MicrostockGroup

Just noticed that there appears to have been a massive further shift in the best match to favour exclusives __ it is now almost entirely exclusive images first followed by those from independent contributors afterwards. Incredible.

Istock must be getting desperate to hang on to their exclusives and/or make more money.

That's a huge change.

One of the searches I look at is San Antonio. There are 621 photos and one of mine is #6 by downloads and until today, has typically been somewhere in the first 5 or so by Best Match.

Today it's somewhere near the bottom of the second page of 200 and the whole first page of 200 is exclusive files. Unless I missed when scanning the page, all the images have a crown!

Even funnier, if I search for driftwood there are 3,123 photos and one of mine is #2 by downloads. It has been floating around on the first page by best match - it used to be on the top line. Today it's just past the 2,000 mark and the first 1,400 images are all exclusive! They have old (2007) zero download images from exclusives higher up than independent files that have actually sold.

This truly makes it clear that best match has zero to do with helping buyers find what they need better but is just a tool for the agency to see if they can't meet some goal or other of their own.

I can't wait to read the official explanations for why this is a good thing. If it actually helps boost sales at the site overall, that'd be one thing, but if it just drives more buyers away because they don't like what they see in searches, we all end up taking the hit in the long run. Tossers!

What a joke they've become...My last D/L was on Dec. 9th and paid a  lousy 9 cents. After 6 years with them I've all but given up hope.

I have noticed that new files are buried to th extent that it is not worth uploading, Old stuff buyers may find by downloads but clearly they do want new independent content.  Any new contributors would be best advised to save there efforts for elsewhere. If you are a new contributor IS is clearly middle to poosible lower tier sales (as it will be for all bar exclusives)

It looks the opposite to me, new files are all up front in the searches I've done.  Old files with lots of sales on the other hand seem to be pushed back.

That's true it is just exclusive files up front the two searches I did had 200/200 exclusive files in front and those are sorted by newest for the most part.

Quite incredible. I have an image that on iS and every other microstock site is the highest downloaded image for a certain keyword, on all the previous best match changes it's still always appeared in the first five pages, in this recent change I gave up checking after 200 out of the 671 pages of images for this particular keyword, every page was full of 'exclusive' only images of which a vast majority didn't even feature the particular item for the keyword search.

Well if iStockphoto didn't want to lose business before they sure as hell will do now. I don't normally subscribe to conspiracy theories but I genuinely now do believe somebody in the Getty/iStock management wants to kill the site off.



 

If there's one thing exclusives love, it's being favoured at the one time of the year when nobody is buying.   

A Best Match shift?

That's strange!

I don't think it is a 'bug'. I think it is a ill-thought-out, knee-jerk reaction to an ever-increasing number of exclusives dropping the crown as sales tumble. We've heard from quite a few disgruntled individuals already on MSG and I can't imagine that they're alone. Maybe it is intended to be a temporary 'fix' to help exclusives attain their RC targets but it's probably too little, too late for many. This smacks of an act of desperation for a company whose business is irretrievably on the slide. If I were exclusive I wouldn't be rejoicing, I'd be worried about the future.

I'm fairly new at (don't know much about) iStock.  It does seem that sales are subject to certain cycles or periods of time.  I also notice this phenomena at DT and SS, especially DT.  I guess my question is:
don't all the outlets change their search engines periodically? 

 

Maybe they want to put fresh and  unseen at any other competitor site content on front. Probably too  early to say but, for the moment, it works well for me (btw, I reached my RC time ago, no need of help). I suppose newer exclusives, specially factories, are way more favored. On the other hand, Vetta and Agency seem pushed back. I've observed that when V & A are on front, maybe I sell less, but I earn more. Anyway BMs are not forever at istock, another shifts in the future will benefit another people.

LOL!