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Author Topic: Alamy- Any success??  (Read 70465 times)

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« on: July 28, 2015, 00:25 »
+1
With a portfolio of 8k and online since 4 month.
I had no success with it.
0 sales, make me feel strange.

How did alamy goes for you?


« Reply #1 on: July 28, 2015, 03:23 »
+2
4 months is no time at all, give it a year and you should be seeing regular sales.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #2 on: July 28, 2015, 04:05 »
+3
With a portfolio of 8k and online since 4 month.
I had no success with it.
0 sales, make me feel strange.

How did alamy goes for you?
Is it your micro port?
They have officially said that generally successful micro pics don't do well there.
But otherwise, yes, four months isn't a long time.
Well done on suffering managing your 8k images there in such a short time. I can easily be all day doing half a dozen (I don't mean it takes me that long, I just mean I do a couple, have a long distraction break, do another one, another longer break and so on.)

« Reply #3 on: July 28, 2015, 09:34 »
+6
Alamy?! Hahahahahahahahaaaaaa! LOL. Oh my miserable gopher once again! Alamy to explain something to you, just forget about your port there for a year or two then check it again and maybe someone will have gophered one of your images. My Alamy sales graph looks like a one of those angular buildings in Egypt and it took a year to build it. That's why I stick to digging tunnels.

« Reply #4 on: July 28, 2015, 09:55 »
+5
I like Alamy because the prices and sales go up every year. Of course it it not one of the best stocks, but not even last one. For me it's better than Canstock, Panthermedia, Mostphotos, Pond5, Veer, Yaymicro, Zoonar and Depositphotos. Actually I dropped out CS, PM, YM, ZO.

« Reply #5 on: July 29, 2015, 08:24 »
0
4 months is no time at all, give it a year and you should be seeing regular sales.

Thanks, lets see that stats for an year :) waiting.

With a portfolio of 8k and online since 4 month.
I had no success with it.
0 sales, make me feel strange.

How did alamy goes for you?
Is it your micro port?
They have officially said that generally successful micro pics don't do well there.
But otherwise, yes, four months isn't a long time.
Well done on suffering managing your 8k images there in such a short time. I can easily be all day doing half a dozen (I don't mean it takes me that long, I just mean I do a couple, have a long distraction break, do another one, another longer break and so on.)

Yes, its a micro vectors portfolio, Its good success in other agencies, being a RM website, I thought they'll go great. But alas!

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #6 on: July 29, 2015, 08:43 »
0
4 months is no time at all, give it a year and you should be seeing regular sales.

Thanks, lets see that stats for an year :) waiting.

With a portfolio of 8k and online since 4 month.
I had no success with it.
0 sales, make me feel strange.

How did alamy goes for you?
Is it your micro port?
They have officially said that generally successful micro pics don't do well there.
But otherwise, yes, four months isn't a long time.
Well done on suffering managing your 8k images there in such a short time. I can easily be all day doing half a dozen (I don't mean it takes me that long, I just mean I do a couple, have a long distraction break, do another one, another longer break and so on.)

Yes, its a micro vectors portfolio, Its good success in other agencies, being a RM website, I thought they'll go great. But alas!
I'm really not sure if vectors sell well there. There don't seem to be (m)any vector artists posting on their forum, and I don't see many posts here either.
You're not supposed to set RM there if you have the same or similar files as RF elsewhere.
Actually that may not be true. I've often read it, with the encouragement to 'read your Alamy contributor contract', but all I can see in the contract is:
"You cannot submit identical or similar images to Alamy as both Royalty-Free and Rights Managed. The licence type on Alamy for an image must be the same as the licence type for that image and similar images which you have on other agency websites. "
If anyone has official word, rather than peer opinion, about this, can they post the link, please.

« Reply #7 on: July 29, 2015, 08:50 »
0
4 months is no time at all, give it a year and you should be seeing regular sales.

Thanks, lets see that stats for an year :) waiting.

With a portfolio of 8k and online since 4 month.
I had no success with it.
0 sales, make me feel strange.

How did alamy goes for you?
Is it your micro port?
They have officially said that generally successful micro pics don't do well there.
But otherwise, yes, four months isn't a long time.
Well done on suffering managing your 8k images there in such a short time. I can easily be all day doing half a dozen (I don't mean it takes me that long, I just mean I do a couple, have a long distraction break, do another one, another longer break and so on.)

Yes, its a micro vectors portfolio, Its good success in other agencies, being a RM website, I thought they'll go great. But alas!
I'm really not sure if vectors sell well there. There don't seem to be (m)any vector artists posting on their forum, and I don't see many posts here either.
You're not supposed to set RM there if you have the same or similar files as RF elsewhere.
Actually that may not be true. I've often read it, with the encouragement to 'read your Alamy contributor contract', but all I can see in the contract is:
"You cannot submit identical or similar images to Alamy as both Royalty-Free and Rights Managed. The licence type on Alamy for an image must be the same as the licence type for that image and similar images which you have on other agency websites. "
If anyone has official word, rather than peer opinion, about this, can they post the link, please.

