MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: gclk on August 09, 2011, 05:57
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I try not to jump to conclusions about drops in downloads or best match shifts, but from half-way through 1st August onwards I've seen a noticeable drop in earnings that seems different from a 'summer slow-down'. Sales for me have been erratic as usual recently, with some days being OK and others being a complete joke, but overall sales for last week dropped significantly.
I don't keep a note of file best match positions to keep track of changes, but there does seem to have been a change in the files that I'm selling. Some strong sellers appear to have fallen off a cliff, and very noticeably I'm getting sales from old files that had between 1 and 10 sales in the past.
Anybody else finding something similar?
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I don't normally watch, but overnight sales to this morning are off by about 70%.
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I don't normally watch, but overnight sales to this morning are off by about 70%.
Maybe there's some sort of glitch that follows the missing totals? My sales are also way down for the same period - yesterday was good until right about the time where the totals disappeared.
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Great August sales for me, I had a couple of XXXL Dls and lots of large sized DLs, besides tripling the DLs. I love the latest best match shift;). My 2 bestsellers are not selling well lately as well, although one is placed in the first row of search results and the other in the second. Overall this summer is great so far, sales rising instead of falling although I uploaded just a dozen photos in the last month and a half :D (but a new series is waiting for review)
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Sells Yesterday were good up until about 17:00 CET than downloads drop to almost nothing. Same as Sean sells look to be off about 70%.
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Great August sales for me, I had a couple of XXXL Dls and lots of large sized DLs, besides tripling the DLs. I love the latest best match shift;). My 2 bestsellers are not selling well lately as well, although one is placed in the first row of search results and the other in the second. Overall this summer is great so far, sales rising instead of falling although I uploaded just a dozen photos in the last month and a half :D (but a new series is waiting for review)
Great to hear that sales aren't down across the board :)
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For me, August is trending towards being the worst month in years ... well below the level that makes exclusivity worthwhile. Gonna be an interesting fall ... 8)
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I dont see any change at all! are you sure youre not smoking weed or something? ;D
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Looks normal. Better than July.
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Yesterday was not bad for me. Also had some sales overnight.
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I don't normally watch, but overnight sales to this morning are off by about 70%.
mine too. yesterday and today are weird and bad
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Mine are the same level of bad as usual, but nothing worse. Maybe it's because they are so low it's difficult to go much lower...
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So far, August's not bad for me. If the dls continue at the same rate for the whole month it will be the second or third best month of the year so far for dls, which is odd for the summer holiday period. There's a lot of ebb and flow from day to day (or maybe my sales are just too low now for the daily stats to show anything more than random variation).
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Mine are the same level of bad as usual, but nothing worse. Maybe it's because they are so low it's difficult to go much lower...
hmmm... believe me... it can go lower :'(
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I don't keep a note of file best match positions to keep track of changes, but there does seem to have been a change in the files that I'm selling. Some strong sellers appear to have fallen off a cliff, and very noticeably I'm getting sales from old files that had between 1 and 10 sales in the past.
Anybody else finding something similar?
Last week was OK except for Tuesday, and today is also dire. I've been noticing old low-sellers getting sales, but as they're low-supply, low demand, best match hardly affects them (only a very few rivals, if any) so I was in Pollyanna mode, imagining there might be new buyers. ::)
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Sells Yesterday were good up until about 17:00 CET than downloads drop to almost nothing. Same as Sean sells look to be off about 70%.
yes same here about yesterday
someone say that this best match are showing mostly non exclusive content....
in the last period there is a monkey that escaped from the cage and enter the server room of istock and creating problems ... the tamer of the monkey seems to be on vacation too frequently
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It sure isn't a problem for me ;). IS is almost matching earnings to SS :)
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someone say that this best match are showing mostly non exclusive content....
Well that would be a welcome change ;)
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Last week was average, but yesterday and today have been about 20% higher, almost to March levels. I did notice a lot of low dl older files selling today, so perhaps there was a bigger than normal best match shift... Or maybe a lot of people are just coming back from vacation this week. I did look back at this week last year and it was significantly higher than week 1 of august then.
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I'm seeing older files selling too...today was normal for numbers but strange files were downloaded
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BRILLANT!! Ive had 2 fantastic days at IS, if this is the new best match ? dont change it.
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BRILLANT!! Ive had 2 fantastic days at IS, if this is the new best match ? dont change it.
infact how i've said
someone say that this best match are showing mostly non exclusive content....
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BRILLANT!! Ive had 2 fantastic days at IS, if this is the new best match ? dont change it.
infact how i've said
someone say that this best match are showing mostly non exclusive content....
Could be? dont see much differance from before though. Whatever it is? in 2 days Ive sold more then the entire last week. :)
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I've seen a drop, the start of August was OK but the last 2 days have been bad. I don't have any new uploads, are they selling more?
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I'm not seeing more than "normal" action on new files, but my download pattern is way off for the last two days.
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There has been a consistent best match shake during the weekend.
The search results are now dominated by NOT exclusive files. It looks like the best match at the moment gives a better position to all the files with a low price and a high amount of downloads. The result is that Vetta, E+ and Agency almost disappeared.
Compared to the last week I'm loosing 50%.
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Funny, I am exclusive, in the past two days, I had more DLs than the total of the previous week. The images included new uploads.
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Compared to the last week I'm loosing 50%.
Ditto
However I think that changes are much more frequent these days so no big panic yet.
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Today has started great as well. I'm almost not hating IS anymore ;D . BTW I still see a ton of A/V files under that few search terms that I've used, so don't panic. And it's time for us indies to get a larger slice of the pie and it looks like we're doing it in a big way ;) . Of course I'd like nothing more than to see us all (indies+exclusives) earn more, so we wouldn't fight amongst ourselves, but stand united against the machine ;)
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There has been a consistent best match shake during the weekend.
What are you basing this on? I just checked several files I track and they're in the same place they've been since the last major best match tweak a few weeks ago.
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I checked several files I track and they are not in the same they've been. They are overwhelmed by non-exclusive files.
All my E+ files comes in the search after the Standard collections. and the Vetta files disappeared. That's what I see.
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There has been a consistent best match shake during the weekend.
What are you basing this on? I just checked several files I track and they're in the same place they've been since the last major best match tweak a few weeks ago.
That fits with my month so far, there have been some days with quite large spikes, and some pretty deep troughs too. I'm getting quite a lot of E+ sales though, but then all my best sellers are in that collection so if files with lots of DLs are rewarded it sort of makes sense. On the other hand there's quite a few files which are getting their first downloads. I think its all over the place at the moment. Lets see how it settles down.
Looking at some searches, my files seem to be where I'd expect them, but the search is now different in some locations, so its hard to tell if what I'm seeing is the same as buyers in the US.
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Downloads and Royalties charts just updated. It looks like Tues wasn't as bad as Monday, but still one cazy swing in money and downloads. Will have to go with Holgs on this one " its all over the place at the moment." Nothing to do but sit back and wait to see how it plays out. ;D
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an example af the "new" file appears in the front of search...
searching "autumn" on 13 July 2011
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/34112912/Schermata%202011-07-13%20a%2002.25.28.png (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/34112912/Schermata%202011-07-13%20a%2002.25.28.png)
searching "autumn" on 10 august 2011
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/34112912/Schermata%202011-08-10%20a%2015.51.49.png (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/34112912/Schermata%202011-08-10%20a%2015.51.49.png)
this a shake
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an example af the "new" file appears in the front of search...
searching "autumn" on 13 July 2011
[url]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/34112912/Schermata%202011-07-13%20a%2002.25.28.png[/url] ([url]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/34112912/Schermata%202011-07-13%20a%2002.25.28.png[/url])
searching "autumn" on 10 august 2011
[url]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/34112912/Schermata%202011-08-10%20a%2015.51.49.png[/url] ([url]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/34112912/Schermata%202011-08-10%20a%2015.51.49.png[/url])
this a shake
Still only 9/44 images are non-exclusive and the position of your file in unchanged. I guess you wanted to show us that there are now less A/V files, but that actually works for you since you have less competition, at least when it comes to this search term (if it's similar with the rest you should be happy;)
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There has been a continuous shake for some time now. I do follow some searches and searches are changing everyday. Not the first page but the first 10 are having great movement. I used to have a couple of files in each of the first pages of some searches. They were mainly 3-4 months old files with more than 10 DLs and performing well. Thay are now all gone. Some days one shows up and the next day it anothers turn. I think last year they did something similar. Seems like a programmed move to give exposure to different upload time frames regardless of the success of files to give opportunity to, probably unlucky, older files. Things will settle down for sure.
And yes, the predominancy of V/A is over since the last big best match shake.
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My sales are not spiking this week, so if non-exclusive files are getting a bump, it is more complicated than that. Maybe it is non-exclusives who earn a lower RC royalty rate? I would love to get in on this sales bonanza though :)
Are other diamond independents experiencing this big increase in sales?
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To the people seeing all these changes: are you sure it's possible to notice meaningful daily trends?
Unless you have hundreds of downloads daily (lucky you), it's more likely just statistical noise.
A moving average over weeks or months is a much more useful indicator.
Regarless of the best match shifts which I do not doubt are occurring.
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My sales are not spiking this week, so if non-exclusive files are getting a bump, it is more complicated than that. Maybe it is non-exclusives who earn a lower RC royalty rate? I would love to get in on this sales bonanza though :)
Are other diamond independents experiencing this big increase in sales?
Yes! good increase in sales, especially during the last two days. Almost back to the good old days.
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... And yes, the predominancy of V/A is over since the last big best match shake.
Could this be one of Rebecca's first decisions to bring back customers?
By recent standards August has got off to a flyer for me at Istock. They are actually back in first place in my earnings. Hope it continues.
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... And yes, the predominancy of V/A is over since the last big best match shake.
Could this be one of Rebecca's first decisions to bring back customers?
By recent standards August has got off to a flyer for me at Istock. They are actually back in first place in my earnings. Hope it continues.
I donīt know, what kind of decissions can someone working as a part time CEO can make? Not having a full time CEO is something that gives a hint about what getty thinks about istock. Maybe they think the business is easy and can be managed like this. For me it is an incredible decision.
