Traffic violation! Enough is enough

[Matis Illios]

After long time inWorld allow me to have a very good experience in this issue.
I worked a lot in many projects and I have created tons of content inWorld so I care about this platform a lot.
I saw friends to be acused for traffic violation, me also. Some of them without a serious reason (Club owners).
But....there are residents and sims owners who continuing do traffic violation without even a warning.
Enough is enough.
I can accept a good Dance Club or a Mall can achieve a traffic indication above 5000 or more.
A place with an avatar (agent) 24/7 on it can make a 1500 traffic indication, with 2 agents 3000!!!
I can understand a content creator or a sim owner that need to watch hes/her place for any reason (security-statistics) and he can have 1 or 2 alts (that can be acceptable also).
But I think LL should set a traffic indication as a limit and above that should investigate all the sims that have.... over 5000 for example!
Above that 80-90% it's a result of traffic violation, using camp/bots and illegal methods.
After 5 years inWorld allow me to be sure about it.
That's one reason that SL lost reliability.
Someone who visit those places (most of them are also very ugly in enviroment and decoration setup).
I saw already a dramatic reduce in my friendlist from ppl that stopped to login, it's almost time to do that myself if this doesnt stop now!

[WADE1 Jya]

Linden Lab did take steps to resolve this by making traffic not carry any weight in regular search function. In the months since these situations of extreme traffic violations has been in decline, so I would say it working... though perhaps not as fast as you are hoping for.

:matte-motes-mad:

Why some people still struggle to create false traffic I don't understand. It doesn't count for anything anymore so why bother? Also with a place full of bots you can easily directly lose customers as there is an avatar limit per sim. Obviously many people hate to see false traffic & bots everywhere so the net result must be bad for business versus just keeping honest traffic.

More bots = less paying customers. Hopefully we will continue to see less and less of these operations.

[Griffin Ceawlin]

 

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Matis Illios wrote:

But I think LL should set a traffic indication as a limit and above that should investigate all the sims that have.... over 5000 for example!

Above that 80-90% it's a result of traffic violation, using camp/bots and illegal methods.

---

Maybe it's just a busy sim?

 

[Smoothie Perl]

"It doesn't count for anything anymore so why bother?" ????

aw! Traffic in some bussines still is critical.

Traffic violators should faced more serious now than before. Residents are much less for many reasons and one of them is those frauds also.

LL shoud give some respect to us content creators and store owners by investigating this issue all the time.

Don't understimate it!

[Matis Illios]

Please don't do that!

As I said, I'm an old and experienced resident to make a thread for this issue without a serious investigation.

I'm talking about  sims with very little real traffic and also I'm visited those places for months and different hours!!! NOT TODAY!!!! LL's can easily track the violators. So you don't worry, instead you have a reason of that.

Reports are already in LL hands, so don't try to make an excuse for them in here. There is no reason

[Griffin Ceawlin]

 

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Matis Illios wrote:

Reports are already in LL hands, so don't try to make an excuse for them in here. There is no reason

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Then there is no reason for you to be here kvetching, either. Have a good day.

 

[Void Singer]

anyone complaining about traffic numbers (doesn't matter to who) is wasting their breath at this point... they are no longer used in the core search algorithm, and almost no one bothers to use it for sort order.

now if people using bots and inactive clients are overusing region resources, then report it as that, otherwise there is no point, and I suggest ignoring anyone complaining about the traffic numbers, period.

[Matis Illios]

I admire your knowledge about algorith updates, but in World search giving me opposite results and I always find such places on top.

Removing that option in search it's more logical by any other algorithmic change method.

[Dresden Ceriano]

Just have to ask... have you actually seen obvious bots on these properties of which you speak?

Also, it occurred to me there may be another reason these places still have active bots... simply to make it look as if people are there when you pull up the map. Though I don't see that as reason enough to maintain an army of bots.

Having never had a commercial piece of property in SL, I don't really understand the benefit of having bots, especially now that traffic is not a factor in search. Nor do I understand the detriment, except when, as pointed out already, they're using up sim resources.

Maybe these merchants are just ignorant of the fact that traffic doesn't matter anymore. Just a thought.

...Dres

[Void Singer]

no one ever uses just one method of trying to spam the search engine... keywords spam, for sale spamming and other methods are also employed.

I can tell that the traffic aint doing jack, because it used to put my home region in the top 3 (an edu region) , and was the only stat we relied on there to justify the cost.... now that's up in the air because the region no longer comes up in the first 15 pages.... we can't sell anything on the region (so for sale spammming is out) , the region managers can't do keyword spamming (school sets the policy for what goes in there), so the only thing we can do is ask resident to add us a pick to their profile, and scrape what statistic we can manually through scripts.... so far we've seen little change, even though the region has an AVERAGE load of 11-15 avatars at ALL times, making it a rather busy region. and still our page position doesn't budge..... Traffic is D E A D as a search stat

[Corset Habilis]

You have been here for 5 years? I cannot even get in after a couple of weeks. There must be a way.

[Matis Illios]

Well done LL's!

I saw some results, but a continuing effort is needed here.

Anyway, I have to admit you "smashed" some bones!

Well done and keep it up.

 

[Marshall Burner]

I must disagree. As an indicator, traffic stat was far from perfect, and yes it was easy to cheat it but at least most of the time it meant something.

Sims with real traffic had a chance to come in the first results in a keyword search. Cheating needed some effort and was usually easy to spot.

The sim I used to go had some real traffic around 15000-20000 a day, it never used bots. Some of the competing sims did so it was often #2 or 3 in search, but it was not a problem because people are not stupid when they come in a sim where no one answer them or are standing  at 4000m they usually get it.

When the linden changed search, removing the traffic from the equation this sim ended up in the third page. By searching the same keyword you had to go through 3 pages of totally irrelevant places (there was even a 2048m² empty parcel before finding the most popular place matching the theme.

Changing the search only changed the way to cheat it, if anything it made it easier. It is way easier to put a few chosen words in your land description rather than having to keep an army of bots logged all the time.

 

[Kelley Foxclaw]

It's not what you know...   The way of the land

[Jaiden Eternal]

Got to be honest, a LOT of people do still go by the traffic stats that show up in search don't foll yourselves into thingking they will not, just because you don't!

[Smoothie Perl]

im afraid, traffic trick is still going on. I suffer from this long time now , LL threatning me for bringing in my land some friends and they camp from time to time just for favor to me, in an attempt to fight back. 

But those other violators are still untouchable and still doing it.

[Bunderwahl Guisse]

I just visited a sim that had five....**five!** It is a well known sim and while it has good traffic without them has decided to boost their numbers by parking alts around with no reason to be other then gaming traffic numbers.