Email newsletter received today:

"Yay, no more queues!

In 2012 we�re very pleased to see a large increase in submission to YAY. This is great news for all of us, but unfortunately it also led to very long queues for approval. From our normal 24 to 48 hour approval we had up to three weeks waiting time. This is not good enough, and we have been working on upgrading and expanding our approval. And finally we are happy to announce that the approval time is back on track: 24 to 48 hours on workdays!

In the process of improving our approving we have also raised the standards. It�s important not only to take a good photo or illustration, but also to have good overall look in your portfolio. Our focus is on quality images, and a portfolio with good and accurate keywords, legal images and not too many similar images in it.

You might get more images rejected, but we hope you can see this as a helping hand in developing your portfolio in order to make it more marketable and increase your sales.

In the next couple of months we will also begin cleaning up YAY�s image base.

Selected portfolios will be sent back for a new review, mostly portfolios where there are too many images that should have been rejected previously for poor quality, potential legal issues or too many similar images. We will also be stricter on detailed, accurate keywording. If your portfolio is sent to review it does not mean that you are a poor photographer, only that some of your images have potential problems with them. If you get images rejected they will be put in the rejected folder together with one or more reasons for why the image was rejected. You can find a short list of common rejections here: http://yaymicro.com/view.action?page=rejections.

If you have any questions or comments please don�t hesitate to contact us � we value your feedback! You can e-mail us at [email protected] or try our LiveChat (upper right corner when you�re at yaymicro.com)

In other news: the sales at YAY are still growing with a steady, high pace. Sales will increase even more as we will add new distribