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Marketplace Disastrous Consequences


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We have seen the complaints. We have experienced the burden. The negative impact that this new Marketplace searcb engine has bestowed upon our earnings has been confirmed and it has moved beyond the point of debate. It's an irrefuable fact that it has done more harm than good. The old search engine was by no means perfect, but at least it was far from being this broken. Some people have experienced a fifty percent decline in their sales while others are experiencing even worse. 

I truly believe that this new search engine was released prior to its completion. Perhaps this was done because of a critical dead-line. Whatever the reason may be, it doesn't justify the harm that its implementation has caused thus far, to us suffering merchants. Some of us opted to sit back and observe its progress without voicing an opinion, hoping that it would somehow fix it self. Well, weeks have now passed and we are still in ruins, as far as our sales are conserned. 

Some people may not care much about this because they gain most of their income in-world, but I will kindly ask these fortunate individuals to refrain from diluting the severity of this burdensome issue because we don't all share the same luck. Some merchants rely exclusively on Marketplace sales, thus this issue aught be given the attention it rightfully deserves.

In essence, I believe it would be best for us to go back to the old Marketplace search engine until this one has been fixed. It's a broken product and this fact is quite evident. How much longer must we suffer before something gets done?

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I agree wholeheartedly. Since the introduction of the new MP search engine, I have seen noticeable drop in my daily sales. I don't understand why LL doesn't do more to quickly address the issues. They profit from MP transactions. If MP commerce is getting affected negatively, they earn less too. Maybe slower summer season contributes to the drop in some degree, but there is no question that the new MP search needs some work done quick.

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Have only tiny shop inworld and on MP. Have had bad sales all summer, and a little worse since "new" MP...

I think other products have taken the place of those that used to be good sellers, so it's probable that some merchants are seeing increased sales while others are losing out.

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I am not sure if I understand. What's your definition of "old" and "new" items? Why does the new search favors new over old items instead of going by relevance / best selling? If you have any suggestion on how merchants can keep up and make their MP stores work better with the new search, I am all ears. Thanks.

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InfernosChill wrote:

I am not sure if I understand. What's your definition of "old" and "new" items? Why does the new search favors new over old items instead of going by relevance / best selling? If you have any suggestion on how merchants can keep up and make their MP stores work better with the new search, I am all ears. Thanks.

I've experimented with search for a bit.  This is what I've found:

If people use key words to search, it shows those results most relevant to the keywords they entered.  If the key words you entered for your product don't match the words used, then your product will be lower on the list.  The more words your key words match, the more relevant it is and it's likely to show higher.

Best Selling has nothing to do with it and neither does age.  Best selling, ratings, age etc. only come into play if the person searching CHOOSES to sort by one of those things.

Best Selling changes daily.  It isn't historic, it's what is currently selling the best.  So if you sold a lot of an item, but haven't sold any or much lately, it will not be towards the top of the list.  You may find your item lower than an item that sold only 1 currently.

Check the keywords you are using.  Maybe people are using other keywords than you have listed.

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I'm not finding it as disastrous as all that...while my freebies and loss-leaders are very noticeably down in sales numbers, I'm finding I'm selling as many normal priced items as I'd expect for this time of year, and some unexpected ones that hadn't sold much in the past.

 

Generally, when I perform searches on my key search terms, I'm finding my products are higher than I expected (being a smaller shop I've never been that high in the rankings). I am however sorry to say that in a search for "black dress" some of my non-black dresses are appearing before the black ones - obviously the shop title is influencing the search (apologies for anyone doing that search!)

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InfernosChill wrote:

I am not sure if I understand. What's your definition of "old" and "new" items? Why does the new search favors new over old items instead of going by relevance / best selling?

because buyers have the filters to sort items on age, relevance.. and a few more...

What use does it have for me, with a signature body, to see thousends of old layered jeans when i want one?...totally none, becaus only the newest ones will be made also for signature...

