Fake Traffic?

[sheena797 Navarita]

At one time to get extras traffic sims would use traffic cones and the like...but now what seems to be the in things is AFK avies? are these bots of some sort but give the owner traffic to their sim?

I went to a sim and it had a traffic of over 100k! when I popped in the map showed 85 people....look not sure about any of you if i go to a shopping event it's stand still and cam to buy anything walking is almost nonexsistent  so how in the heck can you have 85 people who by the way are all afk and not lag???? I walked through that sim like I was on my own...is this a new kind of bot?? are these actual avies what is going on??? this is been done on several sims I've been to ....one sim had all the avies in the sky....about 25 of them just floating in the air someone have an answer?? pulling my hair out here...

 

[Ethan Paslong]

traffic boosting by bots is not allowed, but never been gone, if you'r sure, report

Edited April 13, 2018 by Ethan Paslong

[Phil Deakins]

I don't know why you're pulling your hair out just because you don't understand something you see, but...

Traffic bots were around long before the cones were dreamed up. After some years they became illegal but I do believe they are still used. Bots are perfectly legal and do not need to be registered as bots, but bots that are not registered as bots, on land that's set to show in search, are illegal. Those are the only ones that are traffic bots.

 

2 hours ago, sheena797 Navarita said:

I walked through that sim like I was on my own...is this a new kind of bot?? are these actual avies what is going on???

If they are represented by green dots on the mini-map, they are avatars, but not a new kind of bot.

 

2 hours ago, sheena797 Navarita said:

are these actual avies what is going on???

You know how to tell if they are avatars. If they are bots, one of two things could be going on. They are traffic bots or they are registered bots that are there just to make the place look popular.

 

2 hours ago, sheena797 Navarita said:

one sim had all the avies in the sky....about 25 of them just floating in the air someone have an answer??

Those are very likely to be traffic bots.

There is no way for we users to know whether or not a bot is registered as such, so we can't know if an avatar is a traffic bot or not.

[Qie Niangao]

10 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

There is no way for we users to know whether or not a bot is registered as such, so we can't know if an avatar is a traffic bot or not.

I always wondered: LL could have exposed that information in account Profiles and to scripts (similar to rez age, Payment Info status, etc.), but they didn't. I wonder why not.

That would reduce errant reports of "traffic bots" that are registered scripted agents.

There'd still be overzealous reporting of real people who fall asleep at their keyboards, though.

[Ethan Paslong]

16 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

I always wondered: LL could have exposed that information in account Profiles and to scripts (similar to rez age, Payment Info status, etc.), but they didn't. I wonder why not.

or, as they say, it's deducted from traffic to boost ranking, deduct it already from the landinfo...if it's still skyhigh but nobody else really there than the afk's, you'r nearly sure it's not registered as bot.

[Phil Deakins]

@Qie Niangao Yes, it's odd that it's not available in any way. I can't readily come up with a reason not to show it. Maybe it's just that it was a rushed job and they got to the point where they thought, "That'll do for that. What's that other rush job that we have to do?"

[Hereafter Vortex]

It's in LL's interest to maintain the appearance of many users of the platform.  No online service wants methods that eliminate duplicates or multiple accounts or bots.  MMO's started being cagey years ago about their subscriber/account numbers unless they could report success.  People shy away from services with low user numbers.

[Fionalein]

Actually that might have been a fishing event, did you zoom up?

[Coffee Pancake]

Generally it seems to be that if you have your own private region, you can do what ever you like on it .. if that's filling it with AFK bots then .. LL are like "fair enough".

It shouldn't be allowed at all, and I do wish LL would enforce the rules at least for mainland. It's never fun living on a sim and some fool cheating at tiny empires or running a club moves into a small plot and parks 20 accounts on it in the sky.

[Phil Deakins]

4 hours ago, CoffeeDujour said:

Generally it seems to be that if you have your own private region, you can do what ever you like on it .. if that's filling it with AFK bots then .. LL are like "fair enough".

