Maggpie Daines Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 I added an enhancement yesterday to one of my items and after hours of refreshing the homepage both last night and today, I have yet to see my ad posted on the homepage. Its a little frustrating to spend the money, that they have no problems taking, and not see the ad placed. Typically in the past I have seen the ad placed fairly quickly, but this time its almost been a full day and still I havent seen it, and I continue to park on the page and refresh it once I have scrolled thru, and still nothing Maggpie Daines Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrius Gothly Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 And this is exactly why I absolutely refuse to purchase any enhancements whatsoever. In the past, while refreshing endlessly, and scrolling through the 40 ads included in each page's scroller, I never once saw my ad. However I did see several other Merchant's ads .. almost always in every single page refresh. It's VERY disheartening to see another Merchant receiving a "view" on every refresh, and after over 200 refreshes never once seeing my ad. That was the point where I realized any money spent on enhancements was wasted. Now if I could afford to purchase the large number of enhancements that the merchants I saw with an ad on every page are purchasing then yes, it would be worthwhile. But I can't and so I wont. And just to be clear, the "view" I saw was the EXACT SAME ad repeated on nearly every page refresh. Many times I would see that same Merchant's various ads placed 2-4 times in the scroller. So it's not that they placed so many ads that at least one was bound to show up. It was specifically that each of their ads received a "view" on nearly every single refresh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 Darrius Gothly wrote: And this is exactly why I absolutely refuse to purchase any enhancements whatsoever. In the past, while refreshing endlessly, and scrolling through the 40 ads included in each page's scroller, I never once saw my ad. However I did see several other Merchant's ads .. almost always in every single page refresh. It's VERY disheartening to see another Merchant receiving a "view" on every refresh, and after over 200 refreshes never once seeing my ad. That was the point where I realized any money spent on enhancements was wasted. Now if I could afford to purchase the large number of enhancements that the merchants I saw with an ad on every page are purchasing then yes, it would be worthwhile. But I can't and so I wont. And just to be clear, the "view" I saw was the EXACT SAME ad repeated on nearly every page refresh. Many times I would see that same Merchant's various ads placed 2-4 times in the scroller. So it's not that they placed so many ads that at least one was bound to show up. It was specifically that each of their ads received a "view" on nearly every single refresh. I 1000% agree Darrius. Way back when, I tried listing enhancements - 3 times. First of all, it did ZERO to the related listing's sales volume. I noticed no improvement in sales at all between the listing's sales before/after the enhancement period vs. during. And just like you Darrius - I was skiptical if my listing was even being shown or if LL's listing display algorithm was flawed or even bogus or skewed for some reason - so during one of my enhancement periods I went to the MP site and I clicked the website refresh 600 times. NOT ONCE DID I SEE MY LISTING SHOWN. ZERO! But during that 600 tries I frequently saw several other listing show up over and over. Ironically, LL's stats showed how many time my enhancement was actually displayed on a visitor's page but I completely do not believe they are accurate stats. So I dont know how LL has designed the listing enhancement feature, but its well known by several merchants that the listing enhancements are utter useless for most. I would love to know why or how a few Merchants and their listings seem you get their enhancements to show up over and over and others / most rarely or never show up. As such, long time ago I gave up on LL's listing enhancements. Far better ways to spend my $L than the grossly over priced and utterly flawed LL MP listing enhancements features. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luna Bliss Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 You guys are acting again like you think they intend to take us or our businesses seriously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ry0ta Exonar Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 Yes, it's extremely rare that you can see your own enhancement. I didn't remember how many times I refreshed the homepage, but you can check the performance of your enhancement. Just in case you aren't aware of that. There is a link in the Reports >> Listing enhancements. I'd say if you are getting 2700 to 2800 impressions a week, that's normal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrius Gothly Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 Luna Bliss wrote: You guys are acting again like you think they intend to take us or our businesses seriously. LOL So true. They WILL take our money and, if not provided "on time" they will get quite "serious" about it. But returning that sentiment? Yeah, you're right Luna ... Not gonna happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrius Gothly Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 Ry0ta Exonar wrote: Yes, it's extremely rare that you can see your own enhancement. I didn't remember how many times I refreshed the homepage, but you can check the performance of your enhancement. Just in case you aren't aware of that. There is a link in the Reports >> Listing enhancements. I'd say if you are getting 2700 to 2800 impressions a week, that's normal. I've seen the "stats" they provide, and I do not believe they are accurate or even honest. If 2800 impressions per week is the norm, then the number of times I've seen the ads of others (who pay the same amount as I did for their ad) would be in the neighborhood of 50,000 to 75,000. So either they are faking the numbers or they are granting special display priority to specific individuals. Not to open this up to a "legal argument" .. but doesn't that smack of fraud? