It’s just a server (or set of them) with Google’s software on it. It has no connection back to the Google on the internet.
Many large companies buy them, just as they buy firewall, anti-virus and other packaged appliance boxes.
It has no more connection to google than a toaster would. Apart from the badge on the front and their unique way of returning information for searches.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:35 PM
to #31… that might work if you used the group name instead of the place. People move all the time. So, if you move because you need more land, you would drop to the bottom even if you were established early.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:38 PM
Ban camping or remove traffic from the search metrics.
You have now banned:
Sexual Ageplay
Gambling
Banking
So bans ARE possible in YOUR world… Now get rid of camping. Lets make this game just like Real Life please.
After camping goes we can work on removing escorts and fake churches, after all one can’t worship fake idols so how can one worship on unsanctified ground?
Hmm, hang on, leave camping alone…. Ban the churches!
January 8th, 2008 at 2:38 PM
I think removing the traffic rating from the search would make life so much easier for all of us. I do get tired of seeing non-people standing about in places, lagging areas without contributing much to the world other than traffic.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:38 PM
I’m really not very sympathetic about “not being able to afford to buy L$”, when you’re using a $1000 computer and $50 a month broadband connection, sipping on your $5 Starbucks whilst watching your cable TV connection.
Second Life is not a “right”, if your finances are so tight that you can’t afford to drop $5 a month in for a little ’spending money’ then perhaps you really need to reassess your priorities a little about wasting time playing a computer game.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:41 PM
It is a disincentive to moving, yes. But not expansion - who says you have to have the one store in that location? You can buy more land in the sim but leave the main store with the places listing, and take advantage of the prims from the other parcels, or use a teleporter to get to the other sections if they are in different parcels. It would discourage complete moves to an island, however, although the island could function as the main store, and the old plot as a legacy store. There are options and ways to work around it that reward stability without impeding growth.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:41 PM
Making progress–that’s good. Traffic does need to be removed from any Search consideration, as soon as possible. At this point it merely distinguishes between Island and Mainland businesses (Mainland can’t camp as many trafficbots before the 40 avatar limit). Renders the Places search completely useless, and a complete waste of IBLs for Search All.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:42 PM
Well, I don’t know about that Cristalle. I have built a successful business over the last 11 months and just moved to my own sim about a month ago. It was the success I built that allowed me to do so. Why throw me to the bottom because my old business is in a new sim? Though, I see where your heart is.
I don’t really care for the traffic system myself and know many of my competitors have long used bots and campers. When I finally went to campers because I felt I had to to compete, my sales increased. Go figure.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:44 PM
Robert, I’m not saying that you can’t move to your own sim, but you would need to keep the legacy store, at least for a while. Even so, if your sales regularly support moving to its own sim, then it should weather a change in its places ranking.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:48 PM
Put the new Search All tab as the LAST tab, rather than the first.
That way, people who are paying for Classifieds will have a greater chance of having them seen.
Otherwise, many players may not realize Classifieds exist.
And get rid of those special few Classifieds that you plan to still show on the Search All tab. It gives them WAY too much special attention.
coco
January 8th, 2008 at 2:48 PM
Well, there are better ways, Cristalle, but you are right, I would not mind seeing the traffic system go. A rating system sounds better, but it is apparent at least initially how that could be gamed to, as people have pointed out. But hey, I know I do receive a great deal of sales the good ol fashion way….positive word of mouth.
As to search, I am a little confused how the new one will operate myself. How does one gain “relevance” anyway?
January 8th, 2008 at 2:59 PM
What are the better ways, Robert? A rating system that is easily gamed by alts? Traffic clearly has gone the way of the dodo thanks to alt farms. Visibility is important, quality is important, and so is selling what you say you sell.