Not quite. As far as bots concerned, there is no difference between mainland and private sims. Mainland owners and private sim owners can fill their parcels/sims with AFK bots. That's not against any rules. BUT they can't fill any parcel/sim with unregistered bots IF the parcel/sim is set to show in search. There is no difference between mainland and private regions. as far as bots are concerned.

Edited April 14, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Ethan Paslong]

7 hours ago, CoffeeDujour said:

Generally it seems to be that if you have your own private region, you can do what ever you like on it .. if that's filling it with AFK bots then .. LL are like "fair enough".

It shouldn't be allowed at all, and I do wish LL would enforce the rules at least for mainland. It's never fun living on a sim and some fool cheating at tiny empires or running a club moves into a small plot and parks 20 accounts on it in the sky.

it's not allowed to use traffic bots at any place ... the official rule is that bots spending time on locations will be taken off the traffic scores.

The real problem is in your second line... the enforcing of frules isn't working to well ...  sometimes good for all of us (nobody is a saint) but also for the really bad guys it can take a serious amount of reports before you finally see results.

In my opnion it shouldnt be to hard to have controls on cluttering afk avatars, or overusing sim resources at a small parcel that kills all fun for other avatars.

[Phil Deakins]

16 minutes ago, Ethan Paslong said:

In my opnion it shouldnt be to hard to have controls on cluttering afk avatars, or overusing sim resources at a small parcel that kills all fun for other avatars.

I used traffic bots on the mainland when they were allowed. The best system I wrote for them almost filled the sim's quota (I owned the whole sim except for 1½k). But they never prevented people from coming to the sim - both customers, and people using their own land - because my system always left spaces for that, by logging bots in and out when required. And their location didn't cause lag in the sim. I was a good traffic bot person

Edited April 14, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Coffee Pancake]

5 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

I used traffic bots on the mainland when they were allowed. The best system I wrote for them almost filled the sim's quota (I owned the whole sim except for 1½k). But they never prevented people from coming to the sim - both customers, and people using their own land - because my system always left spaces for that, by logging bots in and out when required. And their location didn't cause lag in the sim. I was a good traffic bot person

No you were a terrible traffic bot person and you should feel terrible.

Avatars on a region are not cost free, even when up in the sky.

[Phil Deakins]

Nooo. I was an excellent traffic bot person - very considerate   And nothing is totally free in a sim, but being way up in the sky made them virtually free. People in the sim never 'felt' their presence. If they could be 'felt' I wouldn't have used so many.

[Callum Meriman]

11 hours ago, Ethan Paslong said:

iIn my opnion it shouldnt be to hard to have controls on cluttering afk avatars, or overusing sim resources at a small parcel that kills all fun for other avatars.

It's really only unfair when they put 20 into a 512 on mainland. That does impact other people in the region, I do consider that unfair.

Generally I have no issue with people loading bots into their private region. Visitors soon workout that the place is silent, and creepily boring. Sure, some stay and just stand with the bots watching people come in and leave, but most get bored and move to the next club down the list.

Personally I prefer to work for my club's traffic. I know that every single number is honest. When it rises I know people are liking it. When it falls consistently i know it's time to change things.

These day, honestly, SEO does more than bots, a substantial number of people don't search on classic search.

 

[Fionalein]

While I personally benefit form the L$ I earn in those games I really would not mind LL forbidding traffic aggregating games on mainland alltogether. Imagine riding down one of the mainland routes on your fabourite vehicle only to crash against an invisible wall because someone thinks it is time to attract a bunch of people with a fishing event there...

Edited April 15, 2018 by Fionalein

[Teagan Tobias]

2 hours ago, Callum Meriman said:

a substantial number of people don't search on classic search.

What else is there to search with?

[Phil Deakins]

7 hours ago, Teagan Tobias said:

What else is there to search with?

The current search system. The "classic search" that Callum referred to is the original search from many years ago, but is still useable. It ranks places solely on traffic, which is why such things as camping and traffic bots came in in the first place.

