Search drives me crazy! Listings never show up (resolved)

[RyanEric]

I'd really like to know what's wrong with search. If it's just me, made I something wrong or is it the server side and how I can fix that. Today I was real upset when I was charged for the parcel listing fees.

I have two parcels set to "show in search" in "parcels". Both parcels are mature rated. The descriptions are: 

AVATARS photography
High quality profile pictures, family portraits, wedding pictures, landscapes, ads and arts at affordable prices. photographer, studio, graphic, photo shot, photo shoots, pictures, gallery, pixels, photograph, design.

and

.:: happend ::.

Fresh Streetwear for Men - Tank, Swetaer, Open/Full Shirt, Open Shirt and tank, Shirt, Casual Shirt, Modern Shirt, Striped Swetaer, Jeans, Rd Jeans, Leather Jacket, Jacket, Short, Polo, Sweater, T-Shirt - Affiliate Seller

The one "happyend" was already in search since today, the other never shows up. The only thing that works fine is that I'm charged each week for both listings! And what is real confusing, I still can find another listing that doesn't exisit in parcel description anymore.

I am sure my settings are all correct cause it worked a long time all fine for me. I'd like to know how I can fix this problem and if not any suggestions to alternatives for SL search would be great so people can find me.

Edit: When I use an older viewer with the old search everything works great! Can find both listings in a second. Why this is not the same with a V2 viewer?

 

[Tiffy Vella]

That reminds me to check mine, as I put it in place 3 years ago, and have never thought to check it. I just assumed search was a bit poo-ey, and so so invested countless hours into a Marketplace presence.

I so smart. S-M-R-T.

I mean S-M-A-R-T. E.

 

edited to ad the 'E', duh

[Dilbert Dilweg]

Well from looking at some of your descriptions. They seem a bit spammy?

Maybe not if the one with the word "shirt" in it works fine.

It does take a little over 24 hours to list sometimes. The search runs updates around midnight

 

Using the new search is a small link at the top that says give feed back. Click on it and it reads

 

Let us know what you think

If you are experiencing problems, please verify that you have Accept Cookies turned on in Preferences / Setup. Otherwise, provide as complete a description as you can, including:

• what you searched for
• what you expected to find
• why you thought it would be in the results

Thanks!

 

 

Let them know so they can help fix it

 

[wrable Amat]

It takes up to 24 hours to update,and last time I remember when I wanted to search for something IM looking for I never look in "everything" or in "parcels"  call me crazy  but I asked in my group "when you search for things like clothing or something to buy that is no land do you use everything , parcels , classifieds adds " and over 45 replies of classified .

The only people who do not refine their search are normally people with no money  and are just looking around. If you had hopes of generating any type of sales or traffic banking on parcel info is not going to do so well.

I say its important to make sure you check that box and have you land listed,but do not count it doing anything but being part of a larger marketing plan that incorporates adds,parcel,product and name branding . I bet I spend 100s Linden  a week parcels I have all around that I have access to and can check that box and never make 1 cent off of the investment of it,but as part of a system that will generate my sales goal it is a important part . Hard to explain but its a lost of  money you need to take if you plan to sales in SSL.

[Theresa Tennyson]

There's nothing in the name or description of your photography business that makes it uniquely identifiable - everything is a generic term that there are countless other businesses and locations using.It would be like calling a real-life grocery store "Food." I usually only use search to find a business I already know at least part of the name of but I couldn't find yours because there's no "hook" that search can caatch to make it unique.

[RyanEric]

---

Theresa Tennyson wrote:

There's nothing in the name or description of your photography business that makes it uniquely identifiable - everything is a generic term that there are countless other businesses and locations using.It would be like calling a real-life grocery store "Food." I usually only use search to find a business I already know at least part of the name of but I couldn't find yours because there's no "hook" that search can caatch to make it unique.

---

I'm sorry but "AVATARS photography" is a unique name. So there is another reason why you can't find it.

[Melita Magic]

The word avatar and the word photography will come up with a billion false listings. Those words will be in so many sims unrelated to your name. Search calls up descriptive term results as well as place titles. I think that's what they meant by the words are not unique.

Wasabi Pills is unique, Laqroki is unique...see what I mean?

I'm not sure what the problem is but if you mean search in V2 or higher - it's horrible. I mean literally NOTHING happens when I type in a search term there! NOTHING.

[Phil Deakins]

I'm using  the Phoenix viewer (a V1) and "AVATARS photography"

[Phil Deakins]

I'm using  the Phoenix viewer (a V1) and "AVATARS photography" doesn't show up in the All tab search when searching Everything. It is included in search though, because it shows up in the Places tab.

In the All>Everything search, 83 places are listed when not using quotes. When using quotes, only 3 places are listed but not 'AVATARS photography'. So, if sufficient time has elapsed since setting the place to show in search, then there is a fault.

 

It's now a few minutes after I did those searches and no results are returned with or without quotes. The system returns results for other searches but not for 'AVATARS photography'. That's a seperate fault though.

[RyanEric]

---

Melita Magic wrote:

The word avatar and the word photography will come up with a billion false listings. Those words will be in so many sims unrelated to your name. Search calls up descriptive term results as well as place titles. I think that's what they meant by the words are not unique.

Wasabi Pills is unique, Laqroki is unique...see what I mean?

I'm not sure what the problem is but if you mean search in V2 or higher - it's horrible. I mean literally NOTHING happens when I type in a search term there! NOTHING.

