MicrostockGroup

Well, you won't be bothered by heat, noise or humidity.

I was very interested in hearing what Dreamstime said about keywording. Though I realize she was talking more about the technical matters of keywording on Dreamstime website (how the length of title and description affect in image visibility) I would have hoped her to say more about proper keywording, as selling microstock, or selling any photography, is all about good high quality images AND of proper keywording.

I am in business of selling microstock photography from multiple microstock agencies to users, both corporate users and private persons. I have long past in selling imagery, and have also carefully researched how and what the users are looking for, what keywords they are using, and why they are using them. I am in love with the imagery, but I must say I am extremely disappointed in the quality of the keywording of Microstock imagery. And so are the serious users, too.

The microstock agencies have in common much better websites than the so called traditional agencies. MS also has great new functions available for users and photographers. The imagery is nowadays getting better and better. So in sense of making good money, only heaven could be the limit - but the problem is the keywording - it is now almost the one and only reason why some many corporate users (advertising agencies, book publishers, magazine publishers) stay away from microstock. And finally the big money is in their hands, they are those who regulary need images. Especially the book publishers buy thousands and thousands of images every year.

Why is the keywording so bad. There are many reasons, and I wanted to list some samples:

1. Keyword spamming. There are photographers who seem to put almost all words they can find from some dictionary. 90 % of those words have nothing to do with what is essential with the image content. The users hate this. All those who are professionally involved in shooting and selling microstock should put pressure on these photographers, and to microstock sellers, so that we could get these guys out of the business

2. Discussion about the amount of keywords. It just is not possible to put any minimum or maximum keyword amount. If some technology is punishing the photographer because of the amount of keywords, that is just stupid. The amount of keywords totally depends on the image content. There must be enough keywords, but only keywords that are essential.

3. What one should have in keywords. Only what is essential, and everything that is essential. One can use, and should use, also descriptive keywords, but only essential ones.

4. The image title should be correct and short, "Smiling businesswoman in office". The description can be a bit longer, but not too long. Please keep in your mind that mostly also title and description are used in search engines, so everything you have in title and description have effect on search result - so be careful not to  use any words that might show the image in wrong search result

5. Language. Usually the keywords must be in english. One should always make sure the used keyword is correct in english; it is not enough just to take the word from dictionary, but it is important to know/learn/understand the context, too. And one should never just "invent" new english words.

I want to share the following samples with you:

- words "honey, baby, babe, pussy, pussycat" in images showing ordinary women and girls (housewife, businesswoman, schoolgirl, teenager etc) - these are not only humiliating women nowadays, but also create totally wrong search results. When there is some editorial user wanting to find nice baby image to illustrate the baby/maternity magazine, this user really hates to see all those images showing adult women, or teenagers, etc. And really, women are representing around 80 % of professional image buyers, we should not make them angry by saying they are babies or pussycats....

- food. Some cow on field, or fish in lake, is not yet food. They are animals. We can have "beef cattle" in keywords, but not food. One should either not write keyword "kitchen" in every image showing fish, fruit, vegetable, meal etc - kitchen should be used only if the room kitchen is visible, or it is an image of kitchen sink, kitchen utensils etc

- berry and fruit. Apple is fruit, but it is not berry. Bilberry is berry but not fruit. There is difference, let's not mix these and make users mad. It is possible to make juice and jam from apple, but if the image is not showing juice or jam but only some apples, one should not put "jam" and/or "juice" in the keywords.

- Santa Claus. Most of the Xmas images seem to contain keyword "Santa Claus" though the image is not showing Santa Claus. If there is some child or woman or just father of some family wearing "santa hat", pls. do not put there "Santa Claus", as that word should be used only for that old man giving preasants once a year.

- in common: please do not list everything Xmas contains in all images: if there is an image showing Xmas tree, please do not put there "Santa Claus, Christmas preasant, baby, family, gift, jesus, baby jesus" etc if those things are not visible in the image. And though Jesus was born on Xmas, do not put that keyword in the images, unless the image really shows some Jesus statue or Jesus painting.

- foetus; there are thousands of images listing keyword "foetus" though the image shows only "pregnant woman". Yes, the foetus is inside her stomach, but we can not see it in the image, so we can not put it in keywords/title/description.

