Traffic Calculation Change?

[Rowan Amore]

Just now, Jubilynn Lane said:

The point is to drive new user traffic to your sim.  The stat places you higher in the search. 

It clearly works btw.  We've tested it many times. 

I understand that also but if you aren't selling anything, have no vendors or ad boards, beside a higher spot in search, what do they gain?  

[Wulfie Reanimator]

10 minutes ago, RowanMinx said:

I understand the afk sex thing.  I don't understand using afk avatars or bots to increase traffic if you don't sell a product.  What is the incentive?  What does a place that doesn't have anything but say, a beach, gain by sticking a platform full of bots somewhere?  People may come but they won't stay.  Anyone looking to rent a space or ad board could plainly see it's not actual traffic.  What's the motivation behind any avatars used for traffic?

An inquiring mind wants to know.

The AFK sex is the product.

Most AFK spots do also sell other products, like escort services, ad boards, rentals (like the place you mentioned), etc.

If a place has literally no product whatsoever, a barren parcel, I guess bragging rights?

Some people just want to have a place that's popular, even if they have to pay out of pocket.

Edited December 20, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Rowan Amore]

Let me give an example.  I've breezed through search a few times looking for new places to chat with people.  Oh look, that place is popular!  I go, look around, see no one or see people pop in and then leave and I do the same.  I don't look at ad boards, I don't purchase anything if there are vendors.  I just find the avatars all standing around under water or on a platform and go ohhh k.  What does the region owner gain besides that high spot when people don't stay?

[Rowan Amore]

1 minute ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

The AFK sex is the product.

Most AFK spots do also sell other products, like escort services, ad boards, rentals (like the place you mentioned), etc.

I've stopped into several of those places and see very little sex going on.  Like I said too, if I were looking to rent an ad board, I'd go and look around at a.place first.  I'm sure new people don't pay much attention to those anyway.  If I did have a board, once I saw no one bothered with it, I wouldn't be buying one again.  

I guess what I mean is, I just don't see how having all those bots or afk people would bring in enough to actually pay for the land even if your traffic was 374847374.

I've just always been curious about it.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

1 minute ago, RowanMinx said:

I've stopped into several of those places and see very little sex going on.  Like I said too, if I were looking to rent an ad board, I'd go and look around at a.place first.  I'm sure new people don't pay much attention to those anyway.  If I did have a board, once I saw no one bothered with it, I wouldn't be buying one again.  

I guess what I mean is, I just don't see how having all those bots or afk people would bring in enough to actually pay for the land even if your traffic was 374847374.

I've just always been curious about it.

I understand your question and reasons for asking, but unless we get a handful of self-proclaimed traffic botters to come here with their reasons, it's going to be very hard to get a satisfying answer. I also have a bad habit of editing my posts after posting them, so I'll reiterate a couple points:

• I doubt most (if any) AFK places make sustainable income. The ones that are almost entirely filled with the owner's bots might have a slim chance, but I don't think there's enough real traffic to profit off it.

• If a place has literally no product whatsoever, a barren parcel, I guess bragging rights? Some people just want to have a place that's popular, even if they have to pay out of pocket. Fake traffic can sometimes lead to real traffic, or at least get you out of Page 186.

[Jubilynn Lane]

13 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

I understand your question and reasons for asking, but unless we get a handful of self-proclaimed traffic botters to come here with their reasons, it's going to be very hard to get a satisfying answer. I also have a bad habit of editing my posts after posting them, so I'll reiterate a couple points:

• I doubt most (if any) AFK places make sustainable income. The ones that are almost entirely filled with the owner's bots might have a slim chance, but I don't think there's enough real traffic to profit off it.

• If a place has literally no product whatsoever, a barren parcel, I guess bragging rights? Some people just want to have a place that's popular, even if they have to pay out of pocket. Fake traffic can sometimes lead to real traffic, or at least get you out of Page 186.

The 'sim' is the product,  many of those sims offer RP rentals, or a min game "meter combat ' for instance of some type.  They are enganged in a program of driving new traffic to their sims to encourage people to use the sim's services, what ever those services might be. 

RPG sims, use that trick to drive new players to a sim.  

