Keyword "spam" = #$!@#^&*!@ search for anything! Lazy merchant's fault?

[Nefertiti Nefarious]

I want SKULLS! 

It's as much laziness and cut and paste description creation as it is deliberate keyword spam, but dammit, if I'm searching for a "skull", don't show me motorcycle parts with no skulls on them, or "kawai" critters with no skulls on them, or Valentine's candles with no skulls on them! 

Just because you have or had one product with a skull on it somewhere on the marketplace doesn't mean you can or should use the word "skull" for as a keyword. It's messing up the relevance and search position for the products that really are skull.

And I reported a dozen or so sellers and several dozen products because their non-skull products were messing with my search results and I'm feeling cranky this morning.  Maybe if they have to fix their keywords to get relisted they'll learn to use keywords that apply to just the product in that listing, not their entire product line.

[Czari Zenovka]

I'm with ya, Nefertiti!  I looked up the search term "closet" last night on the MP.  In quotes even.  I'm trying to figure out how evening gowns, petite fairy avatars, fairy wings, hair, shapes, ski boots, a flower crown, and other assorted items are considered "closets."

I didn't think of flagging them.../makes note to do that next time.

[Heart Brimmer]

---

Czari Zenovka wrote:

I'm with ya, Nefertiti!  I looked up the search term "closet" last night on the MP.  In quotes even.  I'm trying to figure out how evening gowns, petite fairy avatars, fairy wings, hair, shapes, ski boots, a flower crown, and other assorted items are considered "closets."

I didn't think of flagging them.../makes note to do that next time.

---

I totally agree with you on this! I go to search for a VERY specific item and end up getting over 100 items that have no relevance whatsoever. It's frustrating to say the least an I just might have to start flagging them too. 

[Darren Scorpio]

This is my biggest pet peeve and it annoys the hell out of me. It is both the merchant's laziness, stupidity and ignorance as well as LL's fault. It is LL's fault because they include merchant's name as part of the search results, even though I thought they had supposedly solved this with the "search merchant by name" tab but if you look at search results merchant names are still being used. So for example if you are looking for skulls and the merchant name is Skully Resident or some such you will see their items (their entire damn store!) in the results.

[Toysoldier Thor]

anndddddd..... yet another BUG of xstreet and into MP that the Commerce Team has not addressed and that was formally posted as a JIRA by me on August 6th, 2009 related to how Search by Relevance is all screwed up.

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-2060

Thanks to Rodvik's recent "Gagging the JIRA" policy, you may or may not be able to see it unless you voted on it.

But it went into great detail how it could be fixed.  The Commerce Team tried to fix it based on some of the recommendations in the JIRA but as per usual... they didnt do it right and allowed too many fields to be indexed that should be indexed and did not place priorities.... etc etc.

In fact they used my Jira as input into their design for the current search we have now....

Comment from  Brodskey Linden at the end of this JIRA...

 

Brodesky Linden (Disabled) added a comment - 26/Aug/10 7:15 PM

We have added your comments to the design for relevance search for the new marketplace.

 

Since the Jira's are gagged.... let me paste the JIRA description....

 

IMPROVEMENT TO XSTREET SEARCH / INDEX SERVICE
FIX "KEYWORDS ABUSE" LOOPHOLES IN ITEM DESCRIPTION

(this description is pasted from my xstreet "features suggestion" forum posting...  Please take time to go to this link and read the thread responses there as well and to vote there as well as here:
https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=124071 )

FEATURE IMPROVEMENT REQUEST SUMMARY:
Introduction of a new "KEYWORDS" field in the "ITEM LISTING" Record and re-config of the Xstreet Search Engine Indexing of the Listing Items to address ineffective / skewed xstreet searching for customers and fair search results for all merchants.

REASON FOR REQUEST / CURRENT PROBLEM:
The current search index function within Xstreet is currently deployed in such a manner that provides ineffective / inaccurate search results for xstreet customers that are using the search function to locate products / services in xstreet that they are interested in.

A major reason for the Xstreet's ineffective search results centers around the fact that some merchants are aware of the current indexer's method of indexing the ITEM LISTING MAIN BODY DESCRIPTION field for content. This method creates a significant weaknesses / loophole. Many of these Merchants abuse this method by creating very large lists of "keywords" within their item description field of all of their items - often with several words that are very popular but not in any way related to their products. Since there is no real limitation of the size of the item description field, these abusing Merchants will skew the search engine dramatically with very "Oxford Dictionary" keyword lists.

