Product Marked As Spam

[Luther Weymann]

After selling my Builders Light on the SL Marketplace for at least ten years and having it be my best-selling product, I log in to my SL Marketplace account for the first time in many months and get a message that my best-selling product for a decade has been flagged as "Spam" and removed from the Marketplace. No notice, recourse, or desire to tell me by email. Just removed as Spam. Looking at the vendor texture in my store it says touch menu, blue popup, full light control, on/off, intensity, radius, and color. So that passes for Spam huh? After sixteen years in SL and having it proven over and over to me that they don't really care about us, this really is too much. Nothing quite like Eminent Domain by Big Brother is there?

[Love Zhaoying]

Were there a lot of keywords in the listing (possibly some that could be seen as "unrelated" keywords)?

"Keyword spam" used to be a thing, not sure if it still is.

[Luna Bliss]

1 hour ago, Luther Weymann said:

After selling my Builders Light on the SL Marketplace for at least ten years and having it be my best-selling product, I log in to my SL Marketplace account for the first time in many months and get a message that my best-selling product for a decade has been flagged as "Spam" and removed from the Marketplace. No notice, recourse, or desire to tell me by email. Just removed as Spam. Looking at the vendor texture in my store it says touch menu, blue popup, full light control, on/off, intensity, radius, and color. So that passes for Spam huh? After sixteen years in SL and having it proven over and over to me that they don't really care about us, this really is too much. Nothing quite like Eminent Domain by Big Brother is there?

Wow totally frustrating!  I'd open up a support ticket and get this remedied asap.  Could be the person doing the reviews for spam/abuse reports hadn't had their morning coffee yet.

[Alwin Alcott]

4 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

 

"Keyword spam" used to be a thing, not sure if it still is.

it's no thing anymore, it's common use

and we know the given answer.. report it, we can't.

Edited November 14 by Alwin Alcott

[Wulfie Reanimator]

6 hours ago, Luther Weymann said:

After selling my Builders Light on the SL Marketplace for at least ten years and having it be my best-selling product, I log in to my SL Marketplace account for the first time in many months and get a message that my best-selling product for a decade has been flagged as "Spam" and removed from the Marketplace. No notice, recourse, or desire to tell me by email. Just removed as Spam. Looking at the vendor texture in my store it says touch menu, blue popup, full light control, on/off, intensity, radius, and color. So that passes for Spam huh? After sixteen years in SL and having it proven over and over to me that they don't really care about us, this really is too much. Nothing quite like Eminent Domain by Big Brother is there?

Some of your products definitely step into keyword spamming. You copypaste the same tags a lot, even between unrelated products.

For example, a stack of 3 books with these keywords: drapes, curtains, couch, chair, desk, lamp, light, table, stool, barstool, fireplace, mugs, pouffe, daybed

Or for example when you sell pants and shirts separately, you have the same keywords on both. Shirts tagged as pants, and pants tagged as shirts.

I don't think you should cry about Big Brother when another user reports your items for keyword spamming, especially if it took 10 years. Just fix your keywords and move on.

Edited November 14 by Wulfie Reanimator

[LittleMe Jewell]

10 hours ago, Luther Weymann said:

After selling my Builders Light on the SL Marketplace for at least ten years and having it be my best-selling product, I log in to my SL Marketplace account for the first time in many months and get a message that my best-selling product for a decade has been flagged as "Spam" and removed from the Marketplace. No notice, recourse, or desire to tell me by email. Just removed as Spam. Looking at the vendor texture in my store it says touch menu, blue popup, full light control, on/off, intensity, radius, and color. So that passes for Spam huh? After sixteen years in SL and having it proven over and over to me that they don't really care about us, this really is too much. Nothing quite like Eminent Domain by Big Brother is there?

Relist, paying special attention to all keywords and make sure they really are applicable to the product.  

Keyword spamming is a major nuisance to us shoppers because it results in all sorts of unrelated crap popping up in response to our searches.  I report products all the time for keyword spamming when I get a bunch of pages of unrelated stuff in a search.  My guess is that your product was returned for an unrelated search and thus was reported.

[Luther Weymann]

So the retaliation to my post about having a product deleted was intense today from the Lindens. Obviously, they hated me saying anything, so dozens of my products were immediately removed from the marketplace, and out of the over 500 products I had listed, I have no record of the ones they deleted. Which, of course, is by design. So, after eighteen years from my first avatar of continually selling in Second Life, I'm removing the 90% of the monthly sales revenue from the SL Market and closing my marketplace store today. I will only have an in-world store until the rent expires in six months, and then it's time to say goodbye to being an SL Resident. I won’t be missed.

