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SEO, Inworld Item descriptions?


Amiryu Hosoi
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Okay, I have a few questions concerning search. I am trying to build item descriptions for inworld use but I need to be sure of the following; if I put the below keyword string in the description field of my item. Do the keywords have to be in sequence to be indexed? In other words, will the item also rank for "japanese rugs" or only for "japanese carpet"?

Keyword string: asian oriental japanese carpet carpets carpeting rug rugs floor floors flooring tatami mat tatami mats matting
Ami
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I think spamming the descriptions to that degree will cause your rank to be sent to the back of the line. Probably depends on how screwed your sector is with people scamming and lying about everything. If it is a ruined sector or a sector LL controls the top rankers in then there is nothing you can do.

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In regular search, it works more like google. In classifieds, multi-word searches must be exact matches (or at least they did last I looked).

You should definitely work on making your descriptions more attractive for users though. People have a natural aversion to things that look like spam. So if they see descriptions like that in chat, a certain percentage of people are going to be turned off by it. Another percentage of people are going to see that and have no confidence that it is actually what it is claiming to be (i.e. they say, "That's just mumbo jumbo, I don't want to buy a mumbo jumbo!"). So in many ways, you end up losing as many customers as you would gain by putting all that crap in there anyway.

Better to make something that is readable. And split it out. In there area where you sell mats make this:

Item Name: Asian/Japanese Mat and Matting Vendor
Description: Great orental floor mats in many styles!

And then for the rugs area:

Item Name: Asian/Japanese Rug and Carpet Vendor
Description: Great orental floor rugs and carpets in many styles!

This way - you end up with all the keywords in there, and if the searcher uses the "GO" link in the listing it can take them right to what they want (another big way to convert sales quickly). If you just have a bunch of random stuff, it doesn't help. If you get specific in the areas you have the specific things - it all helps for search and if you make it readable, it also helps the customers find what they want.

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You could make the name of the object the actual name of it.

"Green Japanese Carpet"  but don't spam the name

The description is more "Spamable" at this point till they change things. You should have 2 descriptions and add to every object that you have for show in search. Also include those keywords in your parcel description and the big ones(most used to find you) in the parcel name.

 

Description x2

1 - Ami's Oriental Carpets, Japanese Rugs, Mats Tatami, Oriental Flooring complete Floors and Carpet. 

2 - Oriental Carpeting from Ami's, Rug and Floors Asian inspired, Tatami Oriental Matting from Ami's Carpets

 

If you have in Name/Description of Parcel and in every object for show in search(50-60 objects should work) should show good for those keywords.

Remember try to make things "Natural" natural writing less keyword stuffing(rugs rugs rugs). so if you have 60 objects 30 should have description #1 and 30 should have description #2 and alternate every other object. This way all aspects of the page have your keywords in it. Name/Description of Parcel top/middle/bottom of page.

Good luck..

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Thank you guys for your feedback.

One other question; does size matter? I mean, if you have a parcel with a description about furniture and prefabs that is the size of a complete island, does that parcel rank higher then a parcel with the same description but that is half the size?

Ami

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A 2048 can rank just as high as a Sim. So in my observations no size doesnt matter that much. But Sims do get a keyword in text link from the Parcel so that factors in some cases. So a Sim named "XXXX XXXX Prefabs" the parcels might do a bit better then a sim named "XXX XXXXX" no keyword in sim name.

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Dekka Raymaker wrote:

 

but remember to spell it 'oriental' :-)

Hey, serious question, how does search see 'Oriental/Japanese' as two words or as gobbly gook, does not one need to type 'Oriental / Japanese' which wastes two charcaters, but more certain it can be recognised?

lol True that! Ooops.

And yeah - since most of the "ALL" search is done with modified google systems, the "/" is treated as a space. Interestingly things like "Secondlife" and bring up results such as "Second Life" too. Granted searching for "secondlife" is going to bring up direct matches first, but if there are few, it'll look for the whole thing as a single string. The google algo is also cabable of understand "item" and "items" without you needing to have the singular and plural versions in there.

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Amiryu Hosoi wrote:

 

So, for optimal search results we should devide our islands into little parcels with specific names?

Ami

Not necesarily little and not unnecesary parcels, but yes - I have my sim with several different "Landing Areas" - The most important thing for search is the title of the parcel. But if you end up getting too redundant it can work against you in the long run. And there are lots of other factors that go into building up the rank of a parcel - so if you split it up too much, you dillute all the other factors. Do it wisely and it'll work.

In general, I give this advice to my RL SEO clients and it works well for me in SL too... If you are doing it purely to raise your search ranking, it's probably a bad idea. If you are doing it because it might help your search ranking and it might help your customers find what they are looking for, and it will make the entire experience from the point of search to the point of sale (or whatever other objective you have on your land) better for everyone, then do it!

