If you’re a regular reader of Moonletters you’ll know that an outfit I made is being worn by a model on the front page of the Marketplace. I waited before commenting on this, because I do not want to seem ungrateful. Actually, I feel quite honoured. (It’s the front page of the marketplace! Yay!) But my pleasure at seeing it, however, is a little bittersweet.
Why? Because of the terrible search results you get when you click the image showing my clothes. I’m not the only one to notice this. Iris Ophelia wrote a piece on it at New World Notes (thanks to Serendipidy Haven for bringing it to my attention).
Basically you see this sixties-looking couple in the picture, but if you click the image it does not take you to anything remotely resembling the sixties. One could blame the Lindens for not sorting the rubbish from the items that actually fit the description, but in my opinion the larger blame falls on the people who are abusing the keyword system. Merchants were told that if they had clothes which fit the style of the Mad Men tv show and the 1960s they should include the word “madstyle” in the keyword section of their listing. If people were honourable and not trying to take advantage of things, the Lindens’ Mad Men promo idea would have been a treat. Sure, Lindens should step in and control this chaos, but that doesn’t excuse the people deliberately abusing the system.
Here’s just one example of something you’ll find. Does this look sixties-style to you?
That’s a mild example!
Don’t get me wrong. I am grateful to fashion blogger Harper Beresford for choosing my clothes to feature in the picture she put together. She doesn’t control the search results, so this failure is down to the current abuse of the system, and the lack of control over it.
This is not the first time I’ve seen people scam keywords. This does no one any favours. If I’m looking for a flower pot and up comes a string bikini, I just feel annoyed. Sorry, not going to buy your thong if I’m looking for a flower pot.
The Lindens should do away with their “relevance” option in the drop down menu of Marketplace search too. It doesn’t work!
I was really happy to learn your clothes were going to get a great deal of promotion; even though I don’t wear many/any skirts or dresses, I think your range is excellent and it’s sufficiently different from many other ranges to stand out. (Plus almost everything is covered and I personally think that can be sexier than seeing people with outfits that have things on display – Ooer!). I digress.
I’d hoped to be able to find your clothing very easily, so I was disappointed that this was not the case. I would also liked to have seen something along the lines of ‘Outfit By Shauna Vella’, but this was not the case either.
I think it was lovely of Harper Beresford to put your outfit in such a prominent position on the marketplace – she obviously knows quality when she sees it, it’s just a shame the Linden’s don’t have a better system.
All in all, I hope the taste is more sweet than bitter and your sales have increased because quite simply you deserve recognition for the hard work and effort you put into your unique and classy outfits.
I am surprised you didn’t comment on (or notice) all of the non related items posted with the “mad style” keywords the first few days. I remember seeing loads of sex beds, AOs, skins, etc. I know it still pulls up 95% unrelated items but the first few days were bad!
This is why all the major search engines ditched the metatag for keywords. People were spamming it and making search results irrelevant. Linden should do the same, base search on the item title first and the description second. I find it very frustrating that when I search for Gretsch guitar I get 500 pages of thongs… I’m fine for bum floss thanks!!!
Jellie, Ample, and Graz. Thanks for your comments.