MicrostockGroup

In a private discussion about BigStock's quality rating (original thread here), I redid the searches I comment in there thread (post #27).

I was surprised to see that the first search, "heart illustration", now returns only 11,133 images vs 14,163 found 2 months ago.  Also in the search for "cork board", there are only 817 results when they were 1,043.

Are people leaving BigStock or was this some correction in the search engihe?

Regards,
Adelaide

I am staying with my cork and heart pics   They are still one of the top sites with an easy upload and low payout level.  Perhaps they have changed the search or deleted duplicates?

This is a steady site for me, the low $30 payout is great.

I tried to take my pics off, maybe a month or 2 after putting them on. I think I got a mail from them saying that the photos must be kept on for 90 days before a request can be made. Whilst I waited for the 90 days to expire, the pics started selling and they have had fairly consistent sales ever since. I like Bigstockphoto. In my books, they're one of the nice guys out there.

 BigStock has my vote for one of my chosen 4 sites to be actively contributing in 2009,
dropping many that are still born.

The search engine of BigStock isn't the best around, or they over-emphasize view count. The result is that in general images start really selling after 6 months or so. It's a quiet and friendly site that you just have to upload to and forget.

123RF is one of those nice quiet low-maintenance sites with no catgeories, easy upload, no drama, and the fastest and best MRF attach module around. Some months they are almost the same as DT, some months just 1/5th of DT. Their FTP upload is flawless, the import fast. They automatically pay out by PayPal whenever you reach 50$. You can give a fraction of your port a boost in the search engine by adding them to your favorites. 123RF is a go by all means, since upload virtually doesn't take time, and it's just an extra tab in the Filezilla site manager.

I wouldn't think many people are leaving BigStock.  At least not people who are active, for all the reasons listed above.  They are a friendly site, easy upload, no trouble/drama, and low payout threshold.

I think the change in search results is more likely to be housecleaning by BigStock - cleaning up spam in the searches, deleting old stagnant accounts, etc. 

Just my theory.

Do you kill your dog when it has lice? 

I now only feed three sites; BigStock is one of them.  they were my first and have been fairly steady.  I still haven't reached 500 images on any site, and I might make it to 500 on BigStock within the next two or three years.  there are times when BigStock seems to stand still, but then something gets things jumping.  I get at least two pay outs a year.  Considering I have a very small inventory I'm happy.  I have about 270 images with BigStock; so I hope to get it up to 500 by the year 2011.

My problem is I have to work hard to get 20 images to submit, and my acceptance level is less than 100%. 

I recommend staying with BigStock; they are a steady outfit.  Even when I can't find 20 images for about 5 months, I still get sales.  On SS, my sales dive util I can upload more.  I still like SS though. 

I like BigStock, sales have always been steady and are getting better.

I have noticed something a little strange, most of my sales seem to be on really old stuff? I rarely notice sales on newer images ( I do occasionally). I wonder why that is.

No no - if anyone wants to leave, please do so.
That gives the rest of us a better chance to sell our photos

Seriously, though - I'm new, and my portfolio is small enough to be called a Nano-Portfolio.
I haven't made a sale yet from BigStock, and the review times are the worst of the 10 odd sites I subscribe to.
Next is DT and then FT. The rest are usually pretty quick to review.
I have had images waiting for review for 10 days at BigStock now.
I don't really know if that's bad or good, but it's the worst of the 10.

That aside, it's not enough to make me wanna leave (esp not after 3 weeks and a tiny port).
I'm certainly staying and giving a fair chance to make my decisions on who goes and who stays.

Just my 2 cents worth

"Those who know don't tell and those who tell don't know." (Zen)