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Well if lets say you have a 32k parcel it wouldn't be a bad idea to slice it up to cover all your keywords. You could make maybe 4 parcels cover some keywords on each parcel. That way each parcel can focus more on the keywords its meant to represent. Make good landing points for each Parcel within your store.

Because the Name/Description of each parcel has limitations this is a good idea to rank for all your keywords.

Some of the adjustments the search team was playing with like a few weeks ago was that if you had Carpet and Carpets in the title that would give you a bad score. So you could spread all your keyword between 4 parcels one could focus on Carpet and another Carpets but in the descriptions of the objects and parcel its still a good idea to have both singular and plural versions of the word.

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Amiryu Hosoi wrote:

 

So, for optimal search results we should devide our islands into little parcels with specific names?

Ami

 

Ami - I asked the are they finished tweaking search question for a reason - - and that's because the things you are asking could change next week.  I would be really careful about spending too much time on it.  I spent two full weeks tweaking to the max, right before they started adjusting, and had the results I wanted - - - and almost everything I did, is now almost the opposite of what works.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to make a test parcel - - just to watch - - but as far as tweaking an entire sim - - might get very frustrating time wise.

Some examples of what you're asking - - on the carpet and carpets - - doesn't look like you need to distinguish the plural form any more.  In the past, if you used Ami's Rug store Oriental rugs Japanese rugs Asian rugs Gold and Red Rug - - an effective way to label - - but now, you're going to take a hit for that.  I lost one whole parcel out of the mix for that type of labeling.  Where someone using rugs, rugs, rugs, rugs, rugs, rugs in prims is not penalized, and will take top positions.

It appears that phrases are no longer as effective - - if you title it Oriental Carpet Japanese Floor Mats Gold Rugs - - it appears now that someone typing in Oriental Rugs - - will probably get a hit on yours - - the words don't have to be in sequence - - which can be very helpful - - but because of that - - it also opens up all kinds of possibilities that cloud a phrase search to the point of being ineffective.

And I keep saying "it appears"....not trusting that it will "appear" to be the same next week.

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Thanks again, I see a lot good suggestions. I am not going to relabel all my items and land yet but I wanted to get ready and explore the do's and don'ts first. Like Mikey said, It would be stupid to get started before the final rules are set by The Lab.

Thanks again.

Ami

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Mickey Vandeverre wrote:

 

Ami - I asked the are they finished tweaking search question for a reason - - and that's because the things you are asking could change next week.  I would be really careful about spending too much time on it.  I spent two full weeks tweaking to the max, right before they started adjusting, and had the results I wanted - - - and almost everything I did, is now almost the opposite of what works.

They will NEVER be done tweaking it.

Really, the only way you can overcome gaming and cheating in a situation like this is to change the rules every so often. This is standard for every search engine. Most of the time it's just a matter of tweaking the importance factor of a certain element on the back end - especially when you start to see people realizing that that has a lot of weight and are using it to get to the top.

---

Back to the topic in general - and not as a specific response to any one post...

Don't think of parcels as "Keywords" - don't think of anything as "keywords" - except maybe some keywords. If you split up parcels - make them for a reason. When someone lands on that parcel, they should find what they were looking for. So if you are breaking your store down by themes or whatever, then yes - there will be different keywords for that parcel and when they TP in, they will land right next to exactly what they were looking for.

Thinking of search from the perspective of getting "keywords" in there is going to get you a bunch of keywords. And it might help you rank. But if you are #1 with a parcel named "Beds SEX Bed, MLP BEDS SEX POSES BEDS BEDDING SEX" with a bunch of other stuffed keywords in the description and everything else and someone else comes in at #3 with "Bob's Quality Love & Sex Beds - Original Animations, Cuddles, Positions" <-- this one makes more sense to the searcher and inspires them to visit the place. You'll see in my title, I did try to fit in some extra keywords in the end, but not stuff it. Make everything in your description and title and "show in search" stuff readable. Make it useful to the searcher. Then go through and say, "I used SEX a lot, but not "Cuddles" - let me swap a few out. Things like that.

You can wrack your brain trying to figure out what is important in search but there are certain facts:

  • Everything changes all the time. What works great today will not be the key to it next week.
  • Ranking #1 doesn't do you any good if no one clicks on it to visit you. You not only need to appear in search, but you have that same limited amount of space to give the searcher confidence that it's worth taking the time to TP there and look around too.
  • Good solid and varied search techniques - making good descriptions, readable things, organizing your shop and putting useful descriptions in "show-in-search" that not only help the search engines, but help your customers home into the co-ords of the stuff they are looking for (by tping directly or using the beacon on the map to direct them to it) - a good balance of these techniques will always provide a balance and will therefore not be as subject to going up and down as focusing on one or two things and stuffing it.