Same for relevance..the product i search for will be most likely closer to the top of the page. I don't look for the thousends of other jeans/houses/ or whatever... all those items are totally irrelevant for me, and i wouldn't come to MP if sellers start to decide what i get to see and in what order.

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InfernosChill wrote:

Why does the new search favors new over old items instead of going by relevance / best selling?

It's the other way round actually. The old search strongly favored old items and there's no wonder many old established merchants who depended on their old established search ranking are seeing significant sales reductions.

That's only one side of it though because the new search certainly doesn't rank by relevance or best selling either. You don't have to do many searches on MP before you realize just how far off it can be.

This is something that hurts everybody because it means it's harder for buyers to find what they're looking for and that again may mean they won't buy anything at all.


InfernosChill wrote:

If you have any suggestion on how merchants can keep up and make their MP stores work better with the new search, I am all ears. Thanks.

One problem there is that you can make a listing that the search engine loves or you can make a listing that is informative and easy for a human to read. But you can't really do both. This is the old dilemma pre-Google webmasters faced: do we want our site to rank well in search or do we want it to be informative and user friendly?

But if you want to optimize for best possible ranking, here is one fairly easy way:

  • Use the keyword you want to optimize for as the title - only that keyword, no other text whatsoever
  • Fill in the absolute minimum of content in the other fields, above all: leave the keyword and product features fields blank!
  • Once the listing shows up in your store, click on it - and get all your friends to click on it. Then keep clicking on ti to icnrease the click-through ratio (you probably want to use a bot for this) - not too often though, there is a routine there that rejects too frequent click-throughs fromt he same ip address.
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Alwin Alcott wrote:

if the buyers use better search terms, or filters,...

That's a big if.

It's how you did web search back in the 1990s. There were even companies offering to do your web search for you for just a small fee. ;)

The web has changed a lot since then though and today people expect a simple single keyword search to work.

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ChinRey wrote:

But if you want to optimize for best possible ranking, here is one fairly easy way:

  • Use the keyword you want to optimize for as the title -
    only
    that keyword, no other text whatsoever
  • Fill in the absolute minimum of content in the other fields, above all: leave the keyword and product features fields blank!
  • Once the listing shows up in your store, click on it - and get all your friends to click on it. Then keep clicking on ti to icnrease the click-through ratio (you probably want to use a bot for this) - not too often though, there is a routine there that rejects too frequent click-throughs fromt he same ip address.

Thank you ChinRey for your clarification and suggestions. I renamed most of my products to include some search keywords in their titles. The days of short / catchy names are over sighs.

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ChinRey wrote:


InfernosChill wrote:

Why does the new search favors new over old items instead of going by relevance / best selling?

It's the other way round actually. The old search strongly favored old items and there's no wonder many old established merchants who depended on their old established search ranking are seeing significant sales reductions.

That's only one side of it though because the new search certainly doesn't rank by relevance or best selling either. You don't have to do many searches on MP before you realize just how far off it can be.

This is something that hurts everybody because it means it's harder for buyers to find what they're looking for and that again may mean they won't buy anything at all.

InfernosChill wrote:

If you have any suggestion on how merchants can keep up and make their MP stores work better with the new search, I am all ears. Thanks.

One problem there is that you can make a listing that the search engine loves or you can make a listing that is informative and easy for a human to read. But you can't really do both. This is the old dilemma pre-Google webmasters faced: do we want our site to rank well in search or do we want it to be informative and user friendly?

But if you want to optimize for best possible ranking, here is one fairly easy way:
  • Use the keyword you want to optimize for as the title -
    only
    that keyword, no other text whatsoever
  • Fill in the absolute minimum of content in the other fields, above all: leave the keyword and product features fields blank!
  • Once the listing shows up in your store, click on it - and get all your friends to click on it. Then keep clicking on ti to icnrease the click-through ratio (you probably want to use a bot for this) - not too often though, there is a routine there that rejects too frequent click-throughs fromt he same ip address.