(I have attached a file that shows 2 examples of this abuse from a couple merchants that are skewing XSTREET's SEARCH INDEX deployment - Thanks Nefertiti Nefarious for finding these examples and posting them in the XSTREET - FEATURES SUGGESTIONS forum :  https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=124071 )

Also, since it has not been made clear by LL/XSTREET on how the xstreet search indexer is configured, some merchants "in the know" of how it operates can and do use these non-advertised "how to leverage the indexer" to unfairly promote their items to the top of the search results. For example, there are rumours that the search indexer only indexes the top of the item description field and not the bottom. Or that the Search Indexer determines search results order by item popularity or by sales popularity as well as by just search results by title & description. To the extent that these rumours are true, those Merchants in the know have an unfair advantage to leverage these indexing method and in many cases skew/abuse the search system over those that are not aware of this information.

As a result, it is a COMMON COMPLAINT by both Xstreet Merchants and Consumers alike that the current Xstreet Search tool is far from effective, accurate, and fair. A solution that would address this major weakness in the Index/Searching service would go a very long way to improve the SHOPPING EXPERIENCE for consumers and a fair level playing field for ALL MERCHANTS to offer their goods and services to customers that are trying to find their items

To address the current weakness of this critical primary function/service within XSTREET, this FEATURE REQUEST is being proposed as a fair approach to level the playing field and improve the search results.


PROPOSED NEW FEATURE - DETAILS:
Following are detailed propsoed improvements to the current INDEX SEARCH function in XSTREET:

Create a new alpha-numeric "KEYWORDS" field in the ITEM RECORD STRUCTURE
Limit the field length to an arbitrary field length - I am initially proposing 256 characters - too long encourages abuse - too short does not allow for effective indexing of the item
Re-Configure the Xstreet Search Index service so that it no longer Indexes the ITEM DESCRIPTION field BUT instead it only indexes all items by TITLE & KEYWORDS field
Place the new KEYWORDS field into the New / Edit Item page for all merchants to see and fill out when ever creating a new item or updating an existing item for sale
merchants could place whatever keywords they feel best identifies their item in a search but since the field length is limited, Merchants will be encouraged to only place words in this field that are most relevent to their item
The Advanced Search page would allow customers to sort the results by other fields like price, prims count, etc. but no other fields other than TITLE & KEYWORDS would be indexed
If no sort order is selected by the customer/search requester, the search results order would be randomly presented to the requester.
Upon completion of the improvements to the INDEX SEARCH service, LL will fully publish exactly how the INDEX function operates for ALL MERCHANTS to locate and read. Additionally, LL would adds these indexing techniques into its tips/tricks/advice for new merchants to read and learn.

OPTIONAL FUTURE ENAHANCEMENTS: to add additional specific KEYWORD CATEGORY fields in the future that would be included in the INDEXING service - for example maybe a "PROMOTION CODE" field to be used for special promotions like the recent "BEACHBONANZA" event. These special indexed fields could be controlled by LL on their use or priority or used by Merchants that wish to host their own PROMOTIONS for their items (i.e. special halloween event ... just search for "SCAREME" to...).


BENEFITS OF IMPROVED INDEX SEARCH:
Following are the primary benefits to this enhancement:

Merchants clearly know what fields are used to influence the xstreet search index service (no more black art or hidden secrets that some know and most dont)
No merchant can abuse the search index function by placing massive keywords content in the items description to unfairly skew the search results. Since ALL MERCHANTS would be restricted to placing no more than 256 characters of keywords, Merchants would be strongly discouraged from using up valuable keyword space to add words that are not related to their item. They would only be hurting themselves.
All merchants would be fairly represented in any search results requested by any xstreet customer - no unknown priority order of search results unless advanced search requrests for a specific order based on another field in the item record.
Xstreet Customers would get search results that much more accurately relates to the items they might be looking for - no more search for Halloween items and getting a NEKO TAIL search result. Customers will be much more satisfied and inclined to use the Search service.
Improved sales for those Merchants that have been "playing by the rules" and not abusing the current Indexing function.


CONCLUSION - FEEDBACK ENCOURAGED:
This New Feature request is a proposed set of changes to the Xstreet Index & Search function based on TOYSOLDIER THOR's understanding and knowledge of the situation and problem AND based on discussions/feedback amoung several Xstreet Merchants in the Merchants Forum whom have expressed similar frustration on the issue and wish to see a resolution to this major weakness in XSTREET.