Ranking by parcel age cannot be gamed to anyone’s benefit - it would only be gamed to one’s detriment. It would kill alt farms, camping bots, and ridiculous naming of parcels with special characters or spaces. It would reward established entities, and does not preclude the shift to an island as a main store. It encourages keeping a little bit of land longer than you might normally keep it, however, but if sales are good enough to sustain a move to a significantly bigger parcel, then it should not matter in the long run whether or not you move - you’ve got word of mouth. And even then, it would balance itself out again in the future as other businesses exit SL.
January 8th, 2008 at 3:07 PM
Well I TOTALLY agree with everyone to get rid of the traffic numbers. I am sick and tired of idle campers and bots giving bogus traffic numbers for crap clubs. Alot of people work very hard…teams of people actually and cannot even come close to those numbers legally. Would be better for improved search not including those numbers as well as word of mouth.
GET RID OF TRAFFIC LL! Free Up 1/2 of your systems resources!
January 8th, 2008 at 3:09 PM
Lindens, i look forward and be hopeful for the future! Sometimes the search will not display the right results for the search phrase. But i think that function is too different based on that large amount of spelling. So why google cant find several results even though google is larger and the most used search machine in the net. I wink with my eyelashes to Linden
January 8th, 2008 at 3:19 PM
Making people keep a “legacy store” is just not attractive as it imposes extra tier requirements on a business and, frankly, my customers want to see my homes in one place. I just think it is a little too unfriendly to growth to suit my tastes. It also makes things harder than necessary and places an artificial barrier on on new businesses and their ability to climb in the search. Frankly, I would rather keep traffic.
Anyhoo, I am more interested in how the new search works if anybody has some insight to lend.
January 8th, 2008 at 3:21 PM
Well, it’s great at seeing who are the rip off resellers and BIABs. Traffic is already being factored out as far as I can see. Removing classifieds is good as I see some people spamming that with multiple identical ads. Be nice if LL could fix the accented characters. Those in profile work okay, the ones in Picks don’t. I’m assuming you can filter out bots by the same criteria you use for unique residents so we’re not botted to death. All in all good progress.
January 8th, 2008 at 3:21 PM
@1 Ann for the win! Well said. WTG LL another fine improvement
Thanks! and Keep up the excellent improvements 
Mar/Cat
January 8th, 2008 at 3:25 PM
Allowing Bots is as much as a disgrace as allowing unregulated financial rip off institutions. What will corporate companies think when they realise they have to compete against a cheat allowed by SL?
January 8th, 2008 at 3:26 PM
By removing events from the things that have an impact on search, the Lindens are protecting two criteria that are dear to them and their profitability:
1- The weight of classifieds in the results, which makes people pay so much for them.
2- The weight of traffic in the results, and therefore the camping that makes so many people buy Linden dollars.
January 8th, 2008 at 3:36 PM
To everyone claiming that removing traffic would reduce the amount of bots in SL, you’re being very short sighted. If “traffic” is removed, it will probably be replaced with some other mechanism to gauge the popularity of a parcel, which could also be gamed by bots.
Xavier Tosung
Won’t happen, for two reasons:
1) Just because someone is logged in with the “genuine Linden Lab client” doesn’t mean they’re not a bot
2) User agent headers can be spoofed.
January 8th, 2008 at 3:39 PM
A lot of people that use camping, use the money that they make to rent land, houses, or shops. So if you do away with traffic, you will end up hurting the SL economy. Also some of these people use the money they make to hire builders. And a lot of these are from third world countries, so without camping, alot of these people will not be able to play SL.
As far as search being gamed, well what ever you do there are ways of gaming it. All you have to do is search for ESC, CSI, or Dell, so there are ways of gaming it, no matter what you do.
Now why would anybody use search all, to do a search? If I’m searching for a place, then I’m going to search in places. If I’m going to search for a person, then I’m going to search people.
January 8th, 2008 at 3:43 PM
ok. few things here..
1 - every time i search land sales, then click on one.. i crash. any ideas? also .. since the new “all” .. i havent been able to use search all old or new at all. ive talked with a few other people that have the same and different problems.. some cant search people, some places.. any ideas to the cause?? .. heres to hoping an update will fix it.. im currently in the market for a half sim, and REALLY want to keep an eye on everything possible with current events.
