Should DEMO items be excluded from regular search results?

[Gavin Hird]

I see that more and more often as you search for items in the marketplace, there are pagefulls of demo items being returned and "real products" only show late in the listing.

We have this debate on free items, but perhaps also all these demo items clutters the message and contribute to driving prices down.  

Would it be better if regular search did not return any product that had "DEMO" in the product title or as keywords, but these were only accessible when looking at the real item, and a potential customer clicked the "get the demo version"?

Even if you searched for demo, only real products should be returned, but you knew that the result actually had a demo item linked to it. 

So in reality, you could not list a demo item without it being linked to a real product. 

Thoughts?

[Alicia Sautereau]

Would rather opt for a "Demo" section with normal filters for different items

[Tiffy Vella]

Yes!

It's a major pain, especially when you are in cheapskate mode and surfing through "price, low to high" to have to wade through piles of this stuff...and since some people include as many words into the title as possible, "demo" is often last and gets cut off. So you click, wait for a new page, then discover it's only a demo. (And then shamefully fume that that wonderful hair isn't really a linden.)

Also, mass recolourings in demo versions seem to often flood the "newest" search. It's like some merchants use demos as a doubling up of their display space.

What's odd is that when making a product listing, we have the option of attaching a demo version to the full versions listing. I'd like demos to only appear as a subsection of the full products listing.

 

[Ariel Vuissent]

Agreed. It's very irritating to be hunting for freebies or inexpensive items and get pages upon pages of results labelled "DEMO." I didn't ask to see the demo. I asked to see free/inexpensive items, meaning full, usable items as opposed to things with a giant demo label on or floating above or near them.

I think, though, that it might be nice for "demos" to be an option, maybe under price, in case you were looking specifically for demos. I've done that from time to time as well - hunting for a demo to give in a link to a friend, etc., when lag at the inworld store of the item I'm/we're looking for is bad. Or at least, maybe have the ability to sort by "demo available" and exclude all items that don't have a demo version. The link to the demo could be on the page for the actual item, just one simple click away.

Listing 100 products, then 100 demos, seems an unfair way to skew searches towards one creators items.

[Claireschen Hesten]

i was under the impression that when the option to add a demo to a listing came along that separate demo listings would be eliminated and the demo link on a full product wouldn't just be a link to a listing for a demo. even in the days of xstreet demos were a problem when they were lumped together in the freebie section. with the demo option on the marketplace there shouldn't be need to show listings for a demo in search exclude all demo listings and when someone searches for a demo bring up all full products with a demo linked to it

[Gavin Hird]

It should not be possible to create a listing with the word demo in without linking it to an existing full product. 

They already have the mechanism for this programmed when listing products containing certain adult filtered words, and the word demo anywere in the portions of the text being indexed should force a linking to a product.

When it comes to freebees I feel these should be in a separate section and not be returned for normal searches. Certain types of free items should be handled differently like open source scripts which by nature is free, but for the majority of free items, when searched, the listing could return the result in a randomized order that changed for every search. This would eliminate the advantage people of high volume free items have for profiling when their items always returns first in search with the current setup. 

[hermione Langsdorff]

Yes!

I hate it when your searching for hair or something else.
I have more demo's then real packages!

Greetz,
Hermione Langsdorff 

[Qie Niangao]

If the demo items could be an adjunct to the real items they demo, that would help some, but such an ability would have a much more profound effect if it collapsed all styles and colors of a single item into one listing.  

And each listing should cost L$1000 or something.  They could reduce commissions if anybody thinks such a per-listing fee is onerous.

[Darrius Gothly]

There is a very simple solution to eliminate Freebies from your Search. After you enter your initial terms and get the first results, along the left-hand side is a section called "Search Filters". Simply put "11" into the first Price blank and click "Refine Search"; instantly all L$10 and lower priced items vanish from the results.

[McDaydreamy]

Well, with all the people complaining about the stupid demos (now even for CLOTHING) cluttering up searches and still nothing is being done about it---it's safe to say that this is done on purpose to prevent freebie buying and encourage spending Lindens. It looks like they have even prevented the "-demo" search option. If marketplace truly cared about the consumer experience, demos would be a separate category and not listed with actual merchandise that can be worn. It's caused me to use Marketplace far less and instead join store groups and shopping groups for my bargain shopping.  Maybe we should call it DemoPlace instead....