I don't' disagree that if your not a 'new ' player,   you kind of know the trick so its not as effective. 

Saying its 'not effective' is a misstatement however, we've literally run several experiments with it, and it clearly works to drive new people to your sim.  What you do with them once they get there, is kinda where most sims miss the mark. But saying it doesn't work as a means to get new visitors, is factually not true.  

The reason I noticed this traffic change, and made the post, was we were actually in the middle of an experiment right now about two weeks in.  And 'new ' user engagement was up over 100%, simply by us leaving a couple of 'bots' on to push us up the search.  It clearly works.  But it shouldn't work, its clearly bad of the grid for all the reasons discussed in this thread. I'd be happy if they did actually change the calculations to exclude idle avatars. 

 

 

[Wulfie Reanimator]

5 minutes ago, Jubilynn Lane said:

The 'sim' is the product,  many of those sims offer RP rentals, or a min game "meter combat ' for instance of some type.  They are enganged in a program of driving new traffic to their sims to encourage people to use the sim's services, what ever those services might be. 

RPG sims, use that trick to drive new players to a sim.  

I don't' disagree that if your not a 'new ' player,   you kind of know the trick so its not as effective. 

Saying its 'not effective' is a misstatement however, we've literally run several experiments with it, and it clearly works to drive new people to your sim.  What you do with them once they get there, is kinda where most sims miss the mark. But saying it doesn't work as a means to get new visitors, is factually not true.  

The reason I noticed this traffic change, and made the post, was we were actually in the middle of an experiment right now about two weeks in.  And 'new ' user engagement was up over 100%, simply by us leaving a couple of 'bots' on to push us up the search.  It clearly works.  But it shouldn't work, its clearly bad of the grid for all the reasons discussed in this thread. I'd be happy if they did actually change the calculations to exclude idle avatars. 

Again, we completely agree.

Am I the only one reading these in a disagreeing tone? I haven't said traffic botting is ineffective (or even less effective), literally the opposite.

[Sara Nova]

1 hour ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Again, we completely agree.

Am I the only one reading these in a disagreeing tone? I haven't said traffic botting is ineffective (or even less effective), literally the opposite.

I can't help but wonder, did you think I was a traffic bot before you triggered my bumper?

[Lupin0986]

I've never run bots on our sim but we've dropped from our normal 10-15k traffic last friday to 177? I'm a small club that opperates 8 hours a day our busy days are friday saturday. I see other clubs that usually are on par with us way above us by hunderds. There is something that is being done here that isn't perfectly transparent. Why is there a sudden change without warning or information on how they are now calculating? Places that have been 90k to 100k are merely 4k , we are growing venue and this is going to hurt us pretty bad, people are going to look and see 177 and be like why would we go there and we'll be buried in a lot of searches when we used to be 3-5 at the most.  We just got on destinations and we've been getting a bunch of new faces and our numbers have been swelling. But to drop from 10k to barely 200 is a serious problem. Our events usually bring in 20k-30k we are running one on the 1st so we'll see how wrecked the system is. 

[Mollymews]

traffic might just be borked for some regions/parcels

my traffic number for my dressing parcel yesterday was 231. And I was the only one on it for nearly 4 hours altogether over the day

[sallymayye]

Currently sims use "campers" to increase the traffic of a sim.  People won't be inclined to go there if its low traffic.

So Linden may have found a way that "campers" are not counted for traffic. 

If they no longer count them, then there is no point parking them all over your sim, and logging them off means Lindens may save money.

Still not sure why AFK sims still seem to represent the highest traffic.  ( not all the AFK's are full time AFK, some people there when they are not doing anything else, for example when they go to bed , to try to make easy money ).

 

 

 

[Charlotte Bartlett]

As there are two threads on this

 Mine is fixed now, back to 21.7K which matches weekend numbers expected for Saturday Sale. (We don't use bots - that's pure shopper traffic).

[Jubilynn Lane]

The Traffic calc  is back to how it was. (as of 12-20)

Glitch or Experiment?    

With Linden Labs you never know

I hope it was actually an experiment.  The numbers yesterday much closer approximation to 'live traffic' . 

Time will see if they change it.