In World Search and the new Viewers

[Chelsea Malibu]

I've been pretty happy with how in world has been working in my case, though I have seen many complaints from you all that have more competition in your product categories.  With Phoenix and V2, I have been able to keep at the top for my main keywords which to me made sense in that I have the the largest selection of my key word products, the largest store and have been on the grid longer than anyone else in this specialty area.

I logged in with the new viewers last night and looked at search again where I was surprised to see that someone had moved up ahead of me in two areas so, I went to their store.  What I saw shocked me.

The inventory was about 10% of mine, land space a fraction of mine and moreover, they did no classified advertising.  In one item classification, they have about 6 items to my nearly 40 of the same product type.  My traffic was nearly double and this looks to be a new store.

I can see no reason for this to happen unless they are adding higher weights to new stores now. Classified has changed as well but that worked to my benefit.  I had a higher paying vendor ahead of me though she only has a few competing products but since she is a very good friend in both RL and SL, I've always encouraged her success.

So the questions I really have are if anyone has noticed weighting going higher for new stores and has LL removed the filters to prevent gaming the search system with keyword spamming with the new search for V3 ?

[Mylar]

I would be interested to know what key words you used, and I could check myself...btw, I have a relatively new shop (three months) with competing products to yours but with fewer items (hey, I've only been at it three months ). I would be curious to know myself, since my shop is the sort you're talking about. Although I haven't noticed any difference in the way I show up in search.

And, yes, when I read your post I had to run and check my visitor counter to make sure you weren't talking about me

[Chelsea Malibu]

LOL, no not talking about you but if it was, I commend you.

Home Lighting still shows me on top as it has for many years (except for a couple of times when search broke)

 

• Chandeliers
• Ceiling Fans

Are the two that have changed with the new search.

 

 

[Mylar]

ah, nope that wouldn't be me. I actually steered away from lighting after looking at your shop. Figured you've got that market covered, so I could focus on other things and simply refer people to you until I had more time to tackle that market

As for weighting new shops, I actually hope not. I would be worried if I suddenly shot up in the search results. Sure it would mean more traffic for a while, but it would also mean that stable businesses would be overshadowed by 'fly-by-night' shops. That wouldn't help serious merchants, and certainly wouldn't help shoppers.

[Medhue Simoni]

It is all about the density of the words. So, for instance, a tiny little store could have 3 products, but because the density of the words compared to the total volume of words is so high, it can rank ahead of you. I see little to no weight given for the size of parcels nor how many classifieds. Some people know how to play the game better than others.

[Nalates Urriah]

Search is a mess. The Lindens working on search seem to have an idea it is supposed to be fair... Being fair is all about drama and what people imagine is fair.

There are a number of articles about search and the series of recent changes on DGP4SL Blog