2 - a few sidenotes… “I tend to believe that a google search engine is not going to help in a virtual world” … tell my stock in google that.. people laughed at me when i bought in … i laugh at them now.. (especially after the vacation i just took paid ENTIRELY from net earnings) dont underestimate what it can do.. really.. youd be suprised!
another sidenote; read #23 ….. preach on sista davina.. worry less about whats going on and more about what could be done to fix it and the world would be a better place.. ~one life~
3 - Love how the rich and wealthy want to get rid of traffic.. Sure, lets just follow the rest of the american media, and show advertising depending on how much a company or individual can AFFORD to pay for advertising. Hell, while were at it.. how about we just convince LL to do away with small buisiness and single owned buisiness all together… then you can put that 20,000L a week you spend in classified into buying more land bots… further insuring no one else can get good deals on things?? (are you kidding me??) i REALLY hope the faith i have in LL isnt ill-conceived and they can see through this.
.. ok.. rant over..
What im saying is traffic is sometimes the only way for some people to be able to advertise their services and sims… doing away with it will only make things that are already hard (i spend close to half my time working on my traffic (live music, events, etc.) on those people like me who cant afford 5 - 20k a week on a classified ad.
were here too people .. the broke among us.. we work for a living and cant afford to spend $200 a week on a GAME… and realize that without us here to support YOU … some of the luxuries you like to have will be disappearing with these things.
And NO, theres nothing wrong with the camping idea.. its actually a GOOD thing if done right. i myself use a zone camper.. let people make a few linden for walking around looking at my sim. Im happy to pay it.
whats WRONG here is the inability of EVERYONE involved (not just LL) to take a stand against rules being broken.. wrong things being done.. heres a novel idea… tell people that when they are caught doing something wrong.. theyll be punished for it.. then FOLLOW THROUGH!!
Outlaw bot programs that do nothing but harm to the community,
Have someone (or a group) watching for alts and bot accounts.. AND BAN THEM!! ive played and worked for other MMO’s that have taken a stand against bots in general.. and you wouldnt believe how much better things got after the companies took that stand…
Please LL.. youve done a great job so far in doing the right thing… banks, casinos..
dont let us down now
HH
January 8th, 2008 at 3:45 PM
[...] SL posts news of change to the search function tomorrow. Why am I guessing it’s not the change they promised long ago - wherein they were [...]
January 8th, 2008 at 3:48 PM
Camping would not go away 100%, but the people that use camping to game the places ranking would stop. They’re not using campers anymore, anyway - they are using farms of their own alts. Those alts are not renting land/houses or buying stuff.
I’m sure that Money Tree Island / welfare island will still be around if traffic goes away, because they will continue to attract noobs to fill out their surveys, which is the source of their cash. And noobs will always look for free lindens, so I don’t think that the real people who can’t afford to put much money into the game still have options. And people who use camping as a legitimate source of advertising to get eyes on the products will still be around.
January 8th, 2008 at 3:51 PM
Does this fix the lack of a beacon when TPing to a sim that has a single TP hub?
January 8th, 2008 at 3:51 PM
The don’t want to remove BOTS and BOT usage because it INFLATES the numbers of people actually using the game. Looks MUCH better commercial customers and possible investors.
January 8th, 2008 at 3:59 PM
I think some people confuse campers with bots. Not ALL campers are bots - hell, if it weren’t for camping, we without credit cards and the ability to buy Lindens would remain paupers.
I started out without a single $L and no weekly stipend since LL stopped paying those to noobs.
Through spending a lot of my time camping, I managed to build a small nest-egg and open a store selling my original neko fashions.
From that small beginning, I have opened several stores, bought some fabulous items from others and consider myself a contributing member of the SL community.
