MicrostockGroup

ann,

I meant brackets and quotation marks in keywords are ignored.  RP showed examples in which it does make a difference when the buyer uses "" for searches. 

Having "South American" with quotation marks in my image's keywords doesn't impede the image of being found in a search for American Airlines without quotation marks (which is actually treated by the search engine as American OR Airlines, but they would not appear if the search is for "American Airlines", because the search engine understands the buyer wants this expression.

I'm not sure - RP can possibly enlighten us about this - if the quotation marks in search equal American AND Airlines (with the proximity bringing relevance) or only the perfect match (therefore if I have in my keywords American plane airlines, this image will not return because there is a word in the middle)

I believe you are right, ann. As I said, I'm not sure exactly how Alamy uses a search with quotation marks, but without them they do an OR search, so images with either one of the keywords are returned, which is obviously not what the buyer wanted.

But again, it is not just Alamy's fault.  I only think they should take advantage of their more advanced keywording system.

RP,

It's not that we don't understand you, your examples were very clear. It's about Alamy's search tool assumption that one will use quotation marks in a search.

if someone types Mario Andretti, he is not looking for images of Michael Andretti. Unless Mario is in them too, nor for Mario Bros. Now, if no results using the AND operator are found, then the search engine could offer partial matches.

And today's unfortunate search:
I had a search on 'office party', because I have a photo of the 'head office' of Sinn Fein (caption and the essential keywords) and 'political party' in the main keywords.
On the blog, we had recent remonstration about making sure our keywords don't lead to unwanted searches for the buyer or our AR would suffer. But they're not helping us.
 I agree that we're all suffering in the same way, so it's not as though some ARs will suffer in relation to others.
But the main thing is that it's all about helping, and not p*ssing off the buyer!
And well, clearly two word searches give poor results, but an 'office party' is an 'office party'. It's a 'well-known phrase or saying'.

And today's worst (not as funny as office party, but it still illustrates the point)
cattle Botswana. My photo was of a "Cattle Egret" in Botswana, both words in the caption and essential keywords, no way out of it. But it certainly wasn't what the buyer wanted.
Hmmmm. I did ethics at Uni (back in the day. I've forgotten it all now!) Interesting question: whether to claw back some money from the excellent charities to invest in marketing and getting a really good search architecture, for possible long-term gain (in a time when returns per image are dwindling). Answer in 5000 words.

Ah. The 'myth of the stupid user'.

Originally coined by Jakob Nielsen:
"Wsability is important to me. If the purpose of technology is to make our lives better, then that purpose is subverted when designers fail to pay due regard to the user and the context of use. The software industry has been particularly negligent in this regard, to the extent that a large number of people feel that they are 'too stupid' to handle computers. In effect, these people have been disenfranchised - one of the greatest boons of our times has been denied them because software designers have failed to meet their needs.
For me, usability is about the move to counter this trend. I believe that usability activities can have a direct and beneficial impact on the quality of people's lives. I get enormous satisfaction from doing work that results in products that are easier to use.
I believe that we are far too willing to accept what I call 'the myth of the stupid user'. It's time that we started to reject products that confuse use, are rude to us or in any way belittle us."

"By 'the myth of the stupid user' I mean the belief that users are stupid, and the concomitant inference that inability to use a particular product can be blamed on the user, thus exonerating the product itself and the development team.

Anyone who hangs around with IT professionals knows that many of them consider users to be stupid. Do an internet search for 'stupid users' and you will find thousands of stories about the stupid things people do with their computers. For example, you can read dozens of variations of the story on the person who rang up their ISP and asked 'Is this the Internet?'

This attitude permeates the whole of the IT and web development industry. Many people will be familiar with this attitude from dealing with technical support staff whose technical skills far outweigh their ability to communicate with other humans.

My take on this is that it's a cop-out. Retailers don't treat their customers as if they are stupid. If a shop had a sign that no-one could read, the owners would change the sign, rather than throwing their hands in the air and lamenting the stupidity of shoppers."

See also: http://www.goodexperience.com

Nowadays, if Google does something one way (phrases in "..."), it behooves everyone else to do it the same way. (at the moment. Two, five, ten years hence, who knows).
The visitor should NOT have to learn how to navigate or search in a site. That's the designers' job.

Usability studies with a group of people not connected with the site (possible new buyers would be ideal!) and see how they do searches without instruction other than "think of something you might buy an image of and try to find it", don't help them, don't make suggestions, get them to articulate aloud what they're doing and why (without interrupting), and what they think about the search process and results. Interview them afterwards.
Make changes.

On Alamy, as everywhere else, there are bad keyworders. In fact in the first 72, I only found one which didn't appear to have a 'red car', (the one which shows the red rear lights of a car driving away. I couldn't see the car, but I'm not sure how youd best keyword that image. red trailing light? What would someone likely search on?  rear red car light, maybe, giving rise to 'red car'.

Most recently, I can't figure how to word description for image of young girl wearing Santa hat so it can be found, but not show up in searches for Santa. (in keywords, Santa only appears in phrase "Santa hat")

RacePhoto:  your Psychic Search Engine - is that what happens when NumbErs and PSYCH get together?

Thanks for posting that link to search results for girl wearing santa hat, RacePhoto - since my photos showed up on first page, I guess their keywords are okay. Earlier today, I took the word Santa out of title, just referring to hat as Red and White Christmas Hat, but change didn't kick in yet. I'm going to put it back to original wording.

I think you're right. Since I saw RacePhoto's post within hours of the change, I was able to refer to images' live online description and essential keywords when re-editing the info     (?I thought your username was dongding, like a bell in reverse.)

The only reason that occured tome for the Mario Andretti vs "Mario Andretti" is that maybe all the images have "Mario Andretti" with quotation marks, and when exact matches are found the search engine doesn't look further - but this is just a theory.  

I was checking another example (sorry, RP, two words, as in the case of most people's names): Westminster Cathedral (a catholic church in London, not Westminster Abbey). Most images are the Cathedral. Some are the Abbey but the caption says Westminster Cathedral, so people who keyworded them did not know it well.
Westminster Cathedral: 1284 results
"Westminster Cathedral": 589 results, still some are the Abbey with wrong caption

Julian Assange: 74
"Julian Assange": 73

Smithsonian Museum: 1998, the first pages I saw seemed all relevant
"Smithsonian Museum": 354

Desert Edelweiss: 6 images
"Desert Edelweiss": 4 images (all mine )

You put things nicely in perspective, RacePhoto, and, yes, it is both helpful and fun to share trials and tribulations of keyword searches.

Reading some of madelaide and ShadySue's search results experiences reminds me of fun project my writing students would do. They'd illustrate a sentence with a misplaced modifier, and then illustrate the sentence with the error fixed, to show how incorrect wording unintentionally alters meaning.

     NO:   Hundreds of thousands of miles away, Pat looked through his telescope
     at the lunar eclipse.  

     YES:  Looking through his telescope, Pat saw the lunar eclipse
     hundreds of thousands of miles away.

     (still have the great drawings of Pat far away in space looking through telescope,
     and then Pat safely here on earth...)


search:  "lunar eclipse"  telescope

results: http://tinyurl.com/25fyhfg