Thanks, tho not going to do any of that, for the reason you say: I want my listings to be informative and user friendly. I want buyers to know exactly what they are getting. Also I cannot imagine how to even use a bot to click. And I would not rename my 70 plus houses " house 1" etc. 

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Hey there. First and foremost, I appreciate your imput. With that said, I took a look at your store and I realized that the items that pop up on your "most relevant" list are not even remotely the same as those that show up on your "best selling list," not to mention the huge different in the order in which they are sorted. In light of this, I find it difficult to believe that the search engine is not broken, irrespective of the good advice which you have given. Are we to believe that your sales have not taken a dive since the implementation of this new search engine? Quite frankly, I hightly doubt that's the case. The fact remains that the marketplace itself is broken. I am certain that there are merchants out there who have followed your guideline, yet still find themselves experiencing a decline in their sales. 

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entity0x wrote:

Do not use your title to advertise how many prims or the copy/mod permissions.

This is a very good example of what I meant with user friendly vs search engine friendly.

Generally people do not do methodic step-by-step searches. They type in a keyword or two and then they browse through the list that turn up. They may go down a level or two in the category system and they may go three or four pages out in the search results lists but do not expect customers to ever use the price, prim count and permissions filters! Because most of them won't.

The title is the only part of the description the vast majority of buyers will ever notice so it's essential to include the most relevant selling points and information there.

But yes, if you want high search ranking now, you definitely want to strip down the title to the barest minimum.

 

Or to put it another way: why do you think the main internet search engine today is named Google, and not AltaVista? (Subtle hint: one of them based their product on how they thought people should search, the other on how they actually did)

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Sally Audebarn wrote:

Hey there. First and foremost, I appreciate your imput. With that said, I took a look at your store and I realized that the items that pop up on your "most relevant" list are not even remotely the same as those that show up on your "best selling list," not to mention the huge different in the order in which they are sorted. In light of this, I find it difficult to believe that the search engine is not broken, irrespective of the good advice which you have given. Are we to believe that your sales have not taken a dive since the implementation of this new search engine? Quite frankly, I hightly doubt that's the case. The fact remains that the marketplace itself is broken. I am certain that there are merchants out there who have followed your guideline, yet still find themselves experiencing a decline in their sales. 

Well every merchant that posts here with some listing problem or search problem, I have found to have shortcomings in how they list, categorize and keyword their store items. Though I am no expert on the subject, and have no idea how LL has implemented their search engine, I prefer to eliminate other causes, and educate myself and others on proper listings before making judgements on MP searches.

When I conduct the usual and anecdotal search for items, I find many unrelated items popping up. This is annoying to me, and unlike many other people, I will take extra steps to investigate before pointing fingers. What I have found in my experience, with further investigation, that the majority of unrelated listings coming up are due to exploiting of item listing titles, or the use of keyword list spam.

The first 2 respondents to your OP both have listing guideline issues on their stores as well, as I had pointed out in my response. They were supporting you but have issues themselves that need to be addressed before considering MP search issues.

Look, I can't change your 'beliefs' and your liberal use of the word 'fact' is not substantiated, and your appreciation of my input and advice is moot if you don't make the changes suggested.

When there are so many merchants not listing things correctly, and abusing keywords - seriously, how can they say anything about bad MP searches when they knowingly contribute to it?

This is like hearing someone online complain that the flouride in the water is killing them, or droplets from chemtrails in the air - then you find out they have 1) a bad diet 2) don't sleep much 3) smoke a pack of cigarettes a day 4) are sedentary. When I suggest that they should consider these 4 impacts on their health and to correct that first - they have the same response "Oh its not my bad diet, 4 hour sleeps, sedentary lifestyle and constant cigarette smoking.. the fact is that it is the flouride in the water and the barium from the chemtrails!'

Then what can you say? Can't change what they want to believe...