 

ADDED: Another benefit to writing in natural, readable language is that you'll get other words out there onto the page too - ones that wouldn't be there at all if you just focused on keywords. You'd be amazed at some of the things people search to find web sites. And I'm sure that people type just as crazy stuff into the SL search box too. And if you just limit yourself to keywords, you miss out on that random traffic - and lower you exposure.

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Dartagan Shepherd wrote:

 

Have to agree, if the mission is ultimately accomplished the best long term strategy is to title and describe everything as if you were actually doing it for a human and not a search engine.

 

That strategy worked fine for two years.

It doesn't work this week.  If you do that.....you'll fall off the board.

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I would have to go inworld to pull an actual example....but it's similar to this.

using an Antique Chest as an example.

To make sense - - I would title it ETC. Antique Chest Mahogany Chest w/ Antique Bronze Accents Large Chest

second line:   EtCetera Low Prim Furniture ETC. (name of store - you would be an idiot not to use it in full) - Low Prim Antiques Low Prim Antique Furniture Antique Chests Mahogany Chests Low Prim Chests Antique Bronze Accessories

First line - for a shopper - you want to catch someone looking for an antique chest or a mahogany chest - and you want to clarify that it is the Large Chest - because you have it in three sizes.   You also want to hit someone looking for antique bronze items.  Repeating words like that is no longer cool.

second line - the general phrase is in your store name - and that should remain consistent on every single product - both for you and for the shopper in locating your store again.  But now it could possibly interfere with other phrasing, and be penalized.

you want to state the general category that the chest falls in - low prim antiques - - you miss that category, and you blew it.  But that will count against you, if part of that phrase is in your store title on same line.

you want to use two different versions of a phrase that are popular - low prim antiques - and low prim antique furniture - - - that makes sense - - people type in different phrases.  This is for your shopper - and you want to catch as many as you can.  Not cool now.

you want to catch Antique Chests or Mahogany Chests - - makes sense for the shopper.  Not cool now.

you also have 20 different styles of antique mahogany chests - - all very unique - - and you titled them accordingly - in detail.  You will now be penalized for having the largest selection.

Now - doing the above, will make you take a nose dive in search.....if you do this on all your products.

Granted, they can now type in Low Prim Accessories.....a phrase you don't even have above.....and it will score.....but that also means that someone can type in Mahogany Chests and come back with this......

Deep tan mahogany skin tone - another He-Man Big Buff Stud Chests product.

......so you're not exactly scoring....not exactly helping shoppers......you're piled in a heap of......stuff.

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There are 5 people at LL working on changing search. If you want a good update on how SL is doing search and what your parcels search info looks like check out:

Second Life Seach

which is about an article written by Darrius Gothly. He goes into much more detail and has built a tool now on XStreetLS. He also provides some free tools and links to other free tools.

 

One needs to avoid spamming. But, we have a thing called BOOST...

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Nalates Urriah wrote:

 

There are 5 people at LL working on changing search. If you want a good update on how SL is doing search and what your parcels search info looks like check out:

Second Life Seach

which is about an article written by Darrius Gothly. He goes into much more detail and has built a tool now on XStreetLS. He also provides some free tools and links to other free tools.

 

One needs to avoid spamming. But, we have a thing called BOOST...

Yeah I like this part:

 


"Unfortunately, even with a good back and forth going on with Sea and  the  Search Dev Team, and with all the valuable input and analysis by  the  various residents involved in the process too, nailing down the  problems  with the GSA seems to be hitting a roadblock. I can tell from  the tone  of Sea’s emails that they are working diligently on the  problems, but  there are a lot of issues yet to be overcome and some of  them are not  making sense … to them or to me or to anyone else for that  matter. The  GSA just seems to be fighting every step of the way."

 

They don't understand......Really? Is that right it only took 5 months to figure that out "we don't get it??!?!?!"

If they dont get it then GET someone who does!

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oh, you can most definitely remove a good portion of your search phrases from your item descriptions so that you can get yourself to that sweet goal for the boost metric.  In fact....please keep promoting that....it will open up some opportunities for some of us....if everyone removes all those phrases, and tidies up their descriptions to practically nothing.

But FYI .....you can still hit 20 or 30 or more good phrases or keywords on page one or two.....with a -2 score.  These would be keywords a shopper types in.....not necessarily a main keyword that 30 other business owners type in, and set as their goal.  Do the math.

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