Back on topic. I am not a V/A player so the less weight on V/A and the price filter are good decissions imo. It is also true that may be things have gone a bit too far lately as I find hard to find certain recently approved V/A files.
Like i said, I believe things wil settle down and I find July-August as good months to rotate a bit the stuff in the show window and see if some lost files perform can perform well.
ETA: WOW, now there IS a big best match shift. Must have happened in the last two hours!
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Downloads and Royalties charts just updated. It looks like Tues wasn't as bad as Monday, but still one cazy swing in money and downloads. Will have to go with Holgs on this one " its all over the place at the moment." Nothing to do but sit back and wait to see how it plays out. ;D
yup, agree
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an example af the "new" file appears in the front of search...
searching "autumn" on 13 July 2011
[url]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/34112912/Schermata%202011-07-13%20a%2002.25.28.png[/url] ([url]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/34112912/Schermata%202011-07-13%20a%2002.25.28.png[/url])
searching "autumn" on 10 august 2011
[url]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/34112912/Schermata%202011-08-10%20a%2015.51.49.png[/url] ([url]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/34112912/Schermata%202011-08-10%20a%2015.51.49.png[/url])
this a shake
Well, the pumpkin images moved up, they must be prepping for Halloween.
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I have no charts to show, but the real change in the best match, there is bringing the price level to 1 / 4 .....
most of the images are non-exclusive, and not all of these have thousands of downloads
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I checked several files I track and they are not in the same they've been. They are overwhelmed by non-exclusive files.
All my E+ files comes in the search after the Standard collections. and the Vetta files disappeared. That's what I see.
I have no charts to show, but the real change in the best match, there is bringing the price level to 1 / 4 .....
most of the images are non-exclusive, and not all of these have thousands of downloads
Same here. Leading to some days with extremely low (out of the ordinary ebb/flow) sales.
Difficult to tell whether this is...
A strategy to drive down the prices presented to customers /
An attempt to drive down the overall percentage royalty paid to contributors (closer towards 15%) /
Another bit of testing out search changes on the live system to see what might make iStock commissions go up /
.../
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I notice some big clusters of new images high up in the best match rank. A search on "Curry" has about 20 similars clustered together at around the 220 mark. There are also a lot of names that appear repeatedly on the top pages, so there seems to be less effort to mix files.
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Yes! good increase in sales, especially during the last two days. Almost back to the good old days.
Well cool! Thanks to the other diamonds for weighing in too. Guess I will sit back and wait for my windfall ;)
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I have no charts to show, but the real change in the best match, there is bringing the price level to 1 / 4 .....
most of the images are non-exclusive, and not all of these have thousands of downloads
Where are you seeing this? In the images you posted it's clear that 80% of the photos are still exclusive;)
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I have no charts to show, but the real change in the best match, there is bringing the price level to 1 / 4 .....
most of the images are non-exclusive, and not all of these have thousands of downloads
Where are you seeing this? In the images you posted it's clear that 80% of the photos are still exclusive;)
the image that i posted the filter shows all type price of image....try to check only with the one point in the filter (1/4)...
the shake is evident
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I have no charts to show, but the real change in the best match, there is bringing the price level to 1 / 4 .....
most of the images are non-exclusive, and not all of these have thousands of downloads
Where are you seeing this? In the images you posted it's clear that 80% of the photos are still exclusive;)
the image that i posted the filter shows all type price of image....try to check only with the one point in the filter (1/4)...
the shake is evident
15/44 are independents (using your search term, it was less with another I tried). Still, only a third of the results, when we all know the vast majority of the contributors are independent.
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Remember, our searches are now location-specific. So many of us will get different results depending on where we are.
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Are other diamond independents experiencing this big increase in sales?
Not me !!
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I have no charts to show, but the real change in the best match, there is bringing the price level to 1 / 4 .....
most of the images are non-exclusive, and not all of these have thousands of downloads
Where are you seeing this? In the images you posted it's clear that 80% of the photos are still exclusive;)
the image that i posted the filter shows all type price of image....try to check only with the one point in the filter (1/4)...
the shake is evident
15/44 are independents (using your search term, it was less with another I tried). Still, only a third of the results, when we all know the vast majority of the contributors are independent.
Yes, but an awful lot of those independents are the not-reached-250-sales brigade. If you are sorting with some sort of realistic assessment of how popular individual files/contributors are, then the ratio of exclusives to independents goes up sharply. 2:1 could be reasonably close to reality, taking account of the number of exclusives among the diamond and gold ranks.
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Remember, our searches are now location-specific. So many of us will get different results depending on where we are.
This is what I was thinking might be happening but I haven't seen anything about this being implemented. How do you know this?
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I can't find the IS thread, I think it's hidden in a thread with several other announcements. I do remember people in it sharing their differing search order results. Searching from different continents (and/or countries) served up different ordered results.
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Just to give you some screenshots.
I searched the keyword "Morocco" with the iPhone and with the iMac. Same username and same moment, of course. The results are totally different.
iPhone:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3399038/Photo%20ago%2011%2C%209%2037%2051.png (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3399038/Photo%20ago%2011%2C%209%2037%2051.png)
iMac:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3399038/Schermata%202011-08-11%20a%2009.38.03.png (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3399038/Schermata%202011-08-11%20a%2009.38.03.png)
This new best match shake has some problems with the cookies and the localization.
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Just to give you some screenshots.
I searched the keyword "Morocco" with the iPhone and with the iMac. Same username and same moment, of course. The results are totally different.
iPhone:
[url]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3399038/Photo%20ago%2011%2C%209%2037%2051.png[/url] ([url]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3399038/Photo%20ago%2011%2C%209%2037%2051.png[/url])
iMac:
[url]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3399038/Schermata%202011-08-11%20a%2009.38.03.png[/url] ([url]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3399038/Schermata%202011-08-11%20a%2009.38.03.png[/url])
This new best match shake has some problems with the cookies and the localization.
The results I get for the same search are also completely different currently in Spain) - maybe it would be interesting to line up a time to do some searches and compare the results in different places?
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Just to give you some more info.
I deleted the cache of my browser. The results are now the same, back to normality.
It seems iStock sent out some new cookies to many of us, shaking the best match. Many customers now have a lot of non exclusive files in the searches.
I wonder who will say to this customers to empty the cache...
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Just to give you some screenshots.
I searched the keyword "Morocco" with the iPhone and with the iMac. Same username and same moment, of course. The results are totally different.
iPhone:
[url]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3399038/Photo%20ago%2011%2C%209%2037%2051.png[/url] ([url]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3399038/Photo%20ago%2011%2C%209%2037%2051.png[/url])
iMac:
[url]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3399038/Schermata%202011-08-11%20a%2009.38.03.png[/url] ([url]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3399038/Schermata%202011-08-11%20a%2009.38.03.png[/url])
This new best match shake has some problems with the cookies and the localization.
The results I get for the same search are also completely different currently in Spain) - maybe it would be interesting to line up a time to do some searches and compare the results in different places?
What part of Spain are you? I live in Madrid :)
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I also see a change in buyers DLing larger sizes. After months of mostly XS and S DLs (even that sale hasn't done much for me) this is really nice :)
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My results for "Morocco" look more like the iphone screenshot, but not in the same order.
The conspiracy theorist in me figures that they are making the best match shifts too hard to keep track of by implementing them at different times for different locations and soon they will push wholly owned content to accounts that aren't submitters. In reality they are probably trying to push their best guess of what the buyer wants with an accent on expensive and exclusive content.
I can see the value of showing local results for a search like "coins", but in general I don't like it when sites try to guess what I want instead of showing me what I am asking for.
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If you ask for "Best Match", you ARE asking them to guess what you want!
My understanding of how this country specific display thing is supposed to work is that they try to identify the area you are in, then weight the results based on what other buyers from that area have downloaded in the past. That's all. Nothing sinister about that as far as I can tell; if it's not what you want, ask for a different sort.
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What part of Spain are you? I live in Madrid :)
I'm in Granada at the moment - but just stopping through, probably to Alicante next week, then heading east.
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Today's sales are atrocious. Certainly hoping this best match shift is temporary
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its been going downhill since march. i cant even tell if its a best match shift or the result of less buyers/more competition.
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I think the new best match is quite good. One of my new files has made it to the top of a very popular search, and I'm an independent :)
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My results for "Morocco" look more like the iphone screenshot, but not in the same order.
The conspiracy theorist in me figures that they are making the best match shifts too hard to keep track of by implementing them at different times for different locations and soon they will push wholly owned content to accounts that aren't submitters. In reality they are probably trying to push their best guess of what the buyer wants with an accent on expensive and exclusive content.
I can see the value of showing local results for a search like "coins", but in general I don't like it when sites try to guess what I want instead of showing me what I am asking for.
I don't think you can call yourself a conspiracy theorist when time and time again, many people prove the theory that you are putting forth. The only people who don't think it's a conspiracy are the ones that keep making good money even when the best match shifts. And that is a very small percentage of the total number of contributors at istock. They just keep posting over and over again that all is well and sales are good so that it seems like all is grand for everyone. ::)
The best match shifts are always going to benefit someone at istock. But the majority are going to (continue to) get screwed.
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The best match shifts are always going to benefit someone at istock. But the majority are going to (continue to) get screwed.
Surely, if the same number of sales are being spread between the same number of contributors, shouldn't the number of winners and losers of any best match change be roughly equal?
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The best match shifts are always going to benefit someone at istock. But the majority are going to (continue to) get screwed.
I don't see how you can state constantly that the majority of contributors are being screwed. perhaps the majority of contributors here - particularly independents admittedly hit very hard at iStock of late. but you can't speak for the majority of iStock contributors though you often state these 'facts'...MSG isn't exactly a statistically relevant sample group of microstock contributors
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seems that members who have photo before 2005 are selling well, instead, members after 2005/2006 are selling too bad, is it possible ?
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seems that members who have photo before 2005 are selling well, instead, members after 2005/2006 are selling too bad, is it possible ?
It seems so, since many report old non-sellers selling from the moment this constant best match shifting started. That's why my sales are stagnant at best, before that they were constantly rising for almost a year (from the day I started). BTW I usually upload more and better stuff then before, sales at other sites are proving that
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The best match shifts are always going to benefit someone at istock. But the majority are going to (continue to) get screwed.
