Inflating Traffic; Common Practice; Alternative Solutions
Ethereal Cloud
I'm asking to reconsider the black and white view of bots and traffic. Maybe a combo of premium accounts + bots used as part of the store, like siting around doing things as part of the theme could be considered an acceptable exception; like one variation is paid accounts that are scripted agents, could be made to still boost traffic.
As this is happening now everywhere; instead of punishing individual accounts for this, while most people still do it, LL could consider to carve out a compromise that generates money for LL ( paid accounts ) or offer a better alternative while doing the work to level the playing field and they stop all people doing traffic bots.
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Vicero Lambert
Maybe we should have more features in LSL to then not need bots to perform them. Many bots are not for traffic, they perform legitimate functions like performing tasks from a server that otherwise would be to taxing to do it over LSL. Kinda hard to do research with allot of data from a PRIM where I could use a powerful server off Azure and have a direct feed from a bot in world instead of the limited http requests you get from prims.
Alwin Alcott
even a premium plus plus account that acts like a bot is a bot for trafficking. It's a form of false advertising, the place is death but has a high ranking.
Ethereal Cloud
Alwin Alcott What do you think is happening now? Even the "popular" locations have traffic bots just waiting to be reported. Only difference is not everyone goes out of their way to report. In my case, Abuse Report was weaponized. So either you break the traffic bot policy or you don't, there is no in between, and this is what I am asking for. What do you suppose would be a better alternative?
Alwin Alcott
Ethereal Cloud there IS a solution ; do not use bots for traffic. It's fooling yourself and your customer/visitor
Ethereal Cloud
Alwin Alcott Right, so you have none. Good job.
Gabriele Graves
I think this a bad idea as well and don't think LL should entertain allowing any traffic gaming.
As an SL user, I want to see places that have real traffic, should I choose to search using that metric, not places whose traffic is inflated by bots.
Stores with bot inflated traffic have no value to me at all. Stores whose traffic values show that they are really popular because many real people are shopping there, have some value to me.
This proposal negates the whole point of the bot traffic ban rules.
Ethereal Cloud
Gabriele Graves What do you mean by not allowing traffic gaming? It already exists and has been, whether it's in a form of traffic-generating games or unregistered scripted agents standing around to inflate traffic. Because right now, the options are either paying traffic generating games or breaking TOS. I'm asking for other options, one of them being some sort of a paid traffic boost, which is basically what traffic-generating games are. Only difference is it's being paid to the game creators and not directly to LL.
Alwin Alcott
Ethereal Cloudso everybody who disagrees with you can wait on a comment? without any substantional answer but repeating the same over and over?
Ethereal Cloud
Alwin Alcott You come here to disagree only to have no solutions in it's place, so what's the point of even commenting?
Clem Marques
"Paid accounts that are scripted agents, could be made to still boost traffic."
This is a bad idea.
To quote my recent forum post regarding this topic:
"I don't see how being willing to pay for it makes it ok. Boosting traffic with unregistered bots is not allowed in the TOS, regardless of whether or not they are premium. Otherwise rich store owners who can afford several premium alts would be free to game the system, whereas smaller stores who cannot afford a bunch of premium alts would have no traffic whatsoever, and end up tossed to the bottom of the search results in FS. That would be way more unfair than the current system.
Boosting traffic with unregistered scripted agents is not allowed across the board for a reason. The rules to prevent it are already in place, and get enforced when a violation is correctly reported/deemed to be justified."
Ethereal Cloud
Clem Marques What would be a good idea in its place?
Mark Sparkle
Right now because so many regions have traffic bots - accounts not set to scripted agent, it puts everyone else at a disadvantage. Store owners who choose not to break TOS are put at a disadvantage. If LL allowed Premium accounts set to scripted agents to generate traffic, this would create a choice for a store owner that both benefits them and LL. This is better than what we have now, where the current situation benefits those who break the TOS, and those premium account bots could be used in the theme of the store - they could serve a purpose as they stand around the store, so customers also benefit.
Ethereal Cloud
Mark Sparkle There are currently no alternatives (that I am aware of) to traffic bots, other than spending hundreds of thousands of lindens collectively towards traffic generating games. I'm all for just paying LL directly.
Alwin Alcott
Mark Sparkle It's only a advantage for users that take ranking as guide for shopping, i think many don't, but go for their brands they seen on events.
nu11value Resident
Alwin Alcott The OP is a breedables seller, so brand shopping and events, advice that would be appropriate for clothing sellers, doesn't really apply here.
Alwin Alcott
nu11value Resident i can't care for the activities of a poster, that doesn't make the idea better, or worse. Its only in posters own profit they want that. It's not caring for others. .. for example customers/clients, but even fool them more.
Ethereal Cloud
Alwin Alcott You care enough to take some time out of your day to comment though, with no ideas what so ever. Why is that?