Do the rules about gaming search still apply - and are they still enforced?

[Wilma Philbin]

From the Second Life wiki:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Search_Guidelines

"Search Policies

Any attempt to artificially inflate your rank in search results could result in penalties to your rank, de-listing from search and disciplinary action against your Second Life account. This includes but is not limited to inappropriate use of traffic bots or Picks.

Other things that may cause your listing to receive a lower search rank include: Keyword stuffing or false representation (for example, saying that your store sells skins when it only sells furniture). Remember that failure to follow the Maturity ratings and inworld search guidelines may cause your listing to be excluded from some or all searches."

I had to check that this was still in there, and it was. Are these rules still enforced?

The problem with keyword spamming really subsided for a while. Now my partner and I have repeatedly  AR'd the same place for over two months. There is no doubt this is a question of keyword stuffing with for instance every sign listed as a product.

It's been a relief not to have to resort to methods like that, but we need to compete on the same terms as our competitors.

I apologize for the lack of proper linefeeds - this stupid edit box removes them :(

[Qwalyphi Korpov]

The resident who provided the previous content, if any, has replaced it with this generic statement.

[Wilma Philbin]

There's a rule I can't quote the wiki?

[Knowl Paine]

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Wilma Philbin wrote:

From the Second Life wiki:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Search_Guidelines'

target="_blank">

"Search Policies

Any attempt to artificially inflate your rank in search results could result in penalties to your rank, de-listing from search and disciplinary action against your Second Life account. This includes but is not limited to inappropriate use of traffic bots or Picks.

Other things that may cause your listing to receive a lower search rank include: Keyword stuffing or false representation (for example, saying that your store sells skins when it only sells furniture). Remember that failure to follow the Maturity ratings and inworld search guidelines may cause your listing to be excluded from some or all searches."

I had to check that this was still in there, and it was. Are these rules still enforced?

The problem with keyword spamming really subsided for a while. Now my partner and I have repeatedly  AR'd the same place for over two months. There is no doubt this is a question of keyword stuffing with for instance every sign listed as a product.

It's been a relief not to have to resort to methods like that, but we need to compete on the same terms as our competitors.

I apologize for the lack of proper linefeeds - this stupid edit box removes them

---

 

 

If it was written like this,

 

What I read about Search Policies

It said, any attempt to artificially inflate rank in search results could result in penalties to rank, de-listing from search and disciplinary action against a Second Life account. Then it said, this includes but is not limited to inappropriate use of traffic bots or Picks.

Then it offered examples such as, Other things that may cause a listing to receive a lower search rank include: Keyword stuffing or false representation (for example, saying that a store sells skins when it only sells furniture). It reminded Residents that failure to follow the Maturity ratings and inworld search guidelines may cause a listing to be excluded from some or all searches."

I had to check that this was still in there, and it was. Are these rules still enforced?

The problem with keyword spamming really subsided for a while. Now my partner and I have repeatedly  AR'd the same place for over two months. There is no doubt this is a question of keyword stuffing with for instance every sign listed as a product.

It's been a relief not to have to resort to methods like that, but we need to compete on the same terms as our competitors.

I apologize for the lack of proper linefeeds - this stupid edit box removes them

 

Would it be a quote?

Just remember that Lawyers are busy proof reading Coupons. Real important work.

[Darrius Gothly]

Wilma,

As with a lot of "Rules" .. the enforcement is more reasonable than the letter of the rule.

As written, the policy you quoted rules out any attempts to improve your rank in search. Basically it traps you into accepting whatever rank they choose to give your parcel. If you engage in any form of optimization (for example using specific words that are relevant but didn't already exist in your object name) then you are in violation of the policy.

Where enforcement currently stands is a good bit more relaxed. Due to changes made last year and this year in in-world search, the only way to actually appear in search (for competitive keywords especially) is to engage in some form of enhancing or .. in the vernacular .. Search Engine Optimization.

Prior to the most destructive of those changes late last year, it was quite possible to get good rank simply by analyzing your parcel listing, tweaking a few object names here and there .. and presto you had a reasonable rank. However after those changes, that method failed miserably and suddenly the only method that got you anywhere on the first 10 pages was to add specially named prims to your parcel.

As it stands today, as long as the prims and the keywords on those prims are DIRECTLY RELATED to your products and business, they will not consider it spamming or against the guidelines. There are exceptions of course, and there are 100's of examples in Search where a parcel gets near top rank for an absolutely unrelated keyword. (As an example, search in the All tab for "teleporter". The 2nd and 3rd results are not places you can buy teleporters, they just happen to have their personal teleporters listed to show in search.)

