MicrostockGroup

  I just deleted 376 of my old, poor-seling, ugly images. And I plan to delete about 1000+ more tomorow, to clean my portfolio a little bit, so only hi-quality remain. I had 9.100 images online, but after this cleanup I should have about 7000-7500, or so.

Do you delete your old, non seling, poorly viewed, ugly images, and how does it impact your sales? I think buyers would easily browse trough my portfolio when there is less junk images

Yes I did, but that ugly image had a few sales, I am deleting images older than 1 year, with 0 sales, and less than 50 views. I mean come on, image old 2 years, with 0 sales, and 5 views, I really dont need that. I have much better images that sell few hundred times each, so I dont want to keep those non profitable images.

Ok I get u make sense

It is interesting because  I sold twice this week for a first time a pic I took more than a year ago, no ugly though
I just don't  get this FT search engine....

I do not even have 376 images :-)

on alamy you tag for deletion and a few months later they disapear, was told keep portfolio clean etc.  decide to delete 100 or so images, a couple of weeks later $400 sale on a 'deleted' image (it's still a crap image but hey I aint complaining).  I will never delete an accepted image again

not such a big deal on micro,  but there always the possibility of a sale even an el sale if it is on a site, no chance if it is deleted. I also have images ticking along that nowadays I wouldn't even take let alone submit also some sites like DT size of portfolio increases your search engine ranking so those bad ones are helping your good ones get placed better.

Phil

After a year-long trial of doing what you're starting to do, I've found deleting non-selling images to be ineffective in increasing sales.

My method was to remove all files that had zero sales in 6 months (lots of these) and less than four sales in one year (not nearly as many). Rather than keep these files offline, I re-uploaded them in the hopes of getting additional income. It was only occasionally that a re-uploaded file was licensed, and I learnt that a 'garbage file' is for the most part exactly  that. Removing non-selling images had, at the very most, a trivial effect on my sales, regardless if the files were re-uploaded or not.

That's not to say that examining your non-sellers is a waste of time. I did this experiment with three agencies, and the non-selling files were more-or-less the same across all three. I found this to be a valuable 'learn from your mistakes' experience in that I was able to see subjects/techniques/compositions that weren't commercially viable. I still experiment with offbeat stuff to see what happens with it, but I also make sure to regularly revisit the non-selling part of my portfolio so that I don't repeat mistakes.

I only have around 180 images up, so I can't bring myself to delete any!  That said, 20-30 have never sold and are never likely to so I would be neither surprised nor disappointed if Fotolia deletes them one day.

In fact, they said they would delete ones with no sales after 18 months, but they don't seem to do it.

I'm only going to remove and re-submit some images to Fotolia where I used keyword phrases and _ to represent spaces in vrs1 because this format no longer works in vrs2's search engine.  This is approx. 1/2 my portfolio that is affected!

I would caution anyone about deleting images that no longer fit your higher standards because the buyers at this site still download ugly images!

Thanks for making the search looking cleaner. I'm sure your portfolio will also gain from this. The day I will have that much images I will certainly do the same

Ok yeah I saw you previous post. But it make search cleaner I think

Some buyers look first in portfolios they like. I guess that's more probable of one doesn't have a lot of uninspiring images.

Since I delete those, I noticed I sell a lot more older images, ones that hardly ever sell. Maybe that coincidence, but I am happy with my "new" cleaner portfolio. I am sorry I dont have the time to do the same thing on other sites. 

Number of views stayed the same as it was before cleanup. So I dont lack any views.

If my pictures are ugly, I am ugly too. In my eyes the sky is different blue... Uuuugly Uuuuugly!!!

All of us just feel like that some days
Ain't no rainbow in the sky,

All of us just feel like that some days
Ain't no cure that you can buy
When you feel U.G.L.Y.
And that's uuuuugly....