[Luna Bliss]

59 minutes ago, Luther Weymann said:

So the retaliation to my post about having a product deleted was intense today from the Lindens. Obviously, they hated me saying anything, so dozens of my products were immediately removed from the marketplace, and out of the over 500 products I had listed, I have no record of the ones they deleted. Which, of course, is by design. So, after eighteen years from my first avatar of continually selling in Second Life, I'm removing the 90% of the monthly sales revenue from the SL Market and closing my marketplace store today. I will only have an in-world store until the rent expires in six months, and then it's time to say goodbye to being an SL Resident. I won’t be missed.

I suspect that it was residents who read your thread here who flagged your products and this is why they were removed.

[Alwin Alcott]

1 hour ago, Luther Weymann said:

So the retaliation to my post about having a product deleted was intense today from the Lindens. Obviously, they hated me saying anything, so dozens of my products were immediately removed from the marketplace, and out of the over 500 products I had listed, I have no record of the ones they deleted. Which, of course, is by design. So, after eighteen years from my first avatar of continually selling in Second Life, I'm removing the 90% of the monthly sales revenue from the SL Market and closing my marketplace store today. I will only have an in-world store until the rent expires in six months, and then it's time to say goodbye to being an SL Resident. I won’t be missed.

you did't comply to the rules to use MP as selling platform, and your items got delisted. Your own chance to keep the others up is change the keywords, if needed, and relist the others with correct use of the keywords.
LL only did what is their responsibillity from the moment you listed those items with spamming keywords.
 

[Luther Weymann]

All of the products that I had on the marketplace had been there for over ten years, actually much longer if you count the X box they used to be in, with listings untouched for most of a decade,  creating an average monthly revenue of L$18,655. I guess during that decade, I didn't comply with the rules. So now I have removed all 500 products from the SL Market and will close my store when the rent runs out in six months. No big deal, no one cares; I won't be missed, it's just Second Life. 

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Luther Weymann said:

I guess during that decade, I didn't comply with the rules.

As others said (but I did not see you acknowledge), it's probably not your listings in general, but just your choice of keywords. 

Only if someone actually "reported" your listings would they be reviewed and some action taken.  Linden Lab didn't do this entirely themselves, they only reviewed someone's report (almost definitely).

Did you consider just changing the keywords in your entries?  Obviously, it's up to you how you react to a single listing being removed, but closing your entire store seems a bit extreme. You could also just leave everything alone and see if any other listings are reported / removed for keyword spam, of course.

[Luna Bliss]

42 minutes ago, Luther Weymann said:

All of the products that I had on the marketplace had been there for over ten years, actually much longer if you count the X box they used to be in, with listings untouched for most of a decade,  creating an average monthly revenue of L$18,655. I guess during that decade, I didn't comply with the rules. So now I have removed all 500 products from the SL Market and will close my store when the rent runs out in six months. No big deal, no one cares; I won't be missed, it's just Second Life. 

Residents have been purchasing your items so it seems you've provided some needed content that people appreciated -- I'd hate to see that disappear.

I do wish those not complying with the rules regarding keywords could receive a warning instead of instant removal, as there are people like yourself who were simply unaware and not trying to break any rules.  I suppose that would require more effort/expense from LL though.

[Emma Krokus]

Well... I'll miss you.

A very fine dungeon you made springs to mind that looks awesome with water lapping round the pillars... I love the way the sunlight streams in through the roof grill...

I also have to admit, I really dislike keyword spam (and don't get me started on DEMOS without a FULL VERSION) - it makes using Marketplace much less efficient than it could be.

However, perhaps ways in which merchants could be alerted on how to make "proper" listings could be improved... may be with warnings...

 

[Alwin Alcott]

10 minutes ago, Emma Krokus said:

 

However, perhaps ways in which merchants could be alerted on how to make "proper" listings could be improved... may be with warnings...

 

it's discussed to death here in the forums for years,  .. can't blaim anyone for not reading ór keeping up with the user agreements for the MP. it's not only click and move in, but read agree and move in, not disagree but accept and go sit in victim role.

[Luther Weymann]

48 minutes ago, Emma Krokus said:

Well... I'll miss you.

A very fine dungeon you made springs to mind that looks awesome with water lapping round the pillars... I love the way the sunlight streams in through the roof grill...

I also have to admit, I really dislike keyword spam (and don't get me started on DEMOS without a FULL VERSION) - it makes using Marketplace much less efficient than it could be.

However, perhaps ways in which merchants could be alerted on how to make "proper" listings could be improved... may be with warnings...

