MicrostockGroup

For non-exclusives, it already is and I'd guess that it already licenses more images than iStock does (it's outselling iStock 3:1 on my portfolio). There's no way we will ever know if/when shutterstock's cash turnover exceeds iStock's.

I mean older files may be being punished. That could hit higher ranks - either deliberately or just by accident. It is also hitting me, even though I am not a higher rank.

As many people posting here are from the higher ranks, if there was a general problem for almost everyone it might still look as if higher ranks are being punished because we don't hear much from anyone who isn't quite high up.

Clear now?

they are already at least in my market

I have sales every day at SS, but I'm doing good to have a sale every month at FT.

They did, an admin confirmed it in the German Fotolia forum, adding that Fotolia in general is doing well and that the new best match is working for some of the contributors.
It seems that new images don't get a bonus at all any more, so the factor "new" has no or nearly no weight in the best match algorithm anymore. Since then (must have been the end of February), many German contributors are reporting a substantial drop in sales and also that new images hardly sell. This seems very relevant to me, as Fotolia is the market leader in Europe. A factor that counts more than "new" seems to be "popularity": the images that were sold around the date of the tweak keep selling and selling, most other stuff is, well, lost.
But there seem to be quite a few contributors, silver and above (and not only exclusives), who are profiting from the new best match.
I always have kept a close watch on where my new images start off from, and after the best match tweak in February, they went right to the very back of my port and of the best match search, instead of appearing on page 1 or 2, and since about a month, they are somewhere in the middle. That makes me think that they still tweaking away.

The worrying thing about the whole thing, to me, is that once Fotolia has made a change to it's site, it seems to be set in stone. So, when they have finished tweaking, best match will stay like that and favourise old but popular stuff for years.

FWIW, my sales have dropped by about 15 %, subs have increased (I don't dare to actually go and add them up!). I'm only silver, but, comparing myself to other contributors, I have been seeing a substantial amount of regular sales.

Yeah, I have been thinking of holding on uploading, too. On the other hand, my competitors aren't, so I'll be going for it anyway.

"Set in stone" is just a strong tendency that I've been observing over the last two years or so. Have you ever seen a site feature change there since that? I haven't. Oh, except for the "latest uploads" page (which is titled "the latetest 300 uploads" although there are only 100, somewhat like the "top 20" that are in fact the top 50 or so). As soon as they are done with their tweaking, my bet is that the best match will stay as it is for years to come.

thanks Pheby for your information from the German front  .  indeed interesting. I am also already holding my submission of new images, because I have five pages of new material uploaded since march, that has so few views (and almost no downloads, obviously..)

I don't think really think so. Recently, I've been doing many, many searches (to try and find out whether my very first studio shots of a real model   stand a chance of being found) with simple terms like "woman" combined with "flowers", "headphones", "coffee", things like that. I had the search engine sort by relevancy and variied the option "online since", and the few files that are new and have one or a few downloads within the first week or month online, are mostly by emeralds and above. Often, they were files that got a bit of exposure by being featured on the "latest uploads" page. Admittedly, this is as arbitrary as you, Lisa, say your assumption is anecdotal. I'd be really interested to hear more from a few more emeralds.

BTW the search term "woman" combined with "online since 1 week" showed about 8000 results, just over 100 of which had at least one sale.
Until I saw the sheer masses, I was really excited about my new shots. Well, I'm still excited about them, but my hopes for them have gone straight. down. I've decided to upload them in small portions as a sort of compromise.

Somehow, Yuri seems to be a different story. His new files, as wiseguy points out, don't seem to lift off, and also, I've never spotted any of his files on the "latest uploads" page.

Same thing here!!

My story is that I went from $150 a month to about $60 a month, more than a 50% drop.

Great, just when I uploaded around 200 photos after 9 months of not uploading there:s. I haven't completed the submitions on half of them, but those that got accepted in the last week didn't get any views, at all! Well a handful did...I did the same at DT, with just 63 images (I have a weekly quota of 42, a few got the similar rejection, the rest had some weird MR issues). But at least I got views on all from the first week and a DL. Though I didn't get any views on those that were accepted yesterday:s

My Fotolia income has dropped from 300 to 400 dollars/mo to 150....200. This month has the potential to be the weakest month since January 2009.

So sad. It seems my avatar predicted even this...

^Nice about your avatar