Sharp-eyed Wildefire Walcott has spotted (and we've spent the last few hours checking and verifying it across a number of accounts) that the profiles of Second Life accounts that have no payment information on file are excluded from the new Linden Lab search system.
More specifically, if they have publish-on-web checked, their profile is available through the web-service, but it certainly appears as if the search system does not index the contents of their profile (for results, search-weighting purposes, relevance or anything else).
If you've been slamming out bots with your store in their picks, or paying people for adding you to their profile picks, or spending money on similar forms of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) it appears you've been wasting your cash unless the target account has payment information on file with Linden Lab.
At the top of the results (if you match the name exactly) there's a Resident Profile Link but that's not actually the same as being indexed in the search system itself, and having your keywords and picks weighted into the final results.
While this neatly steps on all sorts of ways of using free accounts to subvert the new search system, we have to wonder about the impact on those Second Life business owners who are operating on unverified accounts. It could certainly hamper the ability of people who are just getting started to get the word out about their products and stores.
[via SL Universe]