As these this request in initially being proposed in my words, I would ask all Merchants and Customers that also see this as an issue but may have additional or differing ideas on how this can be addressed to please speak up.

I ALSO ENCOURAGE ALL OF YOU TO VOTE FOR OR AGAINST THIS PROPOSED IMPROVEMENT - BUT PLEASE VOTE!

Somehow we need to get the attention of the XSTREET STAFF that has known about this major weakness for a long time but do not feel this is a priority to address.

I look forward to all your feedback!

Thanks

TOYSOLDIER THOR

 

 

 

[Rya Nitely]

I think part of the reason is the quick fill. Maybe this should be left blank when people choose quick fill, so that they can give it some thought.

[Tari Landar]

As long as before flagging people are actually checking to see that improper keywords are being used, I say flag all you want. I too find it extremely annoying. But please be cautious and always double check before doing so.  It's a royal PITA to be a merchant and get items flagged for keyword spam that aren't actually keyword spam. Even if it's just a few steps to put the listing back up, it's a pain.

That happened to me twice during the whole madstyle fiasco LL so brilliantly came up with. An item I sell which has mad in it's name kept coming up in the search for madstyle. I did NOT use that keyword, it didn't fit that style, at all. I wouldn't, I don't use quick fill and I am very careful which keywords I use, and don't use. Yet my item kept coming up, and got flagged and removed twice during that little debacle. Not my fault, at all. But I did get scathing messages from people pissed off about merchants spamming keywords including me, lol. Had they bothered to check, they'd see my keywords were fine, the search was borked. I posted about it back during that issue too.

It's happened to one other product too. I can't even tell you how many times I've checked others' listings when looking for something, that seemed not to fit the category, and saw that they too did not actually use that keyword at all. Sometimes it's a case of the word being in the listing somewhere, or the merchant's name, it seems. Sometimes, there's no rhyme or reason to it.

Just please before flagging always double check you're doing so for the right reasons LL may say they don't remove on the first flag, but it's really hard to believe them sometimes. I'm not convinced they do actually check the listings to make sure they actually violate any rules each and every time. Sometimes I think they just remove, and refuse to look into it.(and we've seen lots of people complain about that right here on the forums)

[Nefertiti Nefarious]

---

Tari Landar wrote:

Just please before flagging always double check you're doing so for the right reasons

LL may say they don't remove on the first flag, but it's really hard to believe them sometimes. I'm not convinced they do actually check the listings to make sure they actually violate any rules each and every time. Sometimes I think they just remove, and refuse to look into it.(and we've seen lots of people complain about that right here on the forums)

---

I check the page source code to see the keywords the merchant used.

 

And no, none of the products were by "Skully Resident".

 

[WADE1 Jya]

---

Nefertiti Nefarious wrote:

I want SKULLS! 

It's as much laziness and cut and paste description creation as it is deliberate keyword spam, but dammit, if I'm searching for a "skull", don't show me motorcycle parts with no skulls on them, or "kawai" critters with no skulls on them, or Valentine's candles with no skulls on them!

---

 

some or all of them might be skulls? remember LL scrambled many listing info. many items show the pic of some other random item. who knows what you might get! its exciting purchasing blind from a random grab bag of... who knows what??? you might even get nothing at all! its just like a big gacha machine only much more broken!

[Lasher Oh]

Probably eats more time snitching on people and brands and raises  your blood pressure to unhealthy levels, as well as upsetting I don't know how many innocents, than just drilling in or moving on.

Personally I  don't really have a problem finding anything I am looking for in the market place. Although I do hate the heirachical  listing method that the Lab adopted but the tools are there to dig in if you are patient. We have become  such an instant gratification society that we seem to have forgotten that search anywhere is far from perfect. If I  search  for a an open category like 'Skulls' I expect that there will be a bundle of other material that I consider non-related others  legitimately feel is relevant. I also expect when I do a search that there will be a degree of what some people call keyword spamming and others refer to as 'Marketing'.

It's pretty easy to spot from the listing picture if the item is relevant or not and if not then I just move on.

I don't believe that snitching  make the slightest difference or leads to improving the borked system. It only encourages LL to maintain their silly and flawed indexing system and upholds their love  of turning resident against resident.