On the other hand, I know of several sims where bots are located by their hundreds in sky boxes or holes in the ground. The owners of these sims employ all sorts of tactics to avoid being caught including invisible ceilings and security systems that eject the curious if you do manage to get too close. I have reported these to LL via the Abuse Report many times, pointing out the ToS violation but they continue to operate to this day.
Obviously LL does not feel the need to observe its own rules and I think some of the reasons for this have already been stated in previous comments.
I have considered sending a notecard (with photos of the bots) to all store owners in these sims pointing out the false traffic and that their rents are based on a total fabrication hoping these shops will vote with their feet and move out but (a) it’s hardly my place to do so (b) it will undoubtedly lead to grief and abuse by the sim owners which I really don’t need.
I liked the idea @16 of one traffic count per unique visitor - this would instantly make bot farms that operate 24/7 obsolete.
Bots are indeed a problem in SL but please make the distinction between legitimate camping and bot farms. Camping like Social Security in RL is necessary and the money goes back into the economy. Bots run by sim owners do nothing for the economy, use up valuable system resources and artificially inflate market rents.
January 8th, 2008 at 4:15 PM
I’ve experienced something interesting the last two weeks. Just as an experiment, I’ve tried having an alt camp in skyboxes above my two stores to attract more customers. There have been absolutely no increase in sales, so it’s obvious to me that my customers at least, don’t go for traffic numbers when deciding to visit my stores.
Maybe people don’t care as much for traffic numbers as we thought…? Myth busted - and experiment ended
January 8th, 2008 at 4:16 PM
I too am against the use of ALT armies to gain an advantage in SL through search. Inbound links for each alt can generate at least 13 links. People that won’t resort to it must hope that 13 real customers FREELY put the land in their pics and save a landmark simply to stay even on the search page.
I refuse to belive this was the intent of the new Search and certainly not why it was made possible to have alternative accounts.
January 8th, 2008 at 4:18 PM
as i said in post #1, make bot use for inflating traffic a TOS violation. then LL enforces the TOS and permanently bans all those defrauding residents via inflated traffic with no recourse and no appeal.
this leaves legit camping.
see it is so simple to see who is using sleekbots. 20 or 30 connections from the same IP address? BANNED. end of story no recourse no appeal all assets taken and put back into the economy. only a few enforcements and the sleekbot app is history. while at it go ahead and ban people that make defrauding tools such as sleekbot. they are not needed in sl.
January 8th, 2008 at 4:18 PM
Search ranking is, as we’re all keenly aware, a difficult matter. Google and their ilk spend a vast amount of time on trying to work out ways of improving results, not always very successfully.
One aspect that might be worth trying is trusting your friends. Consider everyone could offer their opinion (good, okay, bad; or whatever granularity you liked) on a given destination - then the opinions of your friends could alter the rankings presented to you.
It’s not an area I’m especially familiar with, but as I understand it, similar issues arise in the concept of “cloud of trust”, as mooted in P2P search engines - who to trust, how much of that level of confidence reflects on you, and how much can you in turn convey.
This would be work for Linden Lab (=money out), but in the longer scheme of things, a source of revenue - a more useful search is one that’ll be visited much more often (=ka-ching!), not to mention simply helping people find what they’re wanting, in a world that still remains terribly fragmented in seeking out events, inspiring places to visit, or common interests.
January 8th, 2008 at 4:38 PM
Well…atleast you can clear the ATM’s from the search…..
Nice job LL…you managed to create a panic…
January 8th, 2008 at 4:53 PM
About this Traffic Discussion: Maybe just change the formulas used in calculating . Factor in UNIQUE visits per week
January 8th, 2008 at 5:07 PM
I’m all for getting rid of traffic and the popular places page - none of those places are popular!
However, bots are totally legit, and do many things not possible otherwise.
Fully automated group invites, high-granularity parcel-autoreturn, AI for information and entertainment, they have many uses.
It is not bots that hurt the economy and search, it is the way “traffic” is calculated. If traffic is kept, unique avatars would be the best way to go, the duration of stay being unimportant past a few minutes.