Surely, if the same number of sales are being spread between the same number of contributors, shouldn't the number of winners and losers of any best match change be roughly equal?
Yes, and the problem is, the best match shifts hourly if not by the minute and by location and by previous views and for all we know the phases of the Moon, day of the week and the Aztec calendar. People need to STOP obsessing about the best match and what it's doing. It's making them superstitious and insane. It's always changing, we can't do anything about it, and what you pointed out is absolute fact.
If someone goes down, someone else must go up. There's no way around it. There will be winners and losers, but there's no majority of anything happening to anyone except that everything keeps changing.
I had a terrible July. Does that mean there's some conspiracy or maybe people didn't need my images, so they didn't buy them. And if in December I suddenly have my best month in five years, is that some magic conspiracy too and I'm getting an unfair boost. Not in my opinion. It's random and depends on what buyers want. I seem to do better when school is in session, just the way it goes with what I have, which is not marketing or advertising oriented. Isolations, stuff and things, no people pictures. Makes sense that my buyers are on vacation for three months out of the year. Hey great, they are back...
Now if everyone is dropping and buyers are going someplace else, that has nothing to do with best match changes, does it? ???
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I've had a lot of older pics downloaded last week. so I'm happy about that! and downloads picked up a bit, too. at least for me. :)
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sales may be sales, but I'm not happy when the best match favours old files. it means new files are being indexed and basically pushed to the back, potentially never to be seen. I stop uploading when this happens for the most part. best match right now is messed....I don't like it even though sales numbers are up and down, generally average for August.
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sales may be sales, but I'm not happy when the best match favours old files. it means new files are being indexed and basically pushed to the back, potentially never to be seen. I stop uploading when this happens for the most part. best match right now is messed....I don't like it even though sales numbers are up and down, generally average for August.
With so many images, both old and new, there has to be a balance struck in the best match. Right now I think they have it about right. For example I've just searched on a subject (omelet) which had over 1400 results. Out of the first 100 images, when sorted by best match, 13 of them had zero downloads. New images are getting their time in the sun but not excessively so.
Don't forget every unproven new image is, at least for a time, displacing older proven work which may be far better. In the past Istock has rewarded artists who continually uploaded tons of mediocre images to the cost of artists who were more selective and uploaded fewer but much better images. In those days images were effectively being killed off once they were 6 months old. That's not the way to build a high-quality library.
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sales may be sales, but I'm not happy when the best match favours old files. it means new files are being indexed and basically pushed to the back, potentially never to be seen. I stop uploading when this happens for the most part. best match right now is messed....I don't like it even though sales numbers are up and down, generally average for August.
With so many images, both old and new, there has to be a balance struck in the best match. Right now I think they have it about right. For example I've just searched on a subject (omelet) which had over 1400 results. Out of the first 100 images, when sorted by best match, 13 of them had zero downloads. New images are getting their time in the sun but not excessively so.
Don't forget every unproven new image is, at least for a time, displacing older proven work which may be far better. In the past Istock has rewarded artists who continually uploaded tons of mediocre images to the cost of artists who were more selective and uploaded fewer but much better images. In those days images were effectively being killed off once they were 6 months old. That's not the way to build a high-quality library.
^^^^
This.
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sales may be sales, but I'm not happy when the best match favours old files. it means new files are being indexed and basically pushed to the back, potentially never to be seen. I stop uploading when this happens for the most part. best match right now is messed....I don't like it even though sales numbers are up and down, generally average for August.
With so many images, both old and new, there has to be a balance struck in the best match. Right now I think they have it about right. For example I've just searched on a subject (omelet) which had over 1400 results. Out of the first 100 images, when sorted by best match, 13 of them had zero downloads. New images are getting their time in the sun but not excessively so.
Don't forget every unproven new image is, at least for a time, displacing older proven work which may be far better. In the past Istock has rewarded artists who continually uploaded tons of mediocre images to the cost of artists who were more selective and uploaded fewer but much better images. In those days images were effectively being killed off once they were 6 months old. That's not the way to build a high-quality library.
I guess I disagree that the best match is optimal right now. I completely agree about striking a balance. and that old (and not necessarily better images) should not displace proven sellers permanently. but, every new file is potentially a best seller and should get some visibility (I don't care if that happens initially or at a later point). the problem is that I believe some files, depending on best match conditions when they are uploaded, never see the light of day.
theoretically these mass uploaders adding poor-quality work should find their files dropping back in the best match due to lack of performance anyways, so I don't believe the best match is designed to reward 'quality' uploaders, which is a highly subjective judgment anyways. conversely, I'm sure there are as many mass uploaders who upload quality work as there are minimalist uploaders who add poor quality images.
just do a search on files that get downloaded versus some of the most amazing but never-downloaded content on sites.
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I guess I disagree that the best match is optimal right now. I completely agree about striking a balance. and that old (and not necessarily better images) should not displace proven sellers permanently. every new file is potentially a best seller and should get some initial visibility. theoretically these mass uploaders adding poor-quality work should find their files dropping back in the best match due to lack of performance anyways, so I don't believe the best match is designed to reward 'quality' uploaders, which is a highly subjective judgment anyways. conversely, I'm sure there are as many mass uploaders who upload quality work as there are minimalist uploaders who add poor quality images.
just do a search on files that get downloaded versus some of the most amazing but never-downloaded content on sites.
Generally speaking the cream does actually rise to the top and the dirt drops to the bottom. It doesn't always happen quickly but it will eventually. I think you need to think in time-scales of two years or more before you can assess whether an image has achieved it's 'rightful' position in the best match sort order and in earnings.
Just because you describe an image as 'most amazing' does not mean it is actually useful. It sounds like you are judging images on artistic merit or technical difficulty which of course have little or nothing to do with stock photography. I know plenty of photographers whose portfolios are full of 'most amazing' images but who have very few sales. It's not because the best match was nasty to them but because their work was not commercially oriented.
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we are discussing about best match or regional searches ?
Lobo said
The folks who operate the levers say best match hasn't been adjusted since July. Period. Sorry to disappoint but that's directly from the hooded coven of warlocks responsible.
someone can believe or not
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we are discussing about best match or regional searches ?
Lobo said
The folks who operate the levers say best match hasn't been adjusted since July. Period. Sorry to disappoint but that's directly from the hooded coven of warlocks responsible.
someone can believe or not
Interesting. My steady (but fairly lackluster) sales would suggest that is true. But there are so many people reporting drops in August I just assumed there had been some tinkering going on...
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My recent xtra small sales of stale, moldy and frankly not my best images suggests to me that the price slider is being used by buyers.
Old cheap non Vetta, non-"Plus" files are getting attention.
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we are discussing about best match or regional searches ?
Lobo said
The folks who operate the levers say best match hasn't been adjusted since July. Period. Sorry to disappoint but that's directly from the hooded coven of warlocks responsible.
someone can believe or not
Interesting. My steady (but fairly lackluster) sales would suggest that is true. But there are so many people reporting drops in August I just assumed there had been some tinkering going on...
yeah, I don't think I believe that comment. though I don't believe Lobo would lie, my regular 'check' searches are all returning different and wacky results. so perhaps it isn't a best match shift, but that doesn't mean they haven't flipped some regional switch or some other switch to on or off--that was already technically an inactive or dormant aspect of the July best match.
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I thought we were informed that the best match is always changing. Perhaps the best match continually changing is indeed the best match not changing because the best match changing is the status quo for the best match?... LOL! I made a much sense as Lobo!
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Lobo probably meant that best match had been on auto-pilot since July.
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Just because you describe an image as 'most amazing' does not mean it is actually useful. It sounds like you are judging images on artistic merit or technical difficulty which of course have little or nothing to do with stock photography. I know plenty of photographers whose portfolios are full of 'most amazing' images but who have very few sales. It's not because the best match was nasty to them but because their work was not commercially oriented.
I'm referring to what I would consider commercially-oriented files. not Vetta-style stuff. there are a lot of great stock files that also go ignored and it can probably be attributed to their best match placement when indexed. it's a crapshoot. personally I think it's important to apply some strategy to uploading these days with a collection of over 10 million files.
in any case, if there hasn't been a best match change than something else is going on. today has not started off any better than last week. in fact it's even worse. no idea what is going on in terms of dls the last few weeks. up and down, up and down. last few days down down down....sigh
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Funny reading all this :) anybody ever stopped to consider that micro on the whole, is slipping? might just have had its glory days, or is that too scary a thought.
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Funny reading all this :) anybody ever stopped to consider that micro on the whole, is slipping? might just have had its glory days, or is that too scary a thought.
Yeah I really think you should stop bothering uploading to new agencies, furthermore I think you should pull all your MS ports and focus on macro/your own sales channel ;) . That being said i just realized it would make any difference, any impact on my sales, since I don't have nothing even remotely industrial in my ports ::)
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there is something going on today or my sales are just dried up and that's that. seriously, my sales literally stopped last night. I'm doing my best not to freak out. I'm down by 60% for this time of day and number of dls...unbelievable.
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there is something going on today or my sales are just dried up and that's that. seriously, my sales literally stopped last night. I'm doing my best not to freak out. I'm down by 60% for this time of day and number of dls...unbelievable.
This makes no sense. How could you be 60% down for this time of day if your DLs stopped yesterday?
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you're right. sorry, should have reread my comment before posting. I meant that I should have 60% of my normal average for daily dls by now and I have not had a single sale since last night, which is unprecedented for me on a weekday.
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C'mon, it's August, 15th!
In a normal year - before the whole Istock issue - we'd have simply called this summer slump.
I think I'll stop looking for reasons, and wait for September before worrying too much.
All these discussions are keeping me away from shooting new pictures. Not good: in the end - whatever will happen to micro or macro or any future declination of stock photography - our port is our only asset.
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you're right. sorry, should have reread my comment before posting. I meant that I should have 60% of my normal average for daily dls by now and I have not had a single sale since last night, which is unprecedented for me on a weekday.
Just to let you know it's a big Catholic holiday today, that could be the reason for not getting anything so far (from the larger part of Europe), sales in North America have really just started a few hours ago...