 

Thank you for your kind comment. As of today, my SL Market store was closed (I'm just not up to fighting the system anymore), and all 411 products in my inworld store have been set to L$0 price, which will remain in effect until mid-June when the rent runs out. With my first avatar starting in January of 2004 until March of 2008 I wrote over 300 original scripts in SL and gave 100% of them away full perms in my large free store I had on Hamnida across from the NCI South school area. Some were without merit, and some were important, such as the March 2004 texture changer and rezzer. A long time ago, before the records sort of lost their way, I had given away about 350,000 scripts during the peak of SL concurrency. Many of those free scripts went on into the hands of many others to become many current things in SL. Of my nearly twenty years in SL, this is one thing I was most satisfied with. 

[Luna Bliss]

I should probably read the Marketplace directions/agreement...but I never have.  Am too busy.

[Luna Bliss]

22 minutes ago, Luther Weymann said:

Thank you for your kind comment. As of today, my SL Market store was closed (I'm just not up to fighting the system anymore), and all 411 products in my inworld store have been set to L$0 price, which will remain in effect until mid-June when the rent runs out. With my first avatar starting in January of 2004 until March of 2008 I wrote over 300 original scripts in SL and gave 100% of them away full perms in my large free store I had on Hamnida across from the NCI South school area. Some were without merit, and some were important, such as the March 2004 texture changer and rezzer. A long time ago, before the records sort of lost their way, I had given away about 350,000 scripts during the peak of SL concurrency. Many of those free scripts went on into the hands of many others to become many current things in SL. Of my nearly twenty years in SL, this is one thing I was most satisfied with. 

The best kind of gift to give is when nobody knows it was you who gave it  (my philosophy anyway).

But just the same, I hope you know you gave some impressive gifts to the community...

[Love Zhaoying]

 

[Paul Hexem]

3 hours ago, Luther Weymann said:

I guess during that decade, I didn't comply with the rules.

It's too bad they took this long to get to you.

[Mistress Morbid]

23 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Some of your products definitely step into keyword spamming. You copypaste the same tags a lot, even between unrelated products.

For example, a stack of 3 books with these keywords: drapes, curtains, couch, chair, desk, lamp, light, table, stool, barstool, fireplace, mugs, pouffe, daybed

Or for example when you sell pants and shirts separately, you have the same keywords on both. Shirts tagged as pants, and pants tagged as shirts.

I don't think you should cry about Big Brother when another user reports your items for keyword spamming, especially if it took 10 years. Just fix your keywords and move on.

That's so annoying to see people spamming like this, it makes it really hard for people searching the marketplace. I am glad the Lindens followed up on reports in this instance.

[Love Zhaoying]

3 hours ago, Paul Hexem said:

It's too bad they took this long to get to you.

Hey! It's not nice to make fun of entitled people.

[Paul Hexem]

5 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Hey! It's not nice to make fun of entitled people.

Actually, it wasn't just a jab. Had LL been more proactive about this problem, this giant problem on their platform that they apparently put real effort into ignoring until they get multiple reports, then more people wouldn't be surprised by it later when something finally does get done.

[Love Zhaoying]

9 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

Actually, it wasn't just a jab. Had LL been more proactive about this problem, this giant problem on their platform that they apparently put real effort into ignoring until they get multiple reports, then more people wouldn't be surprised by it later when something finally does get done.

My understanding is, newer MP search features rely on keywords less, but can still cause unrelated product to show up (causing more annoyance and reports).

Yes, I meant "entitled" literally, not just a jab. If listings were spammy for 10 years, for so long that someone thinks they are "without sin" and threaten to delete their store / quit when a listing is deleted..that's definitely entitlement.

Heck, most MP complaints from sellers lately (in the Forums) have been about lower sales and listing issues. Completely different. 

Edited November 15 by Love Zhaoying

[Luther Weymann]

My SL market is closed after 19 years, including X box, and all products in my store are now set to L$0. Please look in my profile for store location and get some free Prims & Scripts products until June, when the inworld store closes for good. Thank you all for commenting. I am off this forum now. 

[JUSTUS Palianta]

I feel like you over reacted, if you had of taken 5 minutes of your day to read the merchant threads, you will see there is a well known bug deleting listings from peoples marketplace stores (especially large stores).  Linden probably did not delete your listings, the bug probably made them disappear, and they will pop back up soon.  Linden would of only deactivated your listing, like they do for keyword spam.  As for selling a X box, you know that is wrong, that is not your brand ... Watches you do a big flouncy flounce and walk away.