- be careful with ages and terms for them: kids between 0-2 years (max) are babies, 2+-4 are toddlers, 4+-5 are small children, 6+ are preschoolers, 12-19 years-old are teenages etc. Middle-age starts at 40+, seniors are 60+

- when there is a batch of images from same shooting and one is using some keyword template; be sure to delete the wrong keywords so that word "woman" goes only into those images that really show woman and word "man" only into those that  really show "man" and words "man and woman" go only tot hose that really show both of them

This list could be continued for ever, but I believe the samples give a small hint of the problemacy that now exists in keywording. I really think we all should give more value to what we are doing, and start doing it even better. In that way no-one can beat us.

Yes, I agree in what you are saying. The problem seems to be that either most of the agencies can not afford having keywords in their payroll, or they are not yet interested enough in the keywording problem. And I also know that there have been keyworders hired, but they too have been doing louzy job. In keywording "less is beautiful", it is better to have only those keywords that one really can see in the image than huge list of all kind of keywords.  And it really looks like many photographers think the more keywords, not matter if they are totally wrong, they somehow get more of images sold. But that is so wrong idea. The users do have the certain theme in their mind, they are looking for it, and they do not get interested in some other image if they see it in their search result, they just really get irritated, and vote with their feet.

Great post that sums it all up! (+ a heart).
One of the problems in proper keywording is that many current microstock photographers are not native English speakers, and they use some of the keywording scavenging tools online, not really understanding what all those words actually mean.

As for DT, you have the chance to report keyword spam very easily by flagging the image. According to Achilles (DT CEO) this really works. I don't like to flag under my contributor account (out of fear for retaliation) but you can bet I do it a lot via my buyer's account!

The search engine of DT is pretty well known, but the problem is most independents upload to several micro sites and all are a bit different, especially how the title and description are handled. So you will have to make a compromise in your meta as a contributor.

I just had a look at my latest DT sales of this month, and they were all bought by the keyword  N/A. That means by a visual search starting from categories, random browsing, Google images, or "similars" in other's portfolio.
Keywords alone might not be the whole story.

haha.. no, no pushing - she just wasn't sure she was allowed to share those stats so she OK'ed it with Serban first who was standing out of the scene.

Good point of view Penquin. I personally don't use a lot of keywords and never really have. A problem I run into...take for instance an apple.....keywords apple, fruit, food, red, round....what else is there? I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you have an isolated image and it only contains one item....how are you suppose to put in 7 keywords if there are only 5? The sites won't accept it unless it has at least 7. Now is when you got to start pulling some irrelevant keywords out of the air. Same thing with descriptions....sometimes a simple description isn't enough. That's when I get frustrated.

Thanks Penguin - excellent summary of some of the issues.

Thanks for the excellent sample of the keywording mess that exists. When I see keywording like this I can not help thinking anything else but the person who made it must be totally mad, and that is exactly what the users are thinking. And I find it difficult to understand why this person took all that time to create those totally wrong keywords, even with some automatic keywording system that takes time, uff.

Sorry to say that. But I am writing here only because I am trying topush the work you guys create to users, I am proud of the imagery, I am proud of my work, and would love to see the users to be proud of us, too - but in this current way it is very difficult. Believe me, I hear the comments daily, by phone, by email.

well that is not so far from the truth either.  Serban mentioned that having a good download / image ratio also helps in the rankings but I have yet to put that video up.  So deleting old non selling images will improve your images search ranking.

Now everyone is going to be rushing to delete their port of non selling images.. No really that is a good thing to do. I started awhile back doing that at dreamstime but got side tracked having to do something else so never got it done. What is really amazing is when you look at those musty old antique images, you wonder how they even got on there and looking at it you realize why it never sold and are a little embarrassed having it sitting inside your port.

ROFL!  Great illustration of how we get keyword Spam

Donna, if you really need to fatten out the isolated apple to 7 keywords without spamming you can add "isolated"and "white background".

That was a good interview with helpful information. I subscribed to your youtube channel, simplefoto
Look forward to more videos by you.
Thanks for coming out of your cave.