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you're right. sorry, should have reread my comment before posting. I meant that I should have 60% of my normal average for daily dls by now and I have not had a single sale since last night, which is unprecedented for me on a weekday.
Just to let you know it's a big Catholic holiday today, that could be the reason for not getting anything so far (from the larger part of Europe), sales in North America have really just started a few hours ago...
well, thank you, hope it's that though I doubt a holiday like that would cause a total shutdown. I even get dls on Christmas
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there is something going on today or my sales are just dried up and that's that. seriously ...
It's been a fairly slow day so far at all agencies that I'm on. Mid-August plus apparently this religious holiday thing.
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you're right. sorry, should have reread my comment before posting. I meant that I should have 60% of my normal average for daily dls by now and I have not had a single sale since last night, which is unprecedented for me on a weekday.
Just to let you know it's a big Catholic holiday today, that could be the reason for not getting anything so far (from the larger part of Europe), sales in North America have really just started a few hours ago...
well, thank you, hope it's that though I doubt a holiday like that would cause a total shutdown. I even get dls on Christmas
JFI, no holiday in the UK. But yes, sales are grim. :'(
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Sales are terrible for me too. Last Saturday was the first day for the month when I got no DL.
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there is something going on today or my sales are just dried up and that's that. seriously, my sales literally stopped last night. I'm doing my best not to freak out. I'm down by 60% for this time of day and number of dls...unbelievable.
Stacey! dont worry. I cant see any best match change either. I am actually having a good day at IS but it might be my down turn tomorrow, seems to go in circles.
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you're right. sorry, should have reread my comment before posting. I meant that I should have 60% of my normal average for daily dls by now and I have not had a single sale since last night, which is unprecedented for me on a weekday.
Just to let you know it's a big Catholic holiday today, that could be the reason for not getting anything so far (from the larger part of Europe), sales in North America have really just started a few hours ago...
well, thank you, hope it's that though I doubt a holiday like that would cause a total shutdown. I even get dls on Christmas
Let us know if you get any by the end of the day;). If you don't, than something weird is really going on (I got an XL DL in the morning and another XS just an hour ago and I'm just an indie bronze)
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I've just had two dls, one agency....so that helps. but my numbers are way below where they would normally be and I'm getting very similar reports from contributors who I tend to keep tabs with. they're not just down, they are in a dl desert today like me....I'm sure it isn't true for everyone, it never is. and I don't wish it on anyone! thanks for the feedback all...
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I've just had two dls, one agency....so that helps. but my numbers are way below where they would normally be and I'm getting very similar reports from contributors who I tend to keep tabs with. they're not just down, they are in a dl desert today like me....I'm sure it isn't true for everyone, it never is. and I don't wish it on anyone! thanks for the feedback all...
I got only my third dl of the day but it was an EL ;D
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Sales are terrible for me too. Last Saturday was the first day for the month when I got no DL.
Saturday was the first day since October 2008 that I didn't get a download. ;D
I've had some 1 or 2 dl weekend days during that time but no shut outs.
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I've just had two dls, one agency....so that helps. but my numbers are way below where they would normally be and I'm getting very similar reports from contributors who I tend to keep tabs with. they're not just down, they are in a dl desert today like me....I'm sure it isn't true for everyone, it never is. and I don't wish it on anyone! thanks for the feedback all...
I got only my third dl of the day but it was an EL ;D
enjoy! should cover a nice bottle of wine....and maybe postage to Canada for another bottle of wine ;D
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there is something going on today or my sales are just dried up and that's that. seriously, my sales literally stopped last night. I'm doing my best not to freak out. I'm down by 60% for this time of day and number of dls...unbelievable.
Welcome on board. I'm on this sinking boat since 8th of August.
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there is something going on today or my sales are just dried up and that's that. seriously, my sales literally stopped last night. I'm doing my best not to freak out. I'm down by 60% for this time of day and number of dls...unbelievable.
Welcome on board. I'm on this sinking boat since 8th of August.
I'm sorry to hear that. I don't wish sales angst on anyone. bizarrely my dls are now popping in regularly like they usually do....so I have no idea what happened between 11pm last night and 2pm today. hoping everyone else is seeing sales coming in again too.
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@SNP
same here, completely shutdown
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@SNP
same here, completely shutdown
weird sales patterns. who knows. hope yours pick up too. mine are more normal again as of 2pm. maybe a fluke, but it seems too much of a contrast.
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@SNP
same here, completely shutdown
+1. For me a dismal August so far.
July was already poor, but half way through August neither downloads nor $$ are anywhere near half of July's (low) level.
It's not looking good.
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Well it was definitely a holiday in continental Europe - in the case of spain it meant the virtually everything was shut down. Strangely though I had DLs durring European day, but they stopped when the US usually starts to come through.
Sales patterns have been very strange in the last few weeks. My concern is that there is a bug in reporting sales, particularly due to the big drop-offs that seem to periodically happen at the moment. Of course there's never a real way of verifying any of these things.
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Sales patterns have been very strange in the last few weeks. My concern is that there is a bug in reporting sales, particularly due to the big drop-offs that seem to periodically happen at the moment. Of course there's never a real way of verifying any of these things.
You could always organise a group of contributors with similar concerns, pool a few dollars, buy some credits and do some test purchases from each others' portfolios at suspicious times. You'd soon find if there was any bugs in the reporting system.
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Sales patterns have been very strange in the last few weeks. My concern is that there is a bug in reporting sales, particularly due to the big drop-offs that seem to periodically happen at the moment. Of course there's never a real way of verifying any of these things.
You could always organise a group of contributors with similar concerns, pool a few dollars, buy some credits and do some test purchases from each others' portfolios at suspicious times. You'd soon find if there was any bugs in the reporting system.
you may find I'm overly cautious but I wouldn't do this and I'd be careful recommending it. it could be construed as gaming the system, obviously not for malicious purposes, but I wouldn't take the chance. I agree Holger that it's almost as though there was a delay in reporting. to go 15 hours with nothing and then boom, my regular pattern of dls coming in, odd.
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Last week when adding a banner to a file's description, I noticed the file had 2 dls on it's home page, but only 1 reported on the upload page. I probably wouldn't have noticed, except that it had only just been accepted and 2 dls with only 4 views would have been a world record for me.
Anyway, when the second sale didn't report itself in a few days, I contacted Support and they said it was a glitch, there was only one sale, and it would be fixed 'sometime'. (It's still showing as two sales on its 'home page').
Probably nothing to worry about, but whatever causes that kind of glitch could cause others.
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Well it was definitely a holiday in continental Europe - in the case of spain it meant the virtually everything was shut down. Strangely though I had DLs durring European day, but they stopped when the US usually starts to come through.
Sales patterns have been very strange in the last few weeks. My concern is that there is a bug in reporting sales, particularly due to the big drop-offs that seem to periodically happen at the moment. Of course there's never a real way of verifying any of these things.
I had a file showing 2 DLs, but when I check the earnings, there was only 1 sale. I wrote to CR, asking what happened to the 2nd sale, but they just said the second didn't happen. Now what am I to do...I can't do sheat, but stay calm a not think about possibly being ripped off
ETA just noticed the same thing happened to Liz
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I've just calculated I'm past 60% of my BME. So far so good, with a EL or 2 and pace like this it could be an awesome month and would more than adequately make up for losses at SS due to insane rejections and fresh content not getting online and selling. It looks like in a few weeks my IS port will outgrow my SS port :o
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I've just calculated I'm past 60% of my BME. So far so good, with a EL or 2 and pace like this it could be an awesome month and would more than adequately make up for losses at SS due to insane rejections and fresh content not getting online and selling. It looks like in a few weeks my IS port will outgrow my SS port :o
that's good, well done.
to summarize my sales from yesterday; I ended up with my normal amount of dls all coming in after 2pm Toronto time. So I had a fifteen hour zero download stretch, which has never happened to me on a weekday. I still feel something weird was happening, either with reporting or who knows. I did open a CR ticket to let them know something was up. cheers.
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I noticed a major best match shake this morning. One i'm not used to seeing. Hope is for the better.
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I noticed a major best match shake this morning. One i'm not used to seeing. Hope is for the better.
Interesting that there's been a big shake in your results - with my location & settings there doesn't seem to be a big difference.
I just re-did some of the search terms from yesterday's location test - pregnant, cityscape and food and compared the results. Using the same locations/machine/browser/cookies and all that, the files returned yesterday and today looked very similar, with little more than a few files swapping position in the best match.
Seems we're gradually moving further away from a monolithic 'Best Match' that's consistent for everyone towards a kind of 'Tailored Match'. I think that's good in lots of ways - especially if it means no longer having a few files always dominating certain big searches all over the world, all of the time.
Seems to me that a problem with adding more and more complexity to the Best Match is that it becomes even more difficult for HQ to have a clue about the consequences of the changes they make.
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My sales are at about 50% of where they usually are for this time on a Tuesday.
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My sales are at about 50% of where they usually are for this time on a Tuesday.
that sucks Sean. mine are slow too, compared to yesterday though they seem better. hope it improves, any theories about what's happening?
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My sales are at about 50% of where they usually are for this time on a Tuesday.
that sucks Sean. mine are slow too, compared to yesterday though they seem better. hope it improves, any theories about what's happening?
I woke up this morning to very low overnight sales as well. Whatever it is, it looks like it's affecting us all. Must be the holiday in Europe.
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My sales are at about 50% of where they usually are for this time on a Tuesday.
Trust me it is slow everywhere this week. Yesterday at FT my sales numbers were at weekend levels and today they are not much better. If FT's main market is Europe then they may be hit the most by European holidays.
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It's hard to tell. Most People in media and advertising agencies usually take vacation in august.
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My sales are at about 50% of where they usually are for this time on a Tuesday.
Trust me it is slow everywhere this week. Yesterday at FT my sales numbers were at weekend levels and today they are not much better. If FT's main market is Europe then they may be hit the most by European holidays.
I'll second that. Sales across the board were very slow yesterday. They appear to have picked up somewhat today, but still grim summer numbers.
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It's hard to tell. Most People in media and advertising agencies usually take vacation in august.
I guess it's a combination of factors. though last August I didn't see this kind of sales pattern.