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Again as the builder of the best selling wedding rings of all time in Second Life. JCNY rings are not showing up as relevant today either.  The Athena ring was the all time top seller on the MP for years. 

 

Today in Relevance I no longer see JCNY rings. --- BUT ... if you TAB over to Best Selling JCNY rings show up all over.

Same for Highest Ranked. I find it very odd that the rings are not relevant but Best Sellers. 

 

Something in the system is flawed. 

 

IN SL over 10 years and counting and I have never seen anything like this. I called LL with no help regarding MP issues.

****** I also filed a ticket which was tossed to the side and I was told to make sure I used correct keywords. lol.

I know how to list.

 

Damn shame what is happening to me and the rest of you. :catsad:

 

JD Hansen.

JCNY Collection 

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JD Hansen wrote:

Again as the builder of the best selling wedding rings of all time in Second Life. JCNY rings are not showing up as relevant today either.  The Athena ring was the all time top seller on the MP for years. 

 

Today in Relevance I no longer see JCNY rings. --- BUT ... if you TAB over to Best Selling JCNY rings show up all over.

Same for Highest Ranked. I find it very odd that the rings are not relevant but Best Sellers. 

 

Something in the system is flawed. 

 

IN SL over 10 years and counting and I have never seen anything like this. I called LL with no help regarding MP issues.

****** I also filed a ticket which was tossed to the side and I was told to make sure I used correct keywords. lol.

I know how to list.

 

Damn shame what is happening to me and the rest of you. :catsad:

 

JD Hansen.

JCNY Collection 

I just searched by doing nothing other than typing in "wedding ring" in the keyword box and your Athena set turned up at the top of the second page, with another of your sets right behind it.

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Thank you for taking the time to look at my listings :). I appreciate your advice very much.

The reason I put information into the listing name is that I realise that buyers don't always wish to read the detailed description. So I was trying to give important information (especially land impact for which there isn't a field) in a quick to read form.

I can see how this could be regarded at keyword spam and will clean up.

Emma :)

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I search "Athena Ring" specifically in the MP and get you as #1 and first choice.

Seems pretty 'Relevant' to the search I made.

Would I be looking for an Athena Ring specifically? Probably not.

My search might be more like "platinum wedding rings" maybe, in which case, your product is not coming up in 'relevant' searches, even if you have similar characteristics or options.

Your keywords are;

diamond, wedding rings, wedding ring, engagement ring, bridal, groom, marriage, proposal gem, platinum, gold, silver, ruby, celtic, bling, engaged, JCNY, hyper-gems, free wedding ceremony

Red = not related to advertised product (wedding or engagement ring? ceremony?proposal?)

Orange = questionable, but may be acceptable. If it's a wedding ring set, why use engagement, proposal. Sounds like you're trying to snatch search traffic you dont deserve. Also, by my example search "Platinum Wedding Rings", you shouldn't be relevant, because your advertised product and image says "Diamond Wedding Ring" (though I see the options)

Green = accurate, describes the actual product and images being advertised.

Your strategy has been about branding and initials and collections, so you will not be found in a simple search Like I would have made. You may have more luck being more specific in your title to be found.

Diamond Wedding Ring Set  - ATHENA ICONOCLAST

diamond, wedding, ring, set, celtic, athena, iconoclast, JCNY

 

 

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Thanks for testing with me.

I undertsand those searches you did. I've done them myself. - Thanks! I will also try editing my keywords as you suggested.

This is what I am referring to : 

Load main page: Click on Avatar Accessories then click Jewelry & Watches and then click Rings.

For 10 years we were listed in the first ten pages of Relevancy. Now I don't see JCNY on the first or second pages

of Relevant in association with Rings Catagory.

 

Kindly,

JD Hansen. 

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JD Hansen wrote:

 

This is what I am referring to : 

Load main page: Click on
Avatar Accessories
then click
Jewelry & Watches
and then click
Rings
.