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luna Bliss Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 oh NO...someone who does math! We better get you a DarriBarri552 alt account quick and send u over to Linden Realms (don't forget to buy your premium account/linden home along the way though) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ry0ta Exonar Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 lol Yeah, if so, that's a scam! Like you said, I too see the same ads from some merchants over and over again and actually suspected the possibility of what you said. lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Susanto Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 >or they are granting special display priority to specific individuals It's unfortunate that I can't see who is buying enhancements and who is not. Otherwise maybe I'd be able to break myself of the perception that listing enhancements only work properly if you also link and in-world store on your listings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrius Gothly Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 Josh Susanto wrote: >or they are granting special display priority to specific individuals It's unfortunate that I can't see who is buying enhancements and who is not. Otherwise maybe I'd be able to break myself of the perception that listing enhancements only work properly if you also link and in-world store on your listings. I have all my listings linked to my in-world stores, and I have a classified. Those things were in place when I tried listing enhancements too. In fact I had more classifieds when I tried them; I've since cut way back on classifieds .. especially since I realized that people paying insane amounts of money and had NO keywords that were in my search terms were still getting listed above my ads. (Two full pages of totally unrelated ads before the first ad appeared with any keywords in common!) Not that I believe everything you suggest Josh, but I'm also not one to discount theories out of hand either. So .. sorry to say .. this particular one doesn't hold up to empirical observations. Why can't you see who is buying enhancements? Are you using some sort of "blocker" on your web browser to hide the scroller? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czari Zenovka Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 Luna Bliss wrote: oh NO...someone who does math! We better get you a DarriBarri552 alt account quick and send u over to Linden Realms (don't forget to buy your premium account/linden home along the way though) ...and pick up the dune buggy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SimonTemplar Bernard Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 I am having the same issues- the "Home Page" listing enhancement is paid for per my account.. but I can not find the item. Time will tell. It's an experiment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Susanto Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 I'm not asking people to believe stuff, per se. That's not really how theories are supposed to work. The way a theory works is that if there is some specific thing which would disprove it but which has not yet happened, it is a valid theory. There can be multiple valid theories at one time, even if they contradict each other, provided that they are all subject to disproof and not yet disproved. In fact, the more valid theories you have, the more stand to be disproved and the further away you can eventually get from being completely wrong. When you have only one theory, though, it tends to function a lot like a belief. In the absence of my theories, for example, there is usually only the default theory that everyone at LL is immune to corruption. I believe that most users subscribe to this theory because it just seems easier to them, not because it makes any statistical sense or because it provides them any advantage in terms of making their own decisions about how to interact with LL. A major procedural problem on this forum is that we usually have only 2 theories; mine and something like the opposite. Not you, specifically, Darrius, but more generally, it seems like people around here are a lot better at shooting down theories that challenge the default theory than they are at providing some other viable explanation for what is happening. In answer to the question of not seeing who is buying listing enhancements, I understand that I need to clarify: 1) If someone buys a listing enhancement and gets what they paid for, I may see that. 2) If someone buys a listing enhancement and does not get what they pay for, I will not see that. Thus, it is currently impossible for me to do a mathematical breakdown of how the listings differ between those of people getting screwed and those of people not getting screwed, which would be an easy way to hurt my theory. But there are other ways, and I hope they will be tried. A lot of listings show links to in-world stores, so it probably would be hard to disfavor all and only those of us whose listings do not, and there are probably some other pretty important potential confounding variables. OTOH, as you (all) have probably made a point of forgetting, I did show that merchants with very large stores were being favored disproportionately in rankings during the Mad Men promotion. So there at least either is or has been a mechanism that favors major in-world merchants, at least in terms of the amount of land they are using. If it could function in the Mad Men promotion then there's no reason for me to think that it could not also be functioning in other parts of the search system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrius Gothly Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 On the issue of "not seeing who is buying enhancements" .. Gotcha. And yes, you cannot tell that something is not there if it's not there. LOL Typical conundrum. More precisely, since no one but the Merchant knows what should be there .. somewhere .. anyone else is incapable of determining its presence or absence. I will disagree, if only slightly, with your comment that you are "not asking people to believe stuff, per se".