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I just searched Dublin (Ireland - county Dublin) again to see if my fairly recent uploads had risen in the best match. 0 results logged in in Firefox, even after three refreshes and 0 results logged out in IE. I'm sure it's "just a glitch" and that it will be OK in a minute or two, but like the last time (a couple of weeks ago) I wonder how often it happens, and how much it puts off buyers - do they have tactics to deal with it, 'try again in a few minutes' or 'go elsewhere' like you'd do if a shop had a 'back in ten minutes' sign and you were in a hurry.
(The last time, I searched on 'horse', got thousands of hits, then searched on Dublin and the results came up. This time I got the thousands of 'horse' hits, but when I tried Dublin again, 0 results.)
Later: Now working, but that was almost 20 minutes from when I first tried to when I got a result.
Later Still: I SM'd Kelvin to ask him to add it to the bugs list, but as it's unreplicable, I'm not holding my breath for it to be fixed.
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My sales are at about 50% of where they usually are for this time on a Tuesday.
Mine too. :(
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im 50% of normal too... god i hope this isnt the new normal.
first sunday in years since no dl...
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My sales are at about 50% of where they usually are for this time on a Tuesday.
Trust me it is slow everywhere this week. Yesterday at FT my sales numbers were at weekend levels and today they are not much better. If FT's main market is Europe then they may be hit the most by European holidays.
I'll second that. Sales across the board were very slow yesterday. They appear to have picked up somewhat today, but still grim summer numbers.
I guess we, low ranking losers, get slightly bigger crumbs than usually. This week is above average, I'd say very good at IS (and the whole month for that matter), sales at the other agencies are average.
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My sales are at about 50% of where they usually are for this time on a Tuesday.
Trust me it is slow everywhere this week. Yesterday at FT my sales numbers were at weekend levels and today they are not much better. If FT's main market is Europe then they may be hit the most by European holidays.
I'll second that. Sales across the board were very slow yesterday. They appear to have picked up somewhat today, but still grim summer numbers.
I guess we, low ranking losers, get slightly bigger crumbs than usually. This week is above average, I'd say very good at IS (and the whole month for that matter), sales at the other agencies are average.
must be one of those "low ranking losers" because I've noticed a slight uptick in sales since last week. today has been pretty good, yesterday was average. I'm also still noticing some of my older files with low downloads getting some "download love" these days as well.
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Something is going on. Once again, my overnight sales are at %25 of what they would be on a Wednesday, even two months ago.
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my week in dollars is now at 50% less than the previous one .... which was in turn lower than before.
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I'm going to comfort you big timers by telling you I haven't had a single DL so far today ;) (so we small timers aren't taking anything from you, I guess it's just a bad day, although it's a Wednesday)
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Something is going on. Once again, my overnight sales are at %25 of what they would be on a Wednesday, even two months ago.
something is definitely up. since last week my sales pattern is up, down, brutal.
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Something is going on. Once again, my overnight sales are at %25 of what they would be on a Wednesday, even two months ago.
something is definitely up. since last week my sales pattern is up, down, brutal.
It's up and down in my case as well, but still those ups more than compensate for the downs:
(http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/266/screenhunter01aug171422.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/717/screenhunter01aug171422.jpg/)
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Sometimes you get used to certain patterns when you expect it but lately the patterns are unexpected, weird, strange and .... ???
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could it be about the weird cookie issue exclusives are discussing in the exclusive forum? I find it odd that the search changes drastically to show more independent files over exclusives at different times.
It could be one of the first decisions by the new part time boss of istock to maximise the companies profit at the expense of exclusives. many of which are complaining about weird severe drops.
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Ok, I'm at work now and what I see on my Best Match images on my PC is totally different than what I see on my ipad and different on my mac at home. So maybe it's the cookie.
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It could be one of the first decisions by the new part time boss of istock to maximise the companies profit at the expense of exclusives. many of which are complaining about weird severe drops.
I see the new leadership is wise. 90% of exclusives wouldn't leave even if their earnings were sliced in half ;) . Not saying I support cutting earnings, but OTOH, it's time we indies finally get some action ;) . They'll get some new exclusives that way ;D . She indeed is a smart girl;)
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Ok, I'm at work now and what I see on my Best Match images on my PC is totally different than what I see on my ipad and different on my mac at home. So maybe it's the cookie.
Mac users are used to paying 3x more for stuff so the best match probably promotes all the expensive images for them.
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weird, severe drop here, too, this month. absolutely brutal. :P
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Ok, I'm at work now and what I see on my Best Match images on my PC is totally different than what I see on my ipad and different on my mac at home. So maybe it's the cookie.
Mac users are used to paying 3x more for stuff so the best match probably promotes all the expensive images for them.
yeah really...lol
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in my case seems that the real problem is the US buyer....in july the 70% of my sales were done after 5 pm (london time), now is not like before, more distribuited in the european afternoon
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Ok, I'm at work now and what I see on my Best Match images on my PC is totally different than what I see on my ipad and different on my mac at home. So maybe it's the cookie.
Mac users are used to paying 3x more for stuff so the best match probably promotes all the expensive images for them.
yeah really...lol
Indeed! ;D
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in my case seems that the real problem is the US buyer....in july the 70% of my sales were done after 5 pm (london time), now is not like before, more distribuited in the european afternoon
USA is in deep sheat, but so is Europe. So the situatuation should be more or less the same, but I've noticed on SS geo map, that I rarely get more sales from USA than from Europe, I usually get twice as much from Europe. But OTOH I've heard from a big time diamond that 75% of the sales at IS are from US
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Something is going on. Once again, my overnight sales are at %25 of what they would be on a Wednesday, even two months ago.
Time to leave exlusivity. For your convenience, I have included a few referral links in my signature. ;D
(that would make me a lot more money than I could ever hope for from my own port...)
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It could be one of the first decisions by the new part time boss of istock to maximise the companies profit at the expense of exclusives. many of which are complaining about weird severe drops.
I see the new leadership is wise. 90% of exclusives wouldn't leave even if their earnings were sliced in half ;) . Not saying I support cutting earnings, but OTOH, it's time we indies finally get some action ;) . They'll get some new exclusives that way ;D . She indeed is a smart girl;)
You can put me down as one of your 10% of exclusives who would drop exclusivity if their earnings were halved :D
If there has been a shift of sales form exclusive to non-exclusive (and there seems to be building direct evidence to support that) I reckon there's a high chance that it wasn't done on purpose. Perhaps there was a change in the price mix of files that he best match returns which had a side-effect of a non-exclusive boost.
But with so many people reporting major changes caused by cookies etc, seems most likely that the plummeting sales for exclusives and rising sales for non-exclusives is an unexpected consequence of something else.
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EVERY best match shift that i have been apart of results in older files selling for the first time.That's the reason the company employs the system.Some dunces believe it's to hurt contributors sales rather than refreshing content for the buyers.It has worked well for a number of years and will continue for the foreseeable feature IMO.
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EVERY best match shift that i have been apart of results in older files selling for the first time.That's the reason the company employs the system.Some dunces believe it's to hurt contributors sales rather than refreshing content for the buyers.It has worked well for a number of years and will continue for the foreseeable feature IMO.
I don't believe the best match changes are ever intended to hurt the contributor's sales. Just to boost one set of content over another. The hurting contributor's sales is just an added value ;D
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EVERY best match shift that i have been apart of results in older files selling for the first time.That's the reason the company employs the system.Some dunces believe it's to hurt contributors sales rather than refreshing content for the buyers.It has worked well for a number of years and will continue for the foreseeable feature IMO.
I don't believe the best match changes are ever intended to hurt the contributor's sales. Just to boost one set of content over another. The hurting contributor's sales is just an added value ;D
Much what I think. It's to get the content they want out in front, any benefit or otherwise to the contributors is incidental. If they keep doing it long enough without taking anything else into consideration. . . Well look what seems to be happening there now!
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August has been really bad. I don't know the reason.
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well I'm still having some decent sales. yesterday was a great day for downloads for me although a lot of small and xsmall purchases so the dollar amount wasn't as high as it could have been. I hope the rest of the week keeps at it.
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Not sure what's going on :-\ but I'm on track for a BME this month. SS has been outperforming IS all year, but they flipped this month.
I'd just about given up hope that my sales would improve on IS but who knows.
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well I'm still having some decent sales. yesterday was a great day for downloads for me although a lot of small and xsmall purchases so the dollar amount wasn't as high as it could have been. I hope the rest of the week keeps at it.
Sort of the opposite for me, the DL numbers are down, but seeing some decent $$ amounts - lots of E+ and large sales, so the totals are ok.
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Are there any other exclusives here seeing an 80% drop in daily income from their summertime average? Incredible really, this is the worst I've seen on iStock.
I can't shake off the feeling this is deliberate, preparing the ground for an "exciting" announcement next month.
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EVERY best match shift that i have been apart of results in older files selling for the first time.That's the reason the company employs the system.Some dunces believe it's to hurt contributors sales rather than refreshing content for the buyers.It has worked well for a number of years and will continue for the foreseeable feature IMO.
I don't believe the best match changes are ever intended to hurt the contributor's sales. Just to boost one set of content over another. The hurting contributor's sales is just an added value ;D
Much what I think. It's to get the content they want out in front, any benefit or otherwise to the contributors is incidental. If they keep doing it long enough without taking anything else into consideration. . . Well look what seems to be happening there now!
Please don't ever presume to tell Istockphoto how to run there business,in this instance best match shift,as it will lead to frustration.
The new content coming before buyers in any best match shift is about timescales/periods when the content got added to the library.If you contribute on a regular basis for a number of years some of your content will be favoured in any best match shift.Reducing the Istock library over the coming months will help control best match and better define any tweeks.....
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Are there any other exclusives here seeing an 80% drop in daily income from their summertime average? Incredible really, this is the worst I've seen on iStock.
Nope; although my dls are low, especially this week, they're a bit better than last August, and $$ better than.
That probably speaks more to how bad last August was for me.
However, I had a really poor Jan - May compared to previous years.
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EVERY best match shift that i have been apart of results in older files selling for the first time.That's the reason the company employs the system.Some dunces believe it's to hurt contributors sales rather than refreshing content for the buyers.It has worked well for a number of years and will continue for the foreseeable feature IMO.