Search is broken. Badly broken. It has been badly broken since the first of the destructive changes made late last year. However LL seems intent on either making it more broken, or at least leaving it in its current state of brokenness. Many of us have hollered for months for them to fix it but .. to date not a word from LL about Search at all.

[Ciaran Laval]

 

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Wilma Philbin wrote:

There's a rule I can't quote the wiki?

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Yes, it's at the top of the article, so I can't quote it to you, but it's there!

 

[Wilma Philbin]

Sorry it took me so long to answer. I had to get to bed so I would be fit for work. Now that I'm at work I have plenty of time to answer :smileyhappy:

@Knowles

Thank you Knowles, if if I ever dare thread into this minefield of a forum again, I'll try your idea!

@Ciaran

LOL, Thanks. I'm glad you didn't fall for the temptation to quote. Would hate to be responsible for leading 

you astray :smileysad:

@Darrius

I don't see any harm in adding searchable objects that reflects what a customer will actually find when they land in your store. I think it's a great idea for someone to add objects named after items in a vendor for instance. That helps a customer find what they are looking for.

But to give the impression that you have more products for sale matching a keyword than you actually do just to climb in search is a totally different thing. If that is accepted today then we will probably have to do that too not to slip down the search pages, but it's a slippery slope.

Search should be more than a way to advertise for merchants. I am a customer too and I would really like the search result reflect how much of what I look for a store has to offer.

Applying rules in a sensible way rather than by the letter has a lot of going for it. It's still important for the principles of enforcement to be transparent so everyone can play by the same rules.

[Darrius Gothly]

 

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Wilma Philbin wrote:

@Darrius

I don't see any harm in adding searchable objects that reflects what a customer will actually find when they land in your store. I think it's a great idea for someone to add objects named after items in a vendor for instance. That helps a customer find what they are looking for.

But to give the impression that you have more products for sale matching a keyword than you actually do just to climb in search is a totally different thing. If that is accepted today then we will probably have to do that too not to slip down the search pages, but it's a slippery slope.

Search should be more than a way to advertise for merchants. I am a customer too and I would really like the search result reflect how much of what I look for a store has to offer.

Applying rules in a sensible way rather than by the letter has a lot of going for it. It's still important for the principles of enforcement to be transparent so everyone can play by the same rules.

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They pretty much signaled their intentions when they removed the object listing view from Viewer 2.x Search. The TPVs still have it, but LL's Viewer 2.x does not. Thus there is no way to tell what objects are actually for sale on a parcel. Using the example I cited ("Teleporter" taking you to a Language School and a Sculpty Store), you wouldn't necessarily know that you won't find any teleporters for sale there .. in Viewer 2.x. There is also no way to find out if something is for sale in a store even though you were specific in your search ... unless you surround the search in quotes. For example:

"red shoes" will match parcels with those two words as a phrase in an object, but

red shoes (without the quotes) will match parcels with shoes, red or both somewhere on the page. But you won't know that until you comb the entire store looking for red shoes.

[Wilma Philbin]

True, there was a hint there when they stopped showing the objects. I assumed it was a mistake and would be corrected eventually at first. But that's what I thought about all the quirks with v2.  It certainly doesn't make it any easier to find what you are looking for.

[Phil Deakins]

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

[...] There are exceptions of course, and there are 100's of examples in Search where a parcel gets near top rank for an absolutely unrelated keyword. (As an example, search in the All tab for "teleporter". The 2nd and 3rd results are not places you can buy teleporters, they just happen to have their personal teleporters listed to show in search.)

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Those 2nd and 3rd results are good results. With a searchterm as vague as "teleporter", a search engine has no way of knowing what the searcher is looking for and the engine would be at fault if it left various kinds of results out. It may be that the person is looking for places to buy teleporters, or places to see teleporters in action, etc., so it's the search term that's wrong if a person is looking to buy, and not the results.

Having said that, the results for a searchterm like "places to buy teleporters" is unlikely to be much different because we cannot write our own pages. We can arrange content in the form of objects but we cannot write our own copy, and that's a BIG failing of using a web-type engine in SL.

 

@Wilma. Yes, the rules still exist and still apply but, unlike, some SL rules, such as traffic bots, these rules are generally applied programmatically and not by hand. So when the search team spots ways of beating the rules (spamming), they will deal with them by improving their programming rather than by hands-on methods. That is likely to be the reason why your ARs don't appear to have been dealt with. Programming around 'exploits' leaves the exploits in place but the fruit of them is diminished; i.e. larger negative boosts which means lower rankings. Incidentally, ARs are not really the best way of informing LL about such things. It's the search team that needs to know, so it's best to inform them directly - an IM to the search team leader (Sea Linden), for instance.