Almost all bots used in SL, which are not camping, serve a useful purpose.
If any of you use SL Exchange, you will have had money paid to you by “Exchange Street”. Guess what: Exchange Street is a bot. SLX would not be possible without this bot. Many other useful things wouldn’t, either.
Get your facts right, tackle bot camping, not bots per se, or bot software.
Melanie
January 8th, 2008 at 5:11 PM
A simple way to affect the use of bots to generate traffic is to count unique visits per day or even per hour this would force those who want to use bots to leave the sim every hour or so. Remove the time spent as it is worthless I would really be interested in how many actual individuals visit my stores. The traffic is meaningless in its current state. After a while you do learn to avoid those popular places, well unless you like lag.
Better time could be spent plugging your massive memory leaks, something that has an eternal life in this game.
January 8th, 2008 at 5:14 PM
I whole-heartedly agree with Ann Otoole and the first 3 posts. Time and Time again, places that used to be on the Pop list have been removed by these ALT/Bot Farms… why? I mean it seems that if you are a welcome center give you the right to undermind the businesses of Second Life. I applied as a LL Liason and was not selected because of my views on Campers/Alt/bot farms. It is a shame that the sims you work on crash or need to be reset constantly due to the influx of these people who make it a point to become rich by Camping. Before I am flamed and debunked because of the length of time it would take to get rich camping, I will say this. I know of many people who I have come in contact with over the last 3 months.. who do nothing but camp.. When will LL wake up and put a stop to the unethical practices of a few who make it hard for the hard working business people to actually become sucessful? These same people who put up these camper farms will then turn around and charge exuberant amounts of L for rent based upon traffic….. which is nothing more then campers who do nothing but slow the grid down…
5:12pm today.. and there are 55K people online… LOL… for fear of getting into TOS trouble about wagering I have edited this line.. but I can bet and win that at least 30% of the 55K people online right now are campers/bots.
January 8th, 2008 at 5:16 PM
There is no easy answer, but, if a consistant system isnt in place quickly, many businesses will fail because they cant get the word out they exist for people to visit while paying for the costs to stay open trying to grow, ie tiers, classifieds, events etc… Consistancy is the key to a winning system for most, no system is best for everyone, continuous changes and lack of LL support to those changes will cause many to fail and leave SL. Get a system, however imperfect and say ” Ok this is it, deal with it” all this wishy washy change here or there or back again only hurts people, and some of us have quite alot invested into SL!
January 8th, 2008 at 5:31 PM
@ 11 Darrien,
A realistic explanation would be that it is current standard practice in the search engine business not to mix organic search results with paid result, and always clearly identify sponsored results on top bottom and/or right side. If paid results were to show in the contextual results, you would end up on the long term with a paid advertising monopoly of the organic “free” search index by large companies. While Yahoo Search is involved in that to a minor degree, Google and other search engine’s role is to organize and make information available based on relevance, not based on the fat wallet and scale of companies. Non-profit and general public domain information would be deprived of showing at their fair “rank” value and search would loose its integrity and balance between open free information and commercial content. Mixing classifieds into “search all’ results would be viewed as fairly unethical and greedy from a search provider and destroy the concept of a balanced “easy-to-use free service that usually returns relevant results” which has proven to be a successful “search engine democracy”.
Ideally Linden Lab’s Classifieds would need to evolve into a pay-per-click system like Google Adwords to define rank with a mix between contextual value, click through rate and price paid. But Yahoo only recently went from a “pay-for-ranking” model to a “pay- for-performance” one, following Google’s lead. It’s a complex transformation and Linden Lab is obviously not quite there yet. They would very likely need a third party provider to offer such back-end technology unless Google buys out Second Life…
@33 Sylvie,
Profiles will appear in Google’s search in one way or another if made available in search. They already do via a third party web site http://services.secondlife.network.marvulous.co.uk made available by SignpostMarv Martin. The fact that results are/will be available on the second life website makes them exposed to being found in a Google search indirectly. In that regard, Mimi is correct in her assessment of protection against showing in Google.