Thanks, I think, I didn't wrote correctly, The files are still in RF, but Alamy is RM and RF both so I thought their customer base would be too strong for sales to pick up.

Justanotherphotographer

« Reply #8 on: July 29, 2015, 08:59 »
+2
I do really terrible on Alamy, and gotten worse over the years.

« Reply #9 on: July 29, 2015, 10:48 »
+1
4 months is no time at all, give it a year and you should be seeing regular sales.

Thanks, lets see that stats for an year :) waiting.

With a portfolio of 8k and online since 4 month.
I had no success with it.
0 sales, make me feel strange.

How did alamy goes for you?
Is it your micro port?
They have officially said that generally successful micro pics don't do well there.
But otherwise, yes, four months isn't a long time.
Well done on suffering managing your 8k images there in such a short time. I can easily be all day doing half a dozen (I don't mean it takes me that long, I just mean I do a couple, have a long distraction break, do another one, another longer break and so on.)

Yes, its a micro vectors portfolio, Its good success in other agencies, being a RM website, I thought they'll go great. But alas!
I'm really not sure if vectors sell well there. There don't seem to be (m)any vector artists posting on their forum, and I don't see many posts here either.
You're not supposed to set RM there if you have the same or similar files as RF elsewhere.
Actually that may not be true. I've often read it, with the encouragement to 'read your Alamy contributor contract', but all I can see in the contract is:
"You cannot submit identical or similar images to Alamy as both Royalty-Free and Rights Managed. The licence type on Alamy for an image must be the same as the licence type for that image and similar images which you have on other agency websites. "
If anyone has official word, rather than peer opinion, about this, can they post the link, please.

To my mind the wording in the contract seems clear enough (I've highlighted the relevant clause in green) The licence type on Alamy for an image must  be the same...similar images which you have on other agency websites.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #10 on: July 29, 2015, 11:55 »
0
^^ It is indeed perfectly clear. I don't know how I missed that!  :-[
Tx.
« Last Edit: July 29, 2015, 12:50 by ShadySue »

« Reply #11 on: July 29, 2015, 14:16 »
+2
I've read, and my experience with Alamy seems to concur, (10 years with Alamy) it takes a year for your images to work their way up in the search rankings to a point where you get regular sales. Also, if you have many similar images with similar keywords, it would behove you to divide those images up into a number of different pseudonyms. Your search ranking can be affected by to many similar images. However, once you create a new pseudonym, it will "restart" the ranking for that pseudonym, so it will be on the bottom so to speak. So if you're going to break up your images into various pseudonyms, you should do it now rather than later before your ranking start to climb. Also, make sure you have NO duplicate words in your keywords. I'm sure you're familiar with how strict Alamy is with their word spamming algorithm, but this can't be overstated. Make sure there are no duplicate keywords in the "essential" "main" and "comprehensive" keywords fields. You can have the same words in the caption field. Unlike some of the micro sites, Alamy doesn't automatically delete the duplicates keywords. And as already stated, if an image is on another site as RF, it has to be RF on Alamy, cannot be RM. All this is based on things I've read from Alamy and from other Alamy contributors so take it for what it's worth. Maybe it's all BS. I know back in 2009 I re-keyworded all my images to weed out duplicate words (I'm a very lazy keyworder) and the following year my sales tripled. However, I did the same thing again a few months ago and haven't seen any uptick in sales yet, might be too soon to tell, so. Hope this helps a little.
-David

« Reply #12 on: July 29, 2015, 14:46 »
0
I've not previously come across the notion that Alamy's search engine penalises duplicate search words- I don't recall it ever being mentioned on Alamy's own forums, who are usually quick to highlight that kind of thing. I'm checking through my keywords to delete the occasional duplicate which has slipped in. However, I'm hoping though that there is no penalty for repeat use of the same word in a phrase within quotes (e.g. "coloured glass", "colourful glass", "red glass" "stained glass" etc etc).

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #13 on: July 29, 2015, 15:06 »
+1
I've not previously come across the notion that Alamy's search engine penalises duplicate search words- I don't recall it ever being mentioned on Alamy's own forums, who are usually quick to highlight that kind of thing. I'm checking through my keywords to delete the occasional duplicate which has slipped in. However, I'm hoping though that there is no penalty for repeat use of the same word in a phrase within quotes (e.g. "coloured glass", "colourful glass", "red glass" "stained glass" etc etc).
I didn't know about the repeat keyword penalty and was wondering about it too. I've got lots which have something like London Bridge in EssKeys, then in Main I'd have London and Bridge.