Then we went over to a Google search engine (the GSA - Google Search Appliance) and seo became the way to get places ranking higher. It still used the traffic numbers as a ranking factor, but only in a small way. You may remember places paying for Picks in people's profiles. That was because of the GSA - a Pick produced a clickable link to the place, and links were the most iimportant ranking factor.

The GSA was very expensive to rent from Google, and LL couldn't modify it to suit SL, so they moved on to a free search engine, which they could modify. Because all the big search engines copied Google's methods, which were actually published, and because the Google engine produced far better results than any previous engine, the free one isn't too dissimilar from Google's engine, so, as Callum said, seo is the way to get places ranking higher. It's assumed that LL have included traffic and that it still helps the rankings a little.

Where traffic does help a place is in the search results themselves, where traffic numbers are shown. The results are not ranked in traffic order, but it's natural for us to prefer a place with higher traffic than one with very little, because it 'appears' that people go to it. For instance, suppose you are looking for a nude beach. Which would you go to? - the one with very little traffic, or the one with traffic in the thousands. Even if we're not looking for people - shopping, for instance - higher traffic implies that the store is well used by people.

And, of course, some people still prefer to use the classic search, and traffic is the only thing that matters in that one.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Callum Meriman]

7 hours ago, Teagan Tobias said:

What else is there to search with?

Classic Search - Takes account of traffic

Web Search, what most people seem to use - unaffected by traffic

 

[Rhonda Huntress]

12 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

Where traffic does help a place is in the search results themselves, where traffic numbers are shown. The results are not ranked in traffic order, but it's natural for us to prefer a place with higher traffic than one with very little, because it 'appears' that people go to it.

There are times I look for a lower traffic.  Searching for new photo places or finding a quite place for a little alone time with the ol' ball and chain my sweet and wonderful Pet.

Also, very high traffic means I will most likely face sim lag and over crowding that hinders conversation rather than helping it.  If I want to meet people and chat I look for traffic in the low thousands, like 1K to 3.5K.  5K plus is where I go to be alone in a crowd while I sort inventory.  10K plus is a no-go zone.  At least to me.

I wish people would realize that gaming traffic just shifts the parcel out of where it belongs.  If I am looking for X but the parcel is in Y, I can't find it.  If I am looking for Y and the parcel is really an X, I won't stay.  If that makes any sense ...

[Phil Deakins]

36 minutes ago, Rhonda Huntress said:

There are times I look for a lower traffic.  Searching for new photo places or finding a quite place for a little alone time with the ol' ball and chain my sweet and wonderful Pet.

I love that

[Coffee Pancake]

On 15/04/2018 at 5:10 AM, Callum Meriman said:

Web Search, what most people seem to use - unaffected by traffic

The fact that legacy search interfaces are still provided and actively maintained by LL, simply for 3rd party viewer use, implies that you're probably wrong about the balance of users between that and the (IMO useless) web search.

[Callum Meriman]

20 minutes ago, CoffeeDujour said:

The fact that legacy search interfaces are still provided and actively maintained by LL, simply for 3rd party viewer use, implies that you're probably wrong about the balance of users between that and the (IMO useless) web search.

I am always happy to be corrected, but Web Search is the default in Firestorm, and it's the only one in the LL viewer isn't it? If so then I am probably correct.

I don't think TPVs have > 50% of residents, but I welcome someone with access to the figures to correct me.

[Coffee Pancake]

TPVs used to get regular stats, we haven't had any for a while now .. and .. they can't be shared. So .. 

[Callum Meriman]

3 hours ago, CoffeeDujour said:

TPVs used to get regular stats, we haven't had any for a while now .. and .. they can't be shared. So .. 

... there is no way of saying that "most people use classic search" yeah? I respect your opinion that more people use classic, I think it's the other way due to the default in FS and the number of LL viewer people.

So, I guess we'll just need to disagree and consider the statement "Web Search is not so affected by traffic" instead.

Edited April 17, 2018 by Callum Meriman