(The "per se" saves you.) I write posts here to persuade and change minds almost as often as I write to help others with problems and issues. I believe that you do the same. While you may have resigned yourself to the fact that many will ignore your advice and warnings (and insights), I think you still contribute in the hopes that someone will read, believe and hopefully save themselves some frustration. Sure, there may be an element of "I like seeing my name on posts", but my personal opinion is that it is a very small .. VERY small ingredient in your motivation to post. My reason for presenting evidence that tended to disprove the "must have links to in-world stores" theory has many components. The most direct reason is that I have in my possession my own personal experience that it doesn't hold for all cases. While I may be "the exception that proves the rule", my sense is that my experience is far from the one and only example. A less direct but just as valid reason for my posting disqualifying evidence is that theories presented on these forums sometimes have the ability to morph into defacto truths. While there may be some (hidden) behaviors of the Marketplace that are influenced by having links to an in-world store, I don't see that happening when it comes to listing enhancements. Instead the people that I do see routinely and repeatedly .. over and over and over again .. in the Enhancement Scrollers are those Merchants that are known to be long-time members of the community and that are seen to receive benefits and advantages routinely .. in almost every way thinkable. By presenting my "contraindicating evidence" .. I am attempting to prevent the theory from developing long-term legs. In the case of enhancments, I am very well certain that having links to an in-world store has no effect whatsoever and thus should not be presented as a "possible solution" for those that will try anything to get fair value for their money. I see more direct evidence of favorism and the directly correlated act of suppressing "competing" ads. Even though it is so plainly evident, and despite the fact that people are paying good money with the reasonable expectation of fair treatment, Linden Lab and the Commerce Dev Team continue to promote enhancements and accept money for them .. all the while knowing they have no intention whatsoever of actually providing the service. That act goes far beyond the simple scam .. and IMO steps firmly and squarely into the realm of fraud. When it comes to there only being two active theories on a topic, I have to say I believe more often there is only one active theory on most things. Being a reasonable community of intelligent and skilled people, and because most of the issues are very old, I think a lot of the issues have been debated sufficiently that any competing theories have been dismissed by the majority of readers. If a second or third theory seems to still exist, especially on those issues that have been debated in great detail, I think the existence of those extra theories is due only to the fact that some people will always refuse to accept the consensus and will forever hold fast to an opposing theory .. no matter how soundly that theory has been disproven. I do wholeheartedly agree that there are members of this community that seem to have no function other than to disagree with anything suggested. More often than not, those "contributors" target specific individuals to disagree with, and will on every opportunity disagree .. even if such disagreement flies exactly opposite to other statements they have made .. sometimes within the same topic! Fortunately the majority of people that read these forums are also wise enough to how Forums like this work AND familiar with the behaviors of such "anti-posters" that they dismiss their posts without so much as a brief glance-over. Your comment about "the more valid theories you have" gave me a good chuckle. Ignoring for a moment the "valid" portion of that statement .. as we are discussing whether or not a theory is valid .. it's well known that shooting with a shotgun shell has a higher probability of something hitting the mark than when shooting with a single bullet. However, that doesn't mean that people should conjure up and post as many theories as they can imagine just for the dubious honor of "getting it right". Instead I think it argues for posting a single well considered opinion and being prepared to defend it .. until such time as incontrovertible evidence is presented that proves the theory incorrect. Then one should have the grace and decency to admit "defeat" and vacate their support for their theory. (I dislike the term "defeat" though as there really is no defeat in having a theory shot down. It just means that in this instance your perception and belief was incorrect.) On the subject of having "more valid theories" .. that's just plain impossible. Theories that are different and exclusive of each other cannot all be valid. One and only one can be valid, with the remainder being at best plausible and at worst being flat out wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luna Bliss Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 I can't believe I'm requesting this of you Darrius (and I do say this lovingly as i've always enjoyed reading your texts)...but could you be more detailed here? Darrius wrote: " Instead the people that I do see routinely and repeatedly .. over and over and over again .. in the Enhancement Scrollers are those Merchants that are known to be long-time members of the community and that are seen to receive benefits and advantages routinely .. in almost every way thinkable." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrius Gothly Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 Yes, I can .. but not in the forums as I'd be pushing TOS all over the place. If you want, send me an In-world IM and I'll reply with the name(s) I have in mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luna Bliss Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 ok thanks Darrius, I will do that this coming week.. Or we could talk 'bad Nostradamus' .........................and the hungry Eagle flew on and on, with nothing but the big green sign in view.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peony Sweetwater Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 Something is definitely up with listing enhancements at the moment, conspiracy theory or not... Looking at this thread made me check out the ones that I'd taken out in the last month or so. I'd taken out three different, short term ones. None of them were getting any significant click-thrus listed, so I'd gone in to change them to "will not renew". At least two of those three enhancements should have terminated a week or two ago. But looking at the listing enhancement performance page now, all three are listed as "active" . Apparently all three are still getting daily views in the 1000s, but very few click-thrus. When I go to back to that section, I do eventually see the listing that I had under "Complete Anime Avatars" (it was the oldest of the three), but not in the more numerous fashion sections (the newer listings). I am wondering that if none of the enhancements are terminating, then there's a huge load of enhancements in some of the