« Reply #14 on: July 29, 2015, 15:26 »
+1
If there is an duplicate keyword issue at Alamy all my files would be dead last. Almost all files have the ESSKeys also in both other keyword groups. Further, where it makes sense to make phrases, I have duplicates within each group (Niagara River Niagara Falls American Falls Canadian Falls Horseshoe Falls). I hope there isn't a penalty!

« Reply #15 on: July 29, 2015, 15:40 »
0
I do pretty good on Alamy.  They average about 5% of my monthly totals.  My port is all photos and mostly the same as my micro portfolio,  so I don't buy that micro pics don't do good there.  I also have duplicate keywords.  My sales are okay so I don't know about that one either.  I don't see it being worth going back over 5k+ photos changing keywords to find out for sure.

Justanotherphotographer

« Reply #16 on: July 29, 2015, 15:57 »
0
This could explain my total failure. All my files contain duplicate kws accross the three fields. I didn't realise it was an issue. There you go. No way can I be bothered to clean up my whole portfolio so I guess alamy is destined to be a low earner for me.

« Reply #17 on: July 29, 2015, 16:27 »
+1
The duplicate keywords penalty is news to me too. I sure have plenty of them. If it would increase my sales it might be worth doing something about it, but I'd want to know for sure that it would.

Alamy has been my #2 earner for at least the last 3 years although I still get 0 months from time to time I also get rare ones that beat SS.

« Reply #18 on: July 29, 2015, 16:36 »
+2
Also, make sure you have NO duplicate words in your keywords. I'm sure you're familiar with how strict Alamy is with their word spamming algorithm, but this can't be overstated. Make sure there are no duplicate keywords in the "essential" "main" and "comprehensive" keywords fields.

What evidence or stated policy are you basing this on?

I am not saying that you are wrong. But what you are saying about duplicates seemingly goes against what Alamy themselves recommend with respect to the use of phrase, word proximity etc. Because a single keyword may have many potential pairings. Eg - "business team", "business meeting" etc. And we know, because they have told us (and we can all see from the search), that word order and word proximity matters. I know from the data they show us that duplicate words work for me.

I'm sure you're familiar with how strict Alamy is with their word spamming algorithm

I'm not. Do you have a link which relates to duplicate words. I know that CTR works against irrelevant keywords - but where is the evidence that duplication is an issue? Not saying that you are wrong - but it seems like it would be a contradiction with respect to how other aspects of the Alamy search work. Also - it wouldn't make much sense ... because weeding out duplicates would slow down the search and create overheads for no good reason. It doesn't really actually probably matter in a search if you say the same word twice - better than filling your allocation with irrelevant words.

« Reply #19 on: July 29, 2015, 18:21 »
0
In my experience, they are good and lately getting even better at their core business - selling travel and editorial stock - and also sell some concept/lifestyle but the stuff that books, magazines and newspapers need in quantity is IMHO what sells best. I have a handful of similar RF photos on Alamy and the micros and have some that sell for me on both at widely disparate prices, so having the same port in both places, while not the best idea, isn't always bad.

I'm really impressed that you uploaded so much in such a short time especially given their complicated system. No luck selling the few illustrations I have on Alamy from when I started in 2008 and took a class in illustrator - they do sell on the micros - but I've been sticking to photography so I'm sure your illustrations are much much better, but that's my limited experience there. Give it time hopefully you'll have success.

My files with duplicate keywords - alone in EssKeys and in phrases below (not in quotes) get licensed and show up on page one of searches for two-keyword general searches, so I don't see a problem.
« Last Edit: July 29, 2015, 18:24 by wordplanet »

« Reply #20 on: July 29, 2015, 20:57 »
0
I'll be honest with you, I couldn't find that info about the duplicate keywords. It may be very dated info. I remember this being discussed at length many years ago, things may have changed. I haven't been a very active contributor the last five years, I just upload a few images here and there. I emailed member services. I apologize If I spoke out of my ass, I will post Alamy's replay.


Justanotherphotographer

« Reply #22 on: July 30, 2015, 04:25 »
+1
Just to clear this one up quickly for you:

You're not penalized for having duplicate keywords and you never have been. It just takes up valuable space in your keyword fields so there is no need to do it.

:)

Cheers

Alamy
Thanks so much for clearing this up! Really appreciate it.

« Reply #23 on: July 30, 2015, 10:16 »
+1
I was wrong, sorry about that.


« Reply #24 on: July 30, 2015, 11:47 »
+1
This week Ive made only one sell, but is was a very good price. So this agency moved to place 2.! on my agencies. Ive currently only 200 images online there.


 

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