I don't believe the best match changes are ever intended to hurt the contributor's sales. Just to boost one set of content over another. The hurting contributor's sales is just an added value ;D
Much what I think. It's to get the content they want out in front, any benefit or otherwise to the contributors is incidental. If they keep doing it long enough without taking anything else into consideration. . . Well look what seems to be happening there now!
Please don't ever presume to tell Istockphoto how to run there business,in this instance best match shift,as it will lead to frustration.
The new content coming before buyers in any best match shift is about timescales/periods when the content got added to the library.If you contribute on a regular basis for a number of years some of your content will be favoured in any best match shift.Reducing the Istock library over the coming months will help control best match and better define any tweeks.....
I don't presume anything. I'm giving my opinion based on observation of what is happening over there, which also happens to be more or less the same as someone else's opinion. You're the one who is always making statements about how the business should be run or is run, as if you have some special knowledge of the insider workings of it or are some sort of business guru. That's presumptuous.
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...Reducing the Istock library over the coming months will help control best match and better define any tweeks.....
I have a sickening feeling you're not talking out of your arse on this one. No point asking where the info is coming from as you would probably say "The Pixies told me".
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...Reducing the Istock library over the coming months will help control best match and better define any tweeks.....
I have a sickening feeling you're not talking out of your arse on this one. No point asking where the info is coming from as you would probably say "The Pixies told me".
The istock forum no less...You did read Thommo's leaving post?
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EVERY best match shift that i have been apart of results in older files selling for the first time.That's the reason the company employs the system.Some dunces believe it's to hurt contributors sales rather than refreshing content for the buyers.It has worked well for a number of years and will continue for the foreseeable feature IMO.
I don't believe the best match changes are ever intended to hurt the contributor's sales. Just to boost one set of content over another. The hurting contributor's sales is just an added value ;D
Much what I think. It's to get the content they want out in front, any benefit or otherwise to the contributors is incidental. If they keep doing it long enough without taking anything else into consideration. . . Well look what seems to be happening there now!
Please don't ever presume to tell Istockphoto how to run there business,in this instance best match shift,as it will lead to frustration.
The new content coming before buyers in any best match shift is about timescales/periods when the content got added to the library.If you contribute on a regular basis for a number of years some of your content will be favoured in any best match shift.Reducing the Istock library over the coming months will help control best match and better define any tweeks.....
I don't presume anything. I'm giving my opinion based on observation of what is happening over there, which also happens to be more or less the same as someone else's opinion. You're the one who is always making statements about how the business should be run or is run, as if you have some special knowledge of the insider workings of it or are some sort of business guru. That's presumptuous.
..AND you might be just contentious.My business is managed by a highly skilled team who gather on a weekly basis around the kitchen table and discuss sales stragegy.I'm the boss and get the most biscuits to dunk in my hot tea.....
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i don't know what is happened today, but my sales are now at the 60% worst of yesterday.....also worst than monday....
yesterday night ( European time) my sales were going very well but today is terrible :(
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i don't know what is happened today, but my sales are now at the 60% worst of yesterday.....also worst than monday....
yesterday night ( European time) my sales were going very well but today is terrible :(
+1 Todays sales are worse than a usual weekend day.
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i don't know what is happened today, but my sales are now at the 60% worst of yesterday.....also worst than monday....
yesterday night ( European time) my sales were going very well but today is terrible :(
+1 Todays sales are worse than a usual weekend day.
Me3: not one sale so far today: 20.37 BST.
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mine are slow again too. I can't help but feel we're teetering on the edge of a big scary fall announcement as they play around with the back end....hopefully not.
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the amazing thing that seems to be on a roller coaster, one day 40 another day 15, my rational explanations for all this are finishing .... I don't think it's caused by best to match or cookies, but something else....i'm very very sad...
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mine are slow again too. I can't help but feel we're teetering on the edge of a big scary fall announcement as they play around with the back end....hopefully not.
Looks like Ft took the lead this time and IS is going to be the one following with the cuts.
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The new part time boss is enjoying herself by hitting the on/off switch to contributors ports. just like the easy button that staples has ;D
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The new part time boss is enjoying herself by hitting the on/off switch to contributors ports. just like the easy button that staples has ;D
I hope she hits Turbo on mine ;)
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'sup big timers? You must be having a great day, since mine sucks, only 2 DLs so far :(
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Double sales figures every day this week.Hopely summer is ending and we can get some decent wonga for our xmas shopping...
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Is anyone else seeing a delay in sales being reported?
I just came back to see two additional sales from yesterday that weren't here a couple of hours ago. Still an awful day if that's all there was, but I'm starting to think there is a problem with the way sales are currently being reported at iStock, more so than a change with the best match.
Something is definitely screwy.
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I have not noticed yesterday's sales added today, but I can only say that yesterday was 50% less for dwn compared with to 2 days ago and 65% for $ less than 2 days ago....
I believe that today will end badly, like yesterday. ???
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Is anyone else seeing a delay in sales being reported?
I just came back to see two additional sales from yesterday that weren't here a couple of hours ago. Still an awful day if that's all there was, but I'm starting to think there is a problem with the way sales are currently being reported at iStock, more so than a change with the best match.
Something is definitely screwy.
I'm starting to keep written tabs on my figures because simply remembering them from one logon to the next doesn't work anymore... I've had too many days when things were out of whack. There does seem to be a delay too.
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My sales have returned to the usual low levels and judging by inactivity in this thread lately, so have for the big timers, who enjoy their 3-4 figure daily sales :)
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...Reducing the Istock library over the coming months will help control best match and better define any tweeks.....
I have a sickening feeling you're not talking out of your arse on this one. No point asking where the info is coming from as you would probably say "The Pixies told me".
The istock forum no less...You did read Thommo's leaving post?
Link so we can all read it????
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...Reducing the Istock library over the coming months will help control best match and better define any tweeks.....
I have a sickening feeling you're not talking out of your arse on this one. No point asking where the info is coming from as you would probably say "The Pixies told me".
The istock forum no less...You did read Thommo's leaving post?
Link so we can all read it????
Not exactly hard to find.
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=332782&page=1 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=332782&page=1)
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I have not noticed yesterday's sales added today, but I can only say that yesterday was 50% less for dwn compared with to 2 days ago and 65% for $ less than 2 days ago....
I believe that today will end badly, like yesterday. ???
Any progress - maybe its paranoia, but I'm starting to wonder if uploading a lot is actually hurting total sales - I notice some of those complaining most are also uploading the most content. From my end its looking bad again today after a decent weekend and ok monday.
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I have not noticed yesterday's sales added today, but I can only say that yesterday was 50% less for dwn compared with to 2 days ago and 65% for $ less than 2 days ago....
I believe that today will end badly, like yesterday. ???
Any progress - maybe its paranoia, but I'm starting to wonder if uploading a lot is actually hurting total sales - I notice some of those complaining most are also uploading the most content. From my end its looking bad again today after a decent weekend and ok monday.
Yesterday was my second-best day of the year for DLs, though not for $$$, but today I'm having my third successive Terrible Tuesday. All in all, though, I'm ahead of last August for $$$ already. But I will never forget my 'lost 5%' - I should be doing better.
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It's like somebody put an embargo on my photos; no sales today, just one yesterday, looks like they're constantly leveling the field. Are they trying to give everybody a chance, lol ?
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yesterday my non esclusive friend said me that was for him a great day.....
do you know that we are on a roller coaster from a month ?
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Sales have been very good! the last four days, its really picked up and its about time, really.
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I spotted a couple of best match searches where it wasn't the same old, same old at the top, but new low-selling files. These were 'less popular' search terms. Certainly in some of my usual tests, it's the same V/A at the top. But maybe they're trying out different BMs.
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do you know that we are on a roller coaster from a month ?
Indeed, but some are going up and down a few dozen dollar, some tens of thousands of dollars. I know what most of you are thinking right now, but it really probably is just the opposite from what I'm thinking ;) . Because I think the latter have absolutely nothing to complain ;) . I'd absolutely enjoy saying every month I went down 40/20/80k from previous month.
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slovenian i don't know who you are on istock, so i can't image how many dwn for day do you do...but when i speak about roller coaster i mean that one day have 15/20 sales and another 40...and this is terrible..
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slovenian i don't know who you are on istock, so i can't image how many dwn for day do you do...but when i speak about roller coaster i mean that one day have 15/20 sales and another 40...and this is terrible..
I'm just a bronze, lately not even getting over 100 DLs/month. Meaning I get even less than usually, contrary to those that have already made millions and don't really need the cash (unless they're super greedy), it's probably just a prestige thing for them, a game, driven by high ambition :) . Of course I'm getting a bit off topic, just pointing out, whining from superstars is absurd (but of course we need their stats since they're the most representative). The bottom line is, things are really bad lately, especially since it looked like I'm going to have a BME by a large margin
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slovenian i don't know who you are on istock, so i can't image how many dwn for day do you do...but when i speak about roller coaster i mean that one day have 15/20 sales and another 40...and this is terrible..
I'm just a bronze, lately not even getting over 100 DLs/month. Meaning I get even less than usually, contrary to those that have already made millions and don't really need the cash (unless they're super greedy), it's probably just a prestige thing for them, a game, driven by high ambition :) . Of course I'm getting a bit off topic, just pointing out, whining from superstars is absurd (but of course we need their stats since they're the most representative). The bottom line is, things are really bad lately, especially since it looked like I'm going to have a BME by a large margin
Sorry, where are the "whining superstars"? I don't see any really big players around here other than Sean, and he's not much into whining.
I like to whine, and I am one of the bigger selling independents on Istock, but my numbers are nowhere near 80/40/20k per month. Much less "millions".
Out of curiosity, how unsuccessful, low-producing, lazy, or just plain untalented does one have to be to justify "whining" in your opinion?
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slovenian i don't know who you are on istock, so i can't image how many dwn for day do you do...but when i speak about roller coaster i mean that one day have 15/20 sales and another 40...and this is terrible..
That's pretty level compared to my up and downs, in relative terms.
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Sorry, where are the "whining superstars"? I don't see any really big players around here other than Sean, and he's not much into whining.