^L^

[Deja Letov]

I don't find that big of a deal either. Honestly, the number of them hardly "messes" with results. So what you have to skip over a picture or two. I've been dealing with this same issue...for the longest time when you did a search for gothic furniture, the very first item that came up was a dance hud. I didn't see the word gothic or furniture ANYWHERE in the title, description or keyword. No idea how it got there but it did. Stressed over it, reported it, etc. And for what? Nadda enchilada. I don't worry about what others are doing anymore and just worry about myself. I guess if it was a major inconvenience, I might have a bigger issue, but if 99% of my search is coming up correctly and it's just a random few, I wouldn't let it get to you.

One other thing that could be going on...and I can't say for sure because I'm not on their developer team, they could be using smart searching techniques on their database. I won't get into the technical side of it, but SQL has a way to do word comparison in a smart manner with their full text searching. What does this mean? Well...think if of it like this:

I search for the word: "lease" (im just picking something at random here)

My results if using a fulltext search could possibly return results with items that match the word exactly, items that begin with that term, items that end with that term, inflectional forms of that word, a word that is close to that word, or a synonymous form of a specific word (think of a thesaurus here). So for the word lease I could get back listings with: lease, leased, leasing, leaser, rent, renting, charter, contract, deed, voucher, papers, legal document, etc. The list is endless, but can also be weighted so it's not an insane result set.

Now, obviously if a merchant is blatantly adding keywords that are there that shouldn't be, then that isn't the case, but I've seen it in many cases where the word was nowhere to be found...or in cases where it could be a partial part of a word like the example given above with mad style.

 

[Trinity Yazimoto]

Keyword indexing is something i have to deal with everyday in my rl job (as librarian).  This is a process really subjective, 2 differents persons wont index same, and even the same person can index in a different way, in a different day. So its a really tricky topic. 

In my rl job, we use a thesaurus (huge one) but i dont have really any hope that LL will provide one, one day. A thesaurus would have the avantage to give a norm, but it wont in any case avoid the mistakes or scams.

Another way to fix a lil this issue, would be to give the MP a really better search engine. With differents search fieds and fearures as "and" "except" etc.... At least, i think that there is something that LL should provide to the MP. Im still really amazed to this such prehistoric search engine ...

A fact is also that not everyone knows how to make a good search. As we say in my job you have '" to question your question itself".  This requires a lil thinking on the real purpose of your request and help a lot in finding the relevant keywords.

Another fact is that not everyone has skills for indexing with keywords and whatever LL will do, wont never get the pb solved. Its something that is far from being an exact science and that is really subjective. Im afraid that this wont never be solved.

So the only thing LL can do, is to provide a search engine that as more to see with our century than with prehistoric ages. We've already asked this to Rodvik in another forum thread, but still no real answer...not a surprise btw.

[Darrius Gothly]

/me votes for a more "complete" Search Engine.

Right now they are indexing the Merchant Name, Product Name, Product Features and the Keywords fields. However most people really want to find things in just the Product Name and Keywords fields except when they're looking for a specific Merchant.

I'm still not clear on what difference the Merchant Name search does other than exclude products with the keyword in the other fields. Apparently though the regular Search includes the Merchant Name too. That's overkill and really should not be done because they've already provided a way to search for a Merchant Name.

Proper searching and indexing is indeed a complex subject, but only complex until you take the time to think about how people really use Search. When you "put yourself in the customer's shoes" and think about how they use Search, it very quickly becomes obvious how to make it easier for them.

I also 100% agree that they need "Modifiers" in search strings. Things like "AND", "OR", "NOT" and the ability to search on a phrase by enclosing it in quotes would REALLY help a lot.
 

---

@Rodvik - You have stated that you are looking for ways to help Merchants "monetize" Second Life. Here is a perfect one that won't eat up a ton of hours. Your team has already completely ripped out the original Spree search feature and replaced it with SOLR/Lucene, so it's a package written totally in-house. As it stands now, a very large number of customers simply abandon their attempt to purchase when they can't get Search to work for them as they expect.

People "smart" enough to use SL are also very well skilled in using Search Engines. Google has done a lot to "Train" the average internet user on how to search. PLEASE help us improve our Monetization of Second Life and the Marketplace and give our customers a tool that they can use to find the products they want.

[Deja Letov]

Don't forget, not just merchant name, but store name as well.