For 10 years we were listed in the first ten pages of Relevancy. Now I don't see JCNY on the first or second pages

of
Relevant
in association with
Rings
Catagory.

Ok, personally I don't search that way.

Let's entertain this process though.. technically by selecting Category->Jewelry->Rings, you haven't entered any keywords or searches this way... your search would default to [empty string], or at the possible default "Rings" which it does.

The marketplace listings search should then find all listings closest to match "Rings". Now you have to compete with every product with 'ring' or 'rings' in the title/keywords.

If the search is in fact defaulting to "Rings", then it should a random assortment of items it thinks is relevant to "Rings". The key word here being "Relevant". As in relevant to your search terms, not your popularity or amount of sales. This makes sense to me. If LL has improved the search engine, this is how I would expect it to operate.

If there was a subcategory of Rings->Wedding Rings, you would be more relevant, and even more so if subcategory Rings->Wedding Rings -> Diamond was available.

By that logic, I could assume that your rings  will show up under "Best Selling" option though, which you do, with multiple listings showing up on the first page of results (my filter is always 96 items).

Best Selling has nothing to do with Relevance, in a search, it is a filter applied to the final result of the search

 


JD Hansen wrote:

Also the MP spam is not totally fixed. When I search "Wedding Rings" I still get a bunch of Earthstones

necklaces
in the first five pages. Many of which have no association with wedding rings. 

MP search still needs tuning it seems. 

JD

Thats because the merchants are spamming their item listings and keywords with irrelevant words to capture traffic they don't deserve, and don't accurately describe their product.

I see it with every search I make. If it's a single seller ruining a search about owl products... I look at their keyword list and there is 'owl', right next to  "traffic, stop, light, owl, road, 2048, chocolate, cheese" or whatever theyr'e trying to capture that has nothing to do with what they have listed..

PS. You are correct though, The search seems to read the store name as well, and include it in relevant searches. The listings showing up have "Wedding Rings" in their store names, whether they are selling wedding rings or not.

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Emma Krokus wrote:

The reason I put information into the listing name is that I realise that buyers don't always wish to read the detailed description. So I was trying to give important information (especially land impact for which there isn't a field) in a quick to read form.

I can see how this could be regarded at keyword spam and will clean up.

Except that you were right and entity0x (and LL) is completely wrong there.

"Important information in a quick to read form" is the best explanation I've ever seen of what the title field should and needs to be. If the title and a small thumbnail picture can't give people a good idea what you are selling and make them interested in it, they're not going to click on that link and then it doesn't matter how high or low your search ranking is.

This is one of the classic mistakes in search engine design and LL is by no means the first to make it:

  • Problem: People are abusing the keyword field
  • Solution: Tone down the keyword field's significance and use the title field as the main source of keywords instead
  • Result: People are abusing the title field exactly the same way as they used to abuse the keyword field and there is no longer any room for a short, precise presentation to the readers

Of course as MP merchants we also have the "Related Products" listing to add to the fun. (For those who don't have an MP store: when we set up the lsit of related tiems for each lsiting, all we have to work with is a small popup window with only the title and SKU of each item - imagine doing that with "search optimized" titles!)

 


 

Edit: We can argue this forever but let's look at the facts instead.

Here are the current top three listings for the keyword house (merchant and store names removed):



 

If you click on no. 1, you get this:



If you pay the 10 Lindens, you get a set of 10+ year old freebies from Yadni's Junkyard.

 

If you want top search ranking on MP, study this example and do it that way. Simple as that. No half measures though because somebody else is bound to take it all the way and outrank you. (A listing like the one in my example is probably going to outrank you no matter what you do, btw. Ten years age and almost 70 outdated five star ratings from the old XStreetSL days - not much we can do today to compete against that. Fortunately there aren't that many of them)

 

I'm signing off from this discussion now. There isn't really anything left to say until LL changes the search ranking algorithm and I can only take that much déjà vu before it gets too tedious.

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