more popular sections, and less likelyhood of the odd one being seen. Maybe only the older ads are making it in there, and the newer enhancements never do. *SIGH* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Susanto Posted August 27, 2012 Share Posted August 27, 2012 >On the subject of having "more valid theories" .. that's just plain impossible. Theories that are different and exclusive of each other cannot all be valid. One and only one can be valid, with the remainder being at best plausible and at worst being flat out wrong. If only one theory can be valid, it's not a theory anymore, but a fact. Until that happens, though, many theories can be valid. They are called competing theories. Some will be more valid than others at any given time, depending upon what evidence can be observed, but theories don't get invalidated merely by the accumulation of evidence supporting a competing theory. Theories also stand to be refined, as does the one being discussed here. What I hypothesized as the basic mechanism, as inconsistent with what you observe, would seem to be more imprecise than incorrect. There are ways to further clean up this theory without necessarily making it any more complicated. Please try that and I'll be eager to read and consider. It might be better if theories here didn't have to be posed in such strong resemblance to beliefs, but it's more than somewhat encouraged by the official presentation of undeniable lies as unambiguous facts by both LL and by users I understand I am to assume are not directly affiliated with LL. Moreover, my work here clearly does less to produce new beliefs than to dispel existing beliefs, unstated and possibly unconscious as those may be. (I can live with that.) When mysterious lurkers stop popping in to shout down with ad hominem any criticism of LL and start instead popping in to provide simpler theories that are equally or more consistent with observable facts, my services might not be needed here so much, but don't hold your breath for that. One of the basic ad hominem devices I think we've both seen deployed is to focus on my reasons for saying things rather than on the evidentiary consistency of what I describe. Others reading this need to realize that using my egotism as a distraction is not going to work forever. My egotism is an immutible constant, while the number of profoundly suspicious things I describe so far only stands to continue to expand. At some point a threshold will inevitably be reached at which the weight of what I say is greater than the weight of why I might be saying it. In fact, I am to understand that this has already somewhat happened with a few people who used to very strongly disagree with me, and who have since come to support my activity in principle, even if they don't always agree with my interpretations. But I didn't change the mind of these newer critics. LL changed the minds of these people by doing what I said LL would do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Susanto Posted August 27, 2012 Share Posted August 27, 2012 >Something is definitely up with listing enhancements at the moment, conspiracy theory or not... Please allow me to apply Occam's Razor... When an expanding number of completely different types of accidents each consistently produce the same basic range and quality of effects, (rather than an essentially random distribution of effects) then the accidents are probably not accidents. So what are they? If it's the same people who keep benefiting from all the bizarre technical failures, even to a point where we can predict it, is there not some point at which it's reasonable to stop thinking it could be mere coincidence? When is that? When I have asked in the past if specific things would persuade people, they've usually said that it's pointless to discuss being persuaded by something that is never going to happen... ... and then it happens. ... and then I ask again. ... and again.... and again. So I guess the unstated response is essentially "never". How is such a position any less unreasonable than my own? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ry0ta Exonar Posted August 27, 2012 Share Posted August 27, 2012 Peony Sweetwater wrote: Something is definitely up with listing enhancements at the moment, conspiracy theory or not... Looking at this thread made me check out the ones that I'd taken out in the last month or so. I'd taken out three different, short term ones. None of them were getting any significant click-thrus listed, so I'd gone in to change them to "will not renew". At least two of those three enhancements should have terminated a week or two ago. The other day I made a thread about my listing enhancements not being charged for a while (http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/MP-Subscriptions-for-Listing-Enhancements-Haven-t-Been-Charged/td-p/1644219) and now I have 5 overdue subscriptions. Peony Sweetwater wrote: But looking at the listing enhancement performance page now, all three are listed as "active" . Apparently all three are still getting daily views in the 1000s, but very few click-thrus. When I go to back to that section, I do eventually see the listing that I had under "Complete Anime Avatars" (it was the oldest of the three), but not in the more numerous fashion sections (the newer listings). Daily views in the 1000s? Are they homepage featured ones? If so, I seem to be getting screwed. lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peony Sweetwater Posted August 27, 2012 Share Posted August 27, 2012 Bugger - where'd that extra 0 come from? Wishful thinking on my part...or more sleep needed. Thanks for linking that other thread - I'd missed it. Not going to be happy if I get charged for enhancements that I'd tried to cancel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtwtfss71 Posted August 28, 2012 Share Posted August 28, 2012 Peony Sweetwater wrote: Bugger - where'd that extra 0 come from? Wishful thinking on my part...or more sleep needed. Thanks for linking that other thread - I'd missed it. Not going to be happy if I get charged for enhancements that I'd tried to cancel. Agreed. I'm still seeing enhancements up that I set to not renew. I'm not going to be happy if I get charged for those. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kayla Mekanic Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 I payed to have my second listing to show up in the front of the catagorie's list but it's STILL at the very back of all the pages! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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