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I am getting tired of seeing endless streams of fake reviews made by alts on many " top selling" items.  I am also noticing strong patterns of manipulation of the ranking system by merchants who are pushing less than acceptable quality items to the top of the search results by cheating. I am seeing the same items in the top selling item spots on a continous basis which is virtually impossible considering some of these items are being sold to more people than could ever possibly be in need of such item.

 

What will it take for LL to abandon the flawed review process and replace it with a better one?

 

Here are my suggestions to clean up this mess:

1. Remove the star system and replace it with a Number of times sold indicator. Remove all if any search relevance from reviews.

2. Block purchases from the same IP address

3. Add an option in the flagging menu that lets people flag obvious fake reviews

4. Add a list of other reviews made by this person. ( this should be a fun one)

 

How's about them apples?

 

 

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VonGklugelstein Alter wrote:

I am getting tired of seeing endless streams of fake reviews made by alts on many " top selling" items.  I am also noticing strong patterns of manipulation of the ranking system by merchants who are pushing less than acceptable quality items to the top of the search results by cheating. I am seeing the same items in the top selling item spots on a continous basis which is virtually impossible considering some of these items are being sold to more people than could ever possibly be in need of such item.

 

What will it take for LL to abandon the flawed review process and replace it with a better one?

 

Here are my suggestions to clean up this mess:

1. Remove the star system and replace it with a Number of times sold indicator. Remove all if any search relevance from reviews.

2. Block purchases from the same IP address

3. Add an option in the flagging menu that lets people flag obvious fake reviews

4. Add a list of other reviews made by this person. ( this should be a fun one)

 

How's about them apples?

 

 

 

1. Easily gamed, not very informative.

2. So I could not use the marketplace to deliver something when I am traveling and cannot get inworld?

 

3. "Obvious fake"? What criteria exactly would be used to determine this?

4. This would work fine, as it does on other sites,  but has been suggested many times.  It would flush out the fake reviewers as well as the crackpot/extortionist reviewers.

 

I just don't worry about these gamed things, because I can't do anything about them. On Xstreet my things ranked very well, now, most of them are lost in search -- but I still sell. Word of mouth is still the best advertising

 

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Pamela Galli wrote:


 

1. Easily gamed, not very informative.

2. So I could not use the marketplace to deliver something when I am traveling and cannot get inworld?

 

3. "Obvious fake"? What criteria exactly would be used to determine this?

4. This would work fine, as it does on other sites,  but has been suggested many times.  It would flush out the fake reviewers as well as the crackpot/extortionist reviewers.

 

1 Actually it is very informative to see how many times an item has sold for many reasons. Some reasons good some bad but it is the most informative live method of seeing how an item performs.

 

2. If you are logged in you should be able to buy your own items... it is to prevent people from using alts to run up numbers as is being done by a bunch of people.. I will not drop names but I really want to lol.

 

3. 20 reviews in one day following a bad review are ALL fake.. 95% reviews by people with no profile filled out and all in the same strange Eurotrash group are definetely ALL fake.. A person claiming that the merchant is the best creator ever  and that his/her things are better than all others and they own everything made by this creator becaus they are a professional builder..yet the reviewer is only 2 days old.. is definetly fake... oh and claiming to be a master builder yet there are no picks, no profile text , no groups visible and OMG the profile is created on the day of their first of many reviews is 100% Fake..

this is the same as determining if an item uses keyword spam and should warrant the effort to flag it.. there is some discretion needed but for the most part if you start reading reviews of highly popular items you will see patterns.

 

4. lol @ crackpot extortionist reviewer.. I need to assume that role for a change rather than being on the other end of this..

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The way I look at it is that the people who buy low quality items based on where they land in search are not my market. I don't put much stock in placement of my products because word of mouth IS the best marketing tool you have and even though I don't have many products ever show up on the first few pages of a search, my sales are still strong.

Make quality items. Don't play the game. Customers will find you.

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mtwtfss71 wrote:

Make quality items. Don't play the game. Customers will find you.

This advice will only take you so far in SL. The real key to success (and profit) for most here is to make quality items, AND play the game and ideally win it on a regular basis.

Of course eventually you will reach a point where you no longer need to play the game as your brand makes it to top and you can easily flourish off of your reputation and word of mouth.

Take Pam for example. La Galleria has reached that level now, but she did not get there without playing the "game". She just does not need to play it any more.

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I get your point but I've always played a different game, one that lets me sleep at night. :)  My marketing is through events and blogging and working my butt off to get my brand out there, without being sneaky and underhanded. Wasting time trying to get my marketplace listings to the top of search is not a priority, especially if I haven't earned it. I really think your time is better spent elsewhere.

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mtwtfss71 wrote:

I get your point but I've always played a different game, one that lets me sleep at night.
:)
 My marketing is through events and blogging and working my butt off to get my brand out there, without being sneaky and underhanded. Wasting time trying to get my marketplace listings to the top of search is not a priority, especially if I haven't earned it. I really think your time is better spent elsewhere.

Yes, everyone has to draw their own morale line I suppose. For me paying for MP reviews crosses the line because you are essentially lying to your existing and future potential customers. I have never gamed the MP, my previous gaming has always been focused towards in world search. In the past I have gamed dwell, traffic, picks and keyword density all to ensure I obtain a decent rank in the inworld search results. I and others did this because without merchants gaming their business into relevant search results, there would be no relevant search results. The actions of the gamers and the "search optimization professionals" have been vital in making inworld search partially functional. However my morale line stops me from gaming search ranks on keywords not relevant to my business, again because it is openly deceiving people, which could result in a bad reputation and lost business. On the other hand though I gamed traffic before it was banned and that is deceiving people too so my morale line is not always logical.

 

I think people paying for reviews are playing with fire. Yeah reviews may increase MP ranking, but in a lot of cases it is blatantly obvious that the reviews are fake which makes me ignore the product and the creator entirely,

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Porky Gorky wrote:


mtwtfss71 wrote:

Make quality items. Don't play the game. Customers will find you.

This advice will only take you so far in SL. The real key to success (and profit) for most here is to make quality items, AND play the game and ideally win it on a regular basis.

Of course eventually you will reach a point where you no longer need to play the game as your brand makes it to top and you can easily flourish off of your reputation and word of mouth.

Take Pam for example. La Galleria has reached that level now, but she did not get there without playing the "game". She just does not need to play it any more.

I did play the inworld search game for a while but I gave it up long ago -- it took too much time and the rules kept changing.  Before and since, I relied on word of mouth. It is pretty reliable. 

 

That said, I agree with you that certain types of "gaming" that don't misrepresent what you are selling or its quality, are acceptable as long as they are available to everyone. 

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