January 8th, 2008 at 5:40 PM
exchange street a bot? lmao. funny how when apotheus was debugging the new magic boxes he came over on exchange street and used my magic box for debugging. the convo we had certainly indicated exchange street was not a bot lol. exchange street owns the boxes apotheus uses for the comms to conduct business. thats not a bot.
January 8th, 2008 at 5:49 PM
Don’t listen to the loudmouths who have nothing to contribute but bitching!
The traffic metric is very useful in eliminating the “ego trip” sites from those that actually have something worth looking at!
January 8th, 2008 at 5:56 PM
@71: I have talked to bots, too. They have operators who can take over.
Even landbots do. Many are built on modified clients, which allow full rendering.
Still, ES’s payment function is automated, which makes him a bot. He’s online and working 24/7. Automatically.
January 8th, 2008 at 6:07 PM
Cant even log in :/ What ya broken now guys? :p
January 8th, 2008 at 6:11 PM
Perhaps if LL slowed their frenetic pace and fixed existing issues instead of creating new ones, things wouldn’t be completely broken right now.
January 8th, 2008 at 6:12 PM
LOL @ post 72. Looking at the Popular Places, I have to agree! I definitely think that places that offer free money and orgy rooms definitely have more to show than the dedicated people among us!
January 8th, 2008 at 6:13 PM
Exchange Street is not a bot; it’s more of a trust account. ES has been there long before SL went open source. ES owns the objects which make payments. When objects pay out, it still says that the owner has paid you. You can’t tell whether it’s a person controlling the avatar or the person’s object that pays you.
That said, there are still beneficial uses to bots. Automatic group invitations is the first that comes to mind. But bots to create artificial traffic are just a drain on the system in the aggregate, and something needs to be done about them.
January 8th, 2008 at 6:14 PM
Logins failing, and 8K people dropped of the grid in 2 minutes…
January 8th, 2008 at 6:22 PM
Yeah and not a mention on the blogs. I’m sure it wasn’t something they were aware of. Maybe they are doing the downtime maintenance right now!
January 8th, 2008 at 6:23 PM
Logins failing here too… NOW I get some sort of message claiming RESTRICTED LOGINS!??
/me wonders SERIOUSLY if old man Linden ain’t GWB in RL due to ALL THESE CONSTANT SCREWUPS
January 8th, 2008 at 6:33 PM
Here, here! Ban the bots. Bank the banks. Ban all accordions. Be all you can be. But let someone else decide what you can be. That way you don’t have to think about it.
January 8th, 2008 at 6:34 PM
Lol erm… Now logins are disabled, I can log in. but I cant move through lag. even opening IM’s is lagged. I’ve not played in a long time but surely you cant broken THAT much stuff? Sorry, last post in the blog. dont wanna fill it up
January 8th, 2008 at 6:42 PM
-missed it by one min… lol ty LL… buuuttt, hope it goes as planned for you in there and hope to see what going on and ty for catching whatever it is, as “technical issues” can have infanate meening (any programed device/application not working as designed or intended)
not to be odd, but why choose a 10 message cap when there’s? descussions and people who pose one through 5 word off topic notes?
well, consittering i myself am offtopic in the juggle of the limit cap, as we for years come down to the next open post to continue the discussion…
January 8th, 2008 at 6:56 PM
I’m with 34 and 31. The longevity of a business is going to say a lot about their committment to sl and to their business, and to the people who come inworld.
I agree it should be on business (group) or somesuch as many businesses as they expanded have moved to dedicated sims etc - as my business has. 5 O’Clock Somewhere has been going now for 15 months - and I only recently moved it to it’s own dedicated sim. I wouldn’t want all my hard work building up visibility knocked to the bottom of the list because I improved the experience for my visitors.
I also applaud the demise of traffic relevance - I may have some hope now. I am yet to see what difference moving the Classifieds will have.