I like to whine, and I am one of the bigger selling independents on Istock, but my numbers are nowhere near 80/40/20k per month. Much less "millions".
Out of curiosity, how unsuccessful, low-producing, lazy, or just plain untalented does one have to be to justify "whining" in your opinion?
1. Everywhere, in so many threads at MSG. Also at agency's forums, just read the threads about monthly earnings ;)
2. I never said I was talking about you, now you've just made it clear ;) .
3. I guess you missed what I wrote in parenthesis. Of course you can be rude to us, incompetent low earners. Like (you think) I was towards big sellers. Fair enough, I don't mind it at all ;)
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Sorry, where are the "whining superstars"? I don't see any really big players around here other than Sean, and he's not much into whining.
I like to whine, and I am one of the bigger selling independents on Istock, but my numbers are nowhere near 80/40/20k per month. Much less "millions".
Out of curiosity, how unsuccessful, low-producing, lazy, or just plain untalented does one have to be to justify "whining" in your opinion?
1. Everywhere, in so many threads at MSG. Also at agency's forums, just read the threads about monthly earnings ;)
2. I never said I was talking about you, now you've just made it clear ;) .
3. I guess you missed what I wrote in parenthesis. Of course you can be rude to us, incompetent low earners. Like (you think) I was towards big sellers. Fair enough, I don't mind it at all ;)
I think its you being rude. You come to this forum anonymously, ask the questions that have been asked a million times, complain about the standard problems newbs complain about (oh no SS is rejecting my stuff - for example), don't listen to advice that's given because you already know it and then talk about some mysterious established contributors as "whining". At the same time its clear to al of those that have been here more than 5 minutes that you're someone who hasn't got a clue, doesn't have the sense to realise that and or to stop and think before you post.
Ever wondered why 19 people are ignoring you in the less than 12 months you've been here?
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Sorry, where are the "whining superstars"? I don't see any really big players around here other than Sean, and he's not much into whining.
I like to whine, and I am one of the bigger selling independents on Istock, but my numbers are nowhere near 80/40/20k per month. Much less "millions".
Out of curiosity, how unsuccessful, low-producing, lazy, or just plain untalented does one have to be to justify "whining" in your opinion?
1. Everywhere, in so many threads at MSG. Also at agency's forums, just read the threads about monthly earnings ;)
2. I never said I was talking about you, now you've just made it clear ;) .
3. I guess you missed what I wrote in parenthesis. Of course you can be rude to us, incompetent low earners. Like (you think) I was towards big sellers. Fair enough, I don't mind it at all ;)
I think its you being rude. You come to this forum anonymously, ask the questions that have been asked a million times, complain about the standard problems newbs complain about (oh no SS is rejecting my stuff - for example), don't listen to advice that's given because you already know it and then talk about some mysterious established contributors as "whining". At the same time its clear to al of those that have been here more than 5 minutes that you're someone who hasn't got a clue, doesn't have the sense to realise that and or to stop and think before you post.
Ever wondered why 19 people are ignoring you in the less than 12 months you've been here?
+1
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I haven't, nor do I care ;) . Isn't it logical I'm asking questions if I'm clueless? Well it's not worth it, you don't seem to be the sharpest knife in the drawer ;)
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new best macth shake this evening all new files have a boost !!! huge boost
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new best macth shake this evening all new files have a boost !!! huge boost
It looks pretty ridiculous like sort by age.
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new best macth shake this evening all new files have a boost !!! huge boost
You're right. It's absurd. It must be a mistake and/or they really don't have a clue what they're doing. Another gift to SS and the others.
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Looks terrible. A lot of very, very old and ugly files, images I was going to deactivate all in front.
I hope it looks better in the morning.
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From Kelvin:
There was a site outtage about 15 minutes ago. People are looking into it.
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What a relief!
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Most of my new images are in the first page. Which is better, to showcase new images or old ones?
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Most of my new images are in the first page. Which is better, to showcase new images or old ones?
Please, buyers, search on Dublin right now before they change it back again. ;D
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it's incredible that the problems is not fix yet !!! these are milion of dollars that istock lose .....
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So many editorial in the first page. Edstock almost everywhere.
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Search results really are terrible. I got 6 DLs until early evening and then they completely stopped. Just when I was on the run for once :-\ . I don't think many ppl will buy anything since what they see is mostly shite
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Oh great. I wonder how long we'll have to endure the sales drop. What a pain.
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Oh great. I wonder how long we'll have to endure the sales drop. What a pain.
August was too good to be true, so here we have it. Judging by their incredible incompetence (with site problems so far), they won't fix this for days.
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For you maybe. :D
SS and DT were too good to be true for me. Not so much iStock.
I'm happy for you though. Good luck to you.
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Not just for me, but for most, judging be the poll results (the biggest jump among the big 4).
Tnx. And to you too ;)
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it's incredible that the problems is not fix yet !!! these are milion of dollars that istock lose .....
They don't ever seem to want their staff working nights or weekends.
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There's a post this morning from someone called TechVeep (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=333908&messageid=6473574) saying all this is a result of a code push yesterday that broke things.
I'll refrain from saying something snarky like - Oh, there's a surprise; new code on the site breaks a bunch of important working things - as that would be mean (if true).
So it's their highest priority, yada, yada, yada
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There's a post this morning from someone called TechVeep ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=333908&messageid=6473574[/url]) saying all this is a result of a code push yesterday that broke things.
I notice he's only been a 'Member since Feb 2011' so maybe Istock have been recruiting to strengthen their team and procedures. At least he was honest enough to admit that the 'outage' was in fact a self-induced code push.
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Aha! This re-setting of options may explain why I saw a nude lady yesterday. I couldn't quite figure out from the thumbnail what I was seeing and thought it was someone in a body stocking. I took a closer look and... oowerrr Missus! Not quite what one expects with one's afternoon cha.
I actually forgot that the sites carried adult content, since I never have it switched on.
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i have registered maybe another shake....latest images before some vettas ...
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i have registered maybe another shake....latest images before some vettas ...
There's been a big shake since midweek. But again, the best match is different between different searches. On my (personal interest) searches, 'Iceberg' is still prioritising Vettas, 'African Elephant' is prioritising exclusively new files and 'Giraffe' seems totally random at first glance. Whatever, I've lost out on all three. >:(
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if i order my port for best match the latest images accepted wiht some dwns are pushed up , above many vettas
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They've been tweaking the best match slightly continually. Sometimes every few days, sometimes every week or two.
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They've been tweaking the best match slightly continually. Sometimes every few days, sometimes every week or two.
best match in my portfolio and my 'test' searches change multiple times a day lately, and then not at all for a few days....it's really strange. very different pattern than a 'usual' best match tweak, if there is such a thing
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for what i can see now, if i search for example new york city, i see more than 100+ Edstock images with 0 dwn in first page that have bypassed hundreds of pictures with a lot dwn or Vetta ...that's quite incredible also with the filter
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There isnt a best match anymore, its gone. All this best match tweaking is there to favorize certain categories om members. No matter what best match they come up with, its not there for the benefit of the buyer.
Must say its amazing, with all the expertice, all the years of experience and front-runner in this business and STILL, nothing but problems with their search-engine. Hard to believe really.
In one of my searches, giving 50K of results, the entire first page is taken up by images with hardly any dls at all, not new uploads, just mediocre stuff that have hardly sold for the past 10 months.
If they dont buy it then, there not going to buy it now. Jeez!
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It has been a while that following an OK week, I always have a bad week. Is it how the new best match works? This week has been bad.
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This latest best match change ( last night) has all the classic signs of a company who has lost its ambition, its incentive to do business, finding new grounds and avenues, resigned to the fact they will never regain the premiere spot and they are now quite happy to play second violin, as long as they keep already existing clients and contributors.
It clearly show a desperation, a tight rope walk of trying to keep exclusives alive, still keeping the independants. The list of alies is getting thinner and thinner, the average exclusive is full of doubts but dare not mention anything in their own forum.
Could this be the beginning of the end or just the end of the beginning?
TS, is waiting around the corner.
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^^^That seems a bit dramatic, this is only a best match change that can be quite temporary. They need to keep istock strong. TS is going to get flooded with images now, we aren't going to make much there. If sales drop with istock, I doubt many of us will stay there. The only reason I'm there is because I can't afford to lose the income at the moment. If that changes, I'll just leave.
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Well there seems to have been the biggest shift yet overnight. Looks like newer files are doing better, and particularly edstock. In a search for "Berlin" I get 105/200 results from edstock, including many that are full of irrelevant keywords.
Look at this for example, which makes that best match (and isn't even shot in Berlin):
(http://i.istockimg.com/file_thumbview_approve/17620397/2/stock-photo-17620397-sorbians-prepare-for-easter.jpg)
Pick the relevant keywords:
Lifestyles, Horizontal, Outdoors, Tourist, Germany, Museum, Easter, Traditional Culture, Berlin, Season, River, Spree River, Bioreserve, Capital Cities, Human Interest
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Hi Holgs!
Yeah? serbians preparing for Easter? and thats searching "Berlin", as you say not even German. jeez! i sincerely hope this is a temporary best match, a test or something.
Why mixing commercial with editorial? dont get it.
best.
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Buyers can filter out editorial, so I suppose that's not a huge problem for them? The spam keywords are going to annoy editorial buyers, that's good, hopefully they will find what they want here http://www.alamy.com/ (http://www.alamy.com/)
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Buyers can filter out editorial, so I suppose that's not a huge problem for them? The spam keywords are going to annoy editorial buyers, that's good, hopefully they will find what they want here [url]http://www.alamy.com/[/url] ([url]http://www.alamy.com/[/url])
Alamy's search is a load of fetid dingoes' kidneys, I'm afraid.
I'd love Alamy to be successful, but the search certainly isn't going to attract buyers with little time or patience for searching.
For example, three recent poor 'hits' on my files on Alamy:
'man carrying woman' - my file is a woman carrying a man
'sign language' - a sign in the Gaelic language
'crazy children' - children playing crazy golf
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Buyers can filter out editorial, so I suppose that's not a huge problem for them? The spam keywords are going to annoy editorial buyers, that's good, hopefully they will find what they want here [url]http://www.alamy.com/[/url] ([url]http://www.alamy.com/[/url])
Alamy's search is a load of fetid dingoes' kidneys, I'm afraid.