[Darrius Gothly]

That would be true if "Show In Search" was meant to mark items as "Informational" .. meaning stuff folks might want to read. But in SL that option means "this item is meant to be purchased." If people want to see Teleporters in action, most every Teleporter store also has demos set out for demonstration and display.

Whereas the Web is a giant repository of information, the web pages of parcels are meant primarily to display items being sold. Although there are Sims and Parcels that have non-commercial attractions, those are provided for by Events as those provide much more textually rich descriptions than can be had on a single object.

The reason those two places show up is because the maker of the Teleporter's marked their products as "Show In Search" before selling .. and thus the Buyer didn't know to change it (or couldn't change it due to No Mod privs). Even worse? There's only about 20 Teleporters on those high-ranking parcels, yet there are many locations with many more Teleporters for sale. So not only are they improperly ranked based on relevance and quantity, but they're being used as false advertising by the original creator of those Teleporters.

[Phil Deakins]

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

That would be true if "Show In Search" was meant to mark items as "Informational" .. meaning stuff folks might want to read. But in SL that option means "this item is meant to be purchased." If people want to see Teleporters in action, most every Teleporter store also has demos set out for demonstration and display.

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That's the wrong way round. Parcel owners, who set items to show in search, may well want to sell those items, but people searching are not necessarily wanting to buy anything and it's the searcher's point of view that's being discussed. A search on "teleporters" could be because the person wants to buy one, see one, find out how to make one, etc. With that searchterm, there is no way for a search engine to know what the searcher wants, other than they want something concerning teleporters - which they got.

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Although there are Sims and Parcels that have non-commercial attractions, those are provided for by Events as those provide much more textually rich descriptions than can be had on a single object.

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"Events" covers events. They don't cover not-for-sale items that are set to show in search. For instance, I could make a maze that I'd like people to use at any time of the day or night. It's not an event but I do want it in search. A search on "mazes" could be because the searcher wants to 'play' in mazes, or to buy one, etc. It should go without saying that items that are intentionally set to show in search are set for both 'sale' reasons and 'not-for-sale' reasons.

In your teleoprters example, the items aren't intended to be in the results but that doesn't mean that all intentional "show in search" items are for sale - they are not, and the engine has no way of knowing what the searcher wants other than pages that have some content about teleporters. Your example isn't an example of search being borker because they were good results for that simple searchterm.

[Wilma Philbin]

Thanks Phil for the tip to talk to the Search team. I've lost touch of who does what at LL, but now we have a name it's lots easier

[Darrius Gothly]

Accepting the premise that Search serves the purpose of people "finding things" .. with no implied purpose FOR finding .. then that is a problem that needs addressing in a very different manner.

While it could be that someone is wanting to learn about mazes or teleporters or horses, it is my perception that the majority intent is to use search to find someone they wish to purchase for themselves. Thus we have one search system catering to two different purposes .. and that's a recipe for disaster from the start.

It has been suggested that people be allowed to search for things that are marked "For Sale" only and thus exclude anything not intended to be sold. Except for the problem that Scripted Vendors are never marked "For Sale"; you Pay a scripted vendor, you don't Buy it. So stores with scripted vendors would automatically be excluded from any search that restricted results to only items marked For Sale.

What is needed is not only a "Show In Search" option for a Parcel (and possibly for Items as well), but also a dropdown or selector that marks the Parcel or Item for a particular type or intended purpose in Search.

There is currently the "Category" selector on a Parcel's options, but no where in Search can you filter the results to specific Categories .. nor is there any standard use of this selection. In fact, the range of Categories is woefully inadequate and so poorly defined that most people don't have a clue which way to set it, so they just ignore it.

To be truly effective though, each Item would also have to have this option available. In my Teleporters example, they could still be listed to show in search, but would not be marked as "Vendor or For Sale Item" so would be excluded from any search that specified "only return items that I can purchase."

[Phil Deakins]

I agree that most, probably almost all, SL searches for objects/items are done by people looking to buy but it can't be assumed that everyone wants to buy and so the engine must return the results as it does now.

Your ideas are good but there's another one - simply accept that the results will sometimes contain.listings where the items are not for sale. Results that are not what the searcher was looking for happen all the time with web engines and we don't have any problem accepting those results, so I don't see any need to find that kind of fault with the SL results.

The difficulty with what you suggest is that doing it would need more external programming, etc., and the whole search system woul;d get even more removed from the simple search system that is the GSA. The sooner LL starts with an open source engine, sp that they can control the engine itself, the better, but they are taking a very long time over it.