Has the calculation used for generating the daily parcel Traffic value changed?

[Jahman Ochs]

Yesterday, my numbers were around 225 unique visitors and around 11000 cumulative visitor minutes; my traffic number for the parcel was reported at 17569. This is consistent with my records going back over a year for this parcel.

Today, my numbers were around 220 unique visitors and around 11000 cumulative visitor minutes. By my calculations, my traffic number should be somewhere between 16500 and 17000; it is, instead, 11997, a discrepancy of about 30%.

A little investigating reveals that it looks like a similar drop in calculated traffic has occured across the grid. Consistent mainstay Franks Place, usually in the 70k range, is listed as ~50k today. All of the listings in the search categories that I usually monitor are similarly down.

By my analysis, this is not a change in actual visitor/time numbers, but in a change in the way traffic is calculated. Can anyone corroborate, and can Linden Labs explain?

 

(Update - a jira has been entered: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-7459?focusedCommentId=295350#comment-295350)

[Charolotte Caxton]

I can agree that my numbers seemed off today, as in, unusually low. 

[Rolig Loon]

To my knowledge, LL has never let anyone know how traffic is calculated.  Furthermore, to frustrate attempts to game the system, or perhaps simply because they felt like trying a new algorithm, they have periodically changed their calculation method.  I wouldn't be surprised if they had done it again, but I doubt that you will hear that from LL.

You're undoubtedly also aware that here have been an unusual number of off-line sims this past week, and that LL has been doing maintenance on servers across the grid.  That may have messed up traffic counts too.

[Charolotte Caxton]

Found this:

 

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Traffic

 

What I particularly found interesting was this statement:

 

"If you want to start another tedious argument about whether this wiki page or the knowledge base or any other source of information including various Linden Lab employees is right please review this thread and particularly this post[4] which conclusively proved, again, that traffic is one point per avatar per minute (barring some small questions about the timing of the mechanism that tracks the minutes)"

 

and the link it provided to this archive:

 

http://forums-archive.secondlife.com/327/e2/310130/1.html

 

I didn't read it all, but most of it was cute.

[Charolotte Caxton]

Inworld, I clicked the ? in about land and under traffic I was directed to this page:

 

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Guidelines-for-creating-search-listings/ta-p/803947#Section_.5.6

 

Which says:

 

"Traffic is a numerical metric calculated for every parcel of land inworld. This score can be summarized as the cumulative minutes spent on the parcel by all visitors to the parcel within the previous day. (The value shown in About Land is based on data gathered from midnight to 11:59 PM, Pacific Time.) It is calculated by taking the total seconds spent on the parcel, dividing by 60, and rounding to the nearest whole minute. For example, if your parcel has a cumulative seconds total of 121s over the course of a day, the traffic score is 2."

 

So, it seems pretty cut and dry to me. Is this misinformation, or are we talking about two completely different concepts?

[Rolig Loon]

Nice find, Charolotte. Thank you. That's a clearer statement than I have ever seen posted by LL. Notice, of course, that it is followed immediately by the statement, "Traffic has a mild influence on the relevance of search results. It's one of many factors included in the search logic," which means essentially that you may see what the formula is, but they are not using it for much. Notice also that the other thread you discovered in the forum archives was dated March 2009.

[Charolotte Caxton]

Yep, I noticed.

[Charolotte Caxton]

It seems the traffic info is clear, and that the search algorithm/formula/mystical application is what you are referring to, right?

[Rolig Loon]

From the archive article? Yeah, but it's two and a half years old now. They have changed the search engine twice since then. But yes, the traffic information is cool to have. Nice work, Charolotte.

[Charolotte Caxton]

Thank you.

[Sticky Pootawn]

I noticed it messed up after the last update

 

My traffic is normally around 65k. now it is 38k lol

 

I noticed it declining after the last rolling restart. My UseR levels have not declined

 

 

[SorrowDragon]

Similar topic has been posted here:

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Land/Has-the-calculation-used-for-generating-the-daily-parcel-Tra...

 

Also a JIRA has been filed here:

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-27621

[Charolotte Caxton]

That similar topic link is this thread.