[Spica Inventor]

Why not just limit items to 5 or 10 keywords and/or far fewer characters or some such? Wouldn't that fix 90% of the problem? (Scratches head and has stupid look on his face). ;-)

[Deja Letov]

If they had a better search method...absolutely.

[Trinity Yazimoto]

something i miss also often in the mp search engine, is a feature that would allow me to search within a MP store. Like i know the name of the item im searching, but a lot of items have this name too. So i go in the store i know they have the item im looking for, but wow, they have tons of pages.... but... grrrr... one time im in the mp store, i cant search for the name im looking for bec if so, it gives me again the whole long list of items that have the same name whatever store they are from.

In short, id like to be able to make crossed search....(im not sure for the english translation of this, maybe cross-browsing is better but what i mean is id like to be able to search by name AND at the same by store, or whatever can be the datas).

[Deja Letov]

You can do this if you are in a MP store. If you are in someone's store specifically there is a new tab at the top that says "search this store". You can then type in your new keywords and only get back results from that particular store. Give it a try.

[Trinity Yazimoto]

oh gosh ! it works lol.. i thought that "search this store" was meaning search a name store.. never thought it could mean "search within this store" lol... my bad english :smileywink:

Thanks a lot for this really usefull  info Deja... 

[Ciaran Laval]

---

Darrius Gothly wrote:

 

I also 100% agree that they need "Modifiers" in search strings. Things like "AND", "OR", "NOT" and the ability to search on a phrase by enclosing it in quotes would REALLY help a lot..

---

Absolutely, those features, which were in the client and the marketplace before, had uses for exactly some of the reasons highlighted in this thread. I know people generally search without modifiers, but they will soon get into using them when they realise it helps them find the products they want.

 

[Perrie Juran]

---

Ciaran Laval wrote:

---

Darrius Gothly wrote:

 

I also 100% agree that they need "Modifiers" in search strings. Things like "AND", "OR", "NOT" and the ability to search on a phrase by enclosing it in quotes would REALLY help a lot..

---

Absolutely, those features, which were in the client and the marketplace before, had uses for exactly some of the reasons highlighted in this thread.

I know people generally search without modifiers,

but they will soon get into using them when they realise it helps them find the products they want.

 

---

I may start a search without them but will add them to get rid of what i don't want.

I'll start with Riding Horse.  Then refine with "not breedable"

But I did have a fun one today. 

We wanted some traps to set around my friends Halloween build.

So simply entered "trap' as my search term to start.  Search is returning all kinds of sculpty stairs????

The word "trap" is not in the listings keywords.

Now I've got trapped on some spiral staircases in SL but I don't think that was quite it.

 

[Perrie Juran]

<threadjack><rant>

please make sure the landmarks in your boxes AND in your profile picks are up to date.

thank you

sincerely

your customer

</rant></threadjack>

[Deja Letov]

Funny you brought that up. I was going through some of my older listings and some of my LMs in boxes are from 2 or 3 sims ago! I'm ready for that idea mentioned awhile back for universal updating of LM's now please. Until then...I am updating all day today I guess. bleh!

[Perrie Juran]

---

Deja Letov wrote:

Funny you brought that up. I was going through some of my older listings and some of my LMs in boxes are from 2 or 3 sims ago! I'm ready for that idea mentioned awhile back for universal updating of LM's now please.

Until then...I am updating all day today I guess. bleh!

---

There is Toysoldier's Virtual Landmark proposal.

This would solve the problem for everyone.

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/Virtual-LandMarks-My-Proposed-Idea-to-LL/m-p/1611657#M25306

 

[Toysoldier Thor]

---

Perrie Juran wrote:

---

Deja Letov wrote:

Funny you brought that up. I was going through some of my older listings and some of my LMs in boxes are from 2 or 3 sims ago! I'm ready for that idea mentioned awhile back for universal updating of LM's now please.

Until then...I am updating all day today I guess. bleh!

---

There is Toysoldier's Virtual Landmark proposal.

This would solve the problem for everyone.

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/Virtual-LandMarks-My-Proposed-Idea-to-LL/m-p/1611657#M25306

 

---

Its more than a proposal.  During a September LL Sim Server User Group weekly meeting, the Lindens informed me and the group that the Virtual LMs (VLMs) solution passed through LL's feasibility assessment and was moved to their development scheduling priorities team. 

In other words.... its no longer "IF" LL will develop the proposed VLM solution but moreso "WHEN".

The scary part is that the VLMs solution could sit at the bottom of LL's development priorities until the company goes under.