I'd love Alamy to be successful, but the search certainly isn't going to attract buyers with little time or patience for searching.
For example, three recent poor 'hits' on my files on Alamy:
'man carrying woman' - my file is a woman carrying a man
'sign language' - a sign in the Gaelic language
'crazy children' - children playing crazy golf
You just won't give up on this will you? All the words are in the keywords, what do you want the search to do, find images through psychic channeling. Or maybe like IS find words you didn't ask for because they are somehow code related?
It's doing exactly what it's supposed to do, finding the same words as entered in the search.
Yes words can have a few meanings and there can be ambiguity but it's finding precisely what was asked for.
A search is not intelligent and not intuitive. What you ask for is what you get. Or would you rather get something you didn't ask for? ;D
Now back to the regular bashing IS channel. One would think with all the hoops we jump through, the CV and disambiguation, that IS would have the best match on the planet. Instead, it seems to be weighted for random never ending variety? We've already seen that where you are, changes the results. It's also possible that what time of day and just a random selection process is always going on.
The fact that people find a difference just about every day now, should make the point, that rank, sales, age, maybe artist status, collection, and who knows what else are constantly swirling around as the weighting for a search.
Watching it, writing here, or trying to understand why, will not change anything. IS is manipulating, changing and altering the search, all the time! People might as well be chasing the wind or their shadow.
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I don't know what they've done, but I like it!
:)
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Buyers can filter out editorial, so I suppose that's not a huge problem for them? The spam keywords are going to annoy editorial buyers, that's good, hopefully they will find what they want here [url]http://www.alamy.com/[/url] ([url]http://www.alamy.com/[/url])
Alamy's search is a load of fetid dingoes' kidneys, I'm afraid.
I'd love Alamy to be successful, but the search certainly isn't going to attract buyers with little time or patience for searching.
For example, three recent poor 'hits' on my files on Alamy:
'man carrying woman' - my file is a woman carrying a man
'sign language' - a sign in the Gaelic language
'crazy children' - children playing crazy golf
You just won't give up on this will you?
No, but i know it's not going to lead to any improvement. :'(
All the words are in the keywords, what do you want the search to do, find images through psychic channeling. Or maybe like IS find words you didn't ask for because they are somehow code related?
It's doing exactly what it's supposed to do, finding the same words as entered in the search.
Yes words can have a few meanings and there can be ambiguity but it's finding precisely what was asked for.
Actually, the words thrown up in a search result don't "all" have to be in the keywords. They can be taken from the caption or the author's name as we have hashed out before. That's one of the problems.
And if they allowed phrases, like 'crazy golf', a photo of a family (keywords adults, children) playing crazy golf wouldn't show up in a request for 'crazy children'.
Yes, IS's best match is all over the place. RIP BM2 which could have been the 'killer app'.
But Alamy's search must drive buyers nuts.
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Buyers can filter out editorial, so I suppose that's not a huge problem for them? The spam keywords are going to annoy editorial buyers, that's good, hopefully they will find what they want here [url]http://www.alamy.com/[/url] ([url]http://www.alamy.com/[/url])
Alamy's search is a load of fetid dingoes' kidneys, I'm afraid.
I'd love Alamy to be successful, but the search certainly isn't going to attract buyers with little time or patience for searching.
For example, three recent poor 'hits' on my files on Alamy:
'man carrying woman' - my file is a woman carrying a man
'sign language' - a sign in the Gaelic language
'crazy children' - children playing crazy golf
You just won't give up on this will you?
No, but i know it's not going to lead to any improvement. :'(
All the words are in the keywords, what do you want the search to do, find images through psychic channeling. Or maybe like IS find words you didn't ask for because they are somehow code related?
It's doing exactly what it's supposed to do, finding the same words as entered in the search.
Yes words can have a few meanings and there can be ambiguity but it's finding precisely what was asked for.
Actually, the words thrown up in a search result don't "all" have to be in the keywords. They can be taken from the caption or the author's name as we have hashed out before. That's one of the problems.
And if they allowed phrases, like 'crazy golf', a photo of a family (keywords adults, children) playing crazy golf wouldn't show up in a request for 'crazy children'.
Yes, IS's best match is all over the place. RIP BM2 which could have been the 'killer app'.
But Alamy's search must drive buyers nuts.
Nice that we could hijack the thread. Hey how about "Red Square"? And which one were you looking for? Or anything with a red square in it?
The fact that you can fool a search, proves nothing. You need to find something else to keep your hands and mind busy, besides figuring out bad or confusing searches. It only finds what's there!
The fact that the search looks for ALL the words that the artist added to their image, is a benefit. If you are selling, would you like the search to ignore your caption, location, or keywords?
I'll ask again, if you don't want it to find the words you ask for and the words that are connected to the image, what do you want it to find?
Poor searches produce poor results. Bad keywording will give buyers bad results. The search engine doesn't do that, the stupid humans are responsible! The search can only do what we ask it to do, just like a computer. It doesn't have intelligence and isn't intuitive.
And OT, I don't think there is a best match shift on IS. I think the best match is totally screwed and randomly changing all the time with different portions assigned priority. It looks at location of the user, it can look at previous searches, it can look at type of license, age or price or phase of the Moon, and an hour later, change again. Maybe this is the frustration, because some people want to game the search and put their images up top for better placement, and it's been defeated. Some people will be frustrated because they can't manipulate the search to their advantage.
That's my opinion of "Best Match Shift". It's random, always changing and there's no way to analyze it or control it. Might as well live with it and go watch something else that we have no control over?
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I don't know what they've done, but I like it!
:)
They made the best match search like the file age search again. It's not good for anyone because it puts irrelevant and bad images in front of the buyers. I think my sales have increased a little since I have a relatively large amount of newer stuff (11 of my last 20 sales were first timers when normally its 1 or 2 out of 20) but the searches look terrible. It's very unprofessional and we can't even question this in the forums there.
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I don't know what they've done, but I like it!
:)
They made the best match search like the file age search again. It's not good for anyone because it puts irrelevant and bad images in front of the buyers. I think my sales have increased a little since I have a relatively large amount of newer stuff (11 of my last 20 sales were first timers when normally its 1 or 2 out of 20) but the searches look terrible. It's very unprofessional and we can't even question this in the forums there.
I'm not seeing this. Seasonal searches like 'thanksgiving' definitely seem to favour new files. but my usual searches including terms like 'business', 'family' and the rest of my test terms produce a good mix of results today.
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From "brick wall" the first 100 results have at least 10 files from the newest 200 files. Out of the first 16 results by best match only 1 is older than 3 months and I would guess that trend continues for a while.
The "thanksgiving" search is much better, with just a glance it looks like everything is pretty relevant and most images are very nice. It's a different story with "brick wall" though. I would imagine many other searches are like that as well, I've never seen so many 1st time sales at once. For the last 3 days 38% of my sales are first time sellers.
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yeah, "brick wall" produces weird results..."money" produces good results....though I notice the minority of V/A files in many of my searches by best match. interesting.
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Here's today's version of my best match chart. It's interesting that Vetta and Agency have dropped back so much for most terms. One would think, if the price filter were working for buyers, there'd be no need to reduce the Vetta/Agency position - buyers could do that themselves if they wanted. This suggests to me that the no-name confusing dot sliders aren't being used (I suspect because the correlation between dots and collections isn't clear) and cheaper content is being given more slots in the first 200.
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yeah, "brick wall" produces weird results..."money" produces good results....though I notice the minority of V/A files in many of my searches by best match. interesting.
So goodbye yellow brick road. Elton John! ;D
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Word from Lobo within the past hour:
"best match seems to be in a place that the Warlocks are happy with right now."
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=333964&page=6#post6489059 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=333964&page=6#post6489059)
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The number one best match for "South Carolina" the State is an image of someone named Carolina Bacardi who is in Los Angeles. Surprise surprise it's an Edstock image and it is how the Best Match is supposed to be, not a good sign.
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The number one best match for "South Carolina" the State is an image of someone named Carolina Bacardi who is in Los Angeles. Surprise surprise it's an Edstock image and it is how the Best Match is supposed to be, not a good sign.
In addition to that, there's a raft of other incorrectly keyworded images up front. One of the Hooter's Air launch (the shot was in Georgia but got keyworded with SC because the flight was going there), and one of a group of people at a premier for a film (in California) (one of the kids is Carolina).
It's horrible spam
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This isn't spam, but "Ed" has 7 out of the top 10 best match hits for "Grand Central Station".
What was that Joyze said?
"On a technical note, we will be dating these files so that our system recognizes their original creation date, and not the date they are uploaded to iStock. This is being done to ensure that these new files do not dominate our Best Match sort en masse."
Just as well: it could have been worse, since "Ed" has at least another 7 files in the top 50.
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Word from Lobo within the past hour:
"best match seems to be in a place that the Warlocks are happy with right now."
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=333964&page=6#post6489059[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=333964&page=6#post6489059[/url])
I hope they do leave it alone. Somehow this version pushed quite a few of my files closer to the top of the search. Some of my best sellers have dropped slightly but not bad.
Ultimately it may not matter because their dynamic search displays different results in different regions and may also weigh other stuff like buying patterns.
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Word from Lobo within the past hour:
"best match seems to be in a place that the Warlocks are happy with right now."
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=333964&page=6#post6489059[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=333964&page=6#post6489059[/url])
I hope they do leave it alone. Somehow this version pushed quite a few of my files closer to the top of the search. Some of my best sellers have dropped slightly but not bad.
Ultimately it may not matter because their dynamic search displays different results in different regions and may also weigh other stuff like buying patterns.
I hope whatever they have now is the same as for the past week - no complaints on sales from that version for me.
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I also had the best sales in a while the last week. If they had a best match like this for months I'd probably take more crap from them.
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wow, I just made a search for bald eagle. On the first page best match result with 100 images, there were
66 with 0 DLs
10 with 1DL
and only
8 with >10 DLs
Seriously - are they trying to chase away ALL buyers??? This canīt be called a best match. Obviously the buyers arenīt too happy with the result they get, otherwise theyīd buy the images.