…. and I’d like to see all land bots shot on sight
January 8th, 2008 at 6:58 PM
.. oh, and one more thing
Popular Places is simply a quick list for camping and sex joints.
Says nothing about the truly beautiful places in sl that we all love to go and experience.
January 8th, 2008 at 7:07 PM
@27 said it.
There are so many people who only make money in SL by camping and spending it back into the game and that is the grease that keeps this creaky economy going. Sure, bots suck, but if you don’t want to pay some company running bots for that extra advertisement of being high in the list all it takes is for you to be a responsible land owner. Kick afkers, move your camping areas around, do things that bots aren’t intelligent enough to deal with. Not ALL campers are bots.
This is NOTHING that LL needs to be involved in if they care at all for players running their own economy. HA, wait a moment… Anyone who thinks that LL isn’t in this to make all the money they can is simply naive. Yet, while LL is looking for more of your money they are not thinking about the future (theirs or yours) at all.
They want you to pay for advertisements, and whoever pays the most gets the most advertising. So rather than paying for the thousands of newcomers to SL to be able to afford their basic appearances and a few toys while boosting your traffic, you will soon get to pay LL directly for advertisement.
This can only end badly for LL, as those newcomers who have no experience and have no way to buy new items either get bored and quit or get bored and start griefing because that is about the only thing of entertainment value that will be left in SL.
Why even run events if traffic doesn’t matter? What’s really the point of all those clubs where people go to hang out every night with their friends in SL? This should kill those ‘traffic gathering’ spots off nicely.
And what’s left? A virtual world full of nothing but shops with a few people scattered around it randomly? Oh wait, it’s still a haven for perverts and cybersex addicts. At least you’ll still have them LL.
January 8th, 2008 at 8:29 PM
Not one Linden has chimed-in. This issue needs to be addressed and this blog is the only appropriate forum for an official response to the masses.
Torley, I know you are out there . I know that the topic of Land Traffic and Bots are not your responsibility. But surely you have an opinion. What do you think?
January 8th, 2008 at 8:39 PM
Ranking by unique visitors is probably the best.
Ranking by parcel age would be great for me, I’ve still got my “first land”, but it doesn’t seem terribly useful. You’ll just get people renting space from people who happen to have had their parcel a long time.
But killing off traffic won’t get rid of the campers. Some people just sim hop, others bring up destinations on the map and collections of green dots look better for both of those.
January 8th, 2008 at 8:44 PM
Back to the main topic. I want to thank LL for improving SEARCH. Folks, this is “kind of a big deal”. Scroll back up to the main article and click the podcast. This is a link to an audio of several Lindens discussing the new search. This is also the first of such podcasts so I am looking forward to hearing more. It is nice to know that the Lindens were also tired of the exploits Orgy room owners would use to sabotage search in order for their filth to appear on the front page of every search.
January 8th, 2008 at 10:08 PM
Just out of curiousity. Why not look for unique mac addresses. I somehow doubt that anyone is going to run that many separate computers to increase store sales. It should be a relatively easy manner to look for the same mac address of a given network card. At first I would just say look for unique IP address but some people share a network connection. The mac address is always unique.
Not sure that killing campers is the way to go.
As for legacy stores….hmmm, might be able to use a system similar to that used for SL Partners and transfer the stores “history” to the new store location.
Just my 2L worth
Mike
January 8th, 2008 at 11:40 PM
The people are speaking, GET RID OF TRAFFIC, listen to us.
Over 1/3 the population are bots, the majority aren’t people looking for spending money in SL, they are farmers who goldfarm other games, it’s no coincidence the economys been crap for the last 6 months since their numbers started to climb, these aren’t residents, they are people who visit the account page to withdraw their money.
Real campers should be glad, because once the bots go they will have more opportunity.
And the thousands of other bots hammering away at the grid teleporting from sim to sim every few seconds are what causes much of the lag and certainly a lot of login dificulties, trying to login as 10,000 bots are autorelogging after any downtime.
And when they are gone delete any account that doesn’t log in a 2 year period, there’s so many good names taken from us that real residents have to have numbers for names.
Ban Botting or at least restrict it somehow. Why can normal residents only have 5 alts while others run 100’s.
I’ll just requote what another concerned citizen said seeing I can not say it any better.
Dear Linden Labs,
More and more, Second Life is being harmed by three pernicious practices: Adfarms, camping bots, and traffic bots.
Each of these issues affects SL on several levels. They use disproportionate amounts of resources, degrading the overall service and its level of performance. They suck money out of the economy without creating anything or providing any sort of service in return. And, in the case of adfarms at least, they make the SL landscape ugly.
Using camping bots to sit on someone’s camp chairs is bad enough. It takes income away from individual newcomers, who aren’t yet skilled enough to create and sell content. Some of the people running camping bots are running whole armies of them, making a significant Real Life income by sucking money out of SL. This is hurting Linden Labs as much as it harms Residents, because it takes away money that business owners might otherwise use for expansion.
Traffic bots are another problem. Recently, we’ve seen the practice of using 30, 40, or even up to 80 bots crammed into a hole, or lofted in a skybox, for the sole purpose of inflating an operation’s traffic figures. The people running traffic bot farms aren’t sucking out money, but they are distorting Search results and creating lag problems for visitors to the sims where they operate.
Ad farms don’t work, as advertising. Few if any reputable SL businesses use them to advertise — they know that most residents boycott businesses who use adfarms. But the ad farmers set their 16 square meter eyesores for sale at extortionate rates. If their neighbors want any sort of peace or attractive scenery, they’re forced to pay the ad farmers to remove their eyesores. Some ad farmers also use temp rezzers in their small plots. Like the traffic bot farms, this creates lag for everyone.
Ad farms, camping bots, and traffic bots: These are three of the five major issues facing Second Life (the other two are griefers and grid stability issues). Linden Labs may not want to deal with these issues; the creation of bots, in particular, might seem as if it’s helping to make SL look good, with more registered users, more concurrent users. But they are parasites. Like all parasites, a heavy infestation can kill the host. As a mentor, I’ve already seen newcomers encounter these practices, and leave SL in disgust when they learn that LL will do nothing about them.
LL has always taken a “hands off” attitude to the problems, on the grounds that they are resident to resident disputes. I would suggest that these problems are more than that. The people who practice them have found loopholes…in the technology, or in the rules, and are exploiting those loopholes to the detriment of all. Just as it’s LL’s job to fix bugs in the software, it’s your job to plug up these loopholes.
Solutions to all of these problems have been put forward over and over again; I won’t re-hash them here. But it’s time and past time to take action. Get rid of the parasites, LL. Before it’s too late.
__________________
Lindal Kidd
January 8th, 2008 at 11:45 PM
@ 33 silvie
The profiles in the new ALL search ARE on the internet. Yours in on http://world.secondlife.com/resident/01720d4f-59fc-4893-bf60-4596796e14ea
It will only be a matter of time till google picks up the webpage and adds it to their browser. Google automatically scrolls the web and adds webpages that are linked by any other page. So its just a matter of time till its there.
January 8th, 2008 at 11:47 PM
Sorry camping doesn’t keep the economy going, PEOPLE PUTTING RL MONEY IN KEEP THE ECONOMY AFLOAT. And at the moment their influence is being severly hacked by the goldfarmers taking it out with 100’s of campbots controlled by kids working for a bowl of rice a day like they do to WoW and CoH and other games online.
The free ride is going to be over soon, time to invest or create in a world if you like it.
RL stores don’t pay people to sleep outside their bussiness so they can afford to buy beer……………………..
January 9th, 2008 at 12:29 AM
I would really love to know what relevance means in terms of the new search as it compares to and contrasts with traffic. Relevance is a search result classification; traffic is that occult and strange number arrived at, I am told, by some factor and the number of vistors an