Random or Selected merchants?

[martinmoun]

For a few weeks there has been this banner on the start page of the MP: "Men's Winter Fashion". Does anyone know the criteria / algorithm on which products and merchants are shown?

If you look close you see around 3-4 products and merchants that nearly always appear on the first page. Below there are only two examples. But it is the case for weeks now.

Is the selection made really randomly?
Do advertisers get a higher ranking?
Is there any other kind of preferration?

 

Edited January 6, 2020 by martinmoun

[Rockridge Constantine]

These are not random.  They are Merchant Enhanced Listings, that merchants can use to highlight some of their own items.  You can find more information here: https://community.secondlife.com/knowledgebase/english/managing-your-marketplace-store-r87/

[Claireschen Hesten]

By default the Marketplace sorts by relevance at the very top of listings will be featured products which merchants pay to have their products featured below the featured items section i don't really know how relevance is decided upon recent sales and/or listing views may play a part though all items in the winter fashion feature will have the keyword "Winter" 

[Kyrah Abattoir]

What about the main banner though?

[Alyona Su]

5 hours ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

What about the main banner though?

I always thought those images were taken from the official Flickr group or created in-house.

[Tari Landar]

13 hours ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

What about the main banner though?

I may be wrong (and I probably am), but if I remember correctly, the vast majority of photos LL uses for promotional material (website banners, mostly) are those submitted by residents through the "official second life photos" group on flickr.   There is always a name on the photo stating who made/submitted it (like in that pic, it's by Scar Requiem). I think the photos used on the MP main banner (in this case men's winter fashion) merely sport some resemblance/relation to the topic at hand. 

I happen to like that particular banner on the MP, because of the frequency at which it is changed (relevance being what it is), and the diversity of "chosen ones"(so to speak) that are displayed, versus the main SL website which tends to show pics taken by a very small handful of the same people that have had their pics displayed ad nauseum on the website for the last decade or so, lol.  (that's just me being catty though, I'm certain they are all fantastic people and their pics can be pretty nice too...I'm just a huge fan of diversity and spreading the love, not same old same old from the same folks all the time)