---

I understand that Melita. The idea was to create a unique name with the two words.

I've searched for Laqroki and Wasabi Pills. Here are my results:

Laqroki or LAQ: Whoops! Your Everything search for "LAQ" did not return any matches

Wasabi Pills: /Wasabi Pills/ MAIN STORE

So why I can't find the famous Laqroki but Wasabi?

What you can find of my listings is "[RE] Photography". This is an old lisiting I've already deleted but it's still in search! And why the heck is the other "happyend" gone? This worked fine until this tuesday. So that all looks more like search is messed up and half broken, doesn't it?

 

 

 

[Dilbert Dilweg]

I notice search has been stuck and not updating for a few days.

My traffic count on the web has been the same for several days

More than likely broke at the moment (again)

[SeaBea]

I sold my previous store parcel location on March 30th and it is still appearing in search with the same traffic count when I left it.  I filled out a support ticket to ask why it is still listed and the new parcel not and was told that new listings take up to two days to appear, given a reference to the wiki and case closed!

 

I can understand a listing taking a day or two to show up but an old location lingering in search for five days - not.

[Melita Magic]

Okay I may have misunderstood in that I thought it was pulling up tons of unrelated results, and not the correct one. Or - wait I'm still confused on this. Lol

Phil: were you saying that you tried it in v1 in order to let the OP know it wasn't showing up there either? If the reply was to me I am not sure what it was saying.

At any rate, whether Avatar Photography or Avatars Photography, it's still a generic term. If it were me I'd change it to something like a made up word and put photography in the search description, but it isn't me.

Laqroki might've been a bad example since I've had strange results using that, myself. Even though it's usually got huge traffic numbers. But if you got better results with [RE] Photography, then I just figured out why so many shops have those annoying non alphabetical characters in their shop names.

I knew I'd have to ETA as I'd see something else that needed a response:

" I understand that Melita. The idea was to create a unique name with the two words. "

Yes, I understood that. But I was trying to tell you that 'avatars' or 'avatar' 'photography' is still a generic term. Also that the search pulls up a collection of words from search descriptions, as well as titles. Not sure what was unclear.

I could call a shop Meeroo Nest but it would pull up about 1000 results in search, and mine might be near the bottom. That is because other random parcels will include that phrase in the title line or the description. Or I could call it some made up name, and possibly get better results. If that doesn't help though, that fails my intention; so ignore the suggestion.  

[Phil Deakins]

I replied to you, Melita, because you'd said that search is fine in the V1 viewer (I'm using my memory, which isn't brilliant, so you may not have said that at all )

The idea that "Avatars photography" is a generic term is wrong in two ways, imo:-

1. Each of the words is generic but the two together aren't common, and generic really means common in this sense. In fact, using common words to name a place is normally an excellent tactic for search rankings. In the major engines, the page Title is the single most powerful on-page element there is and, while LL was using the GSA engine, it was the most powerful on-page element, because the html page Title was the parcel name. So important words in the parcel name mattered a lot  I haven't looked at the html pages since LL started using the open source engine, but they may do it the same way. After all, using the parcel name for the page Title was LL's doing and not the GSA's.

2. Some people may search for place names, but the vast majority of searches are for things, and having the words of things in the place name is excellent. If people want to search for the actual place, they can use quotations which will bring the place up to the top, or very near the top. In this particular case it doesn't happen because either insufficient time has elapsed for it to be in the index (the database for the Places tab may be a different index), or the engine is faulty.

[Ann Otoole]

I'm wondering if some keyword prims set to search on the parcel might kick it into visibility.

[Phil Deakins]

I wouldn't have thought so, Ann. I used quotes to search for the parcel name and it didn't show at all, even though only 3 results were returned (which in itself is confirmation that "Avatars photography" isn't a generic term. That's for those who said it is a generic term). On the other hand, it's an open source engine, and there's no telling what the people at LL are doing with it, so it's worth a try.

I recently had a new kitchen installed by a friend, who I describe as a joiner rather than a carpenter. I.e. he is good at doing the main stuff but is poor at doing the finer finish. I knew that before I employed him, so I got what I expected. I think of LL's programmers as joiners rather than carpenters. They are able to produce the main stuff but they are no good at doing the finer parts right, as the marketplace clearly shows. The major search engines have highly skilled carpenter-type programmers, but LL has only joiner-types, so SL won't get a particularly good engine, even though they didn't write it and they only tailor it for SL.

[Melita Magic]

"Avatars Photography" shows up in viewer 1 with a traffic of 229. There is only one other listing with that name, with zero traffic. Both are for his studio. No other results.

I don't know what the heck is happening with search. I can't even update my Flash Player correctly.

[RyanEric]

Thanks to Phil, that's excatly my idea. This works in every other search engine, so why not in one of Linden Labs?

 

 

Good News! Search is back again!

Can find now my parcel listings, the term laqroki which gave me zero results before and everything else. It looks like search was out of order since the last maintenace and needed a week to get back again.

[RyanEric]

I'd like to add an advise for anyone is having problems to find their listings in search, but all settings are correct. This works everytime for me:

When you open SL search, click "Give us your Feedback on Search!" on top, name your listing and that's it is coming from your parcel. Wait 24 hours and you will find your listing.

Edit: Ok, forget that, it don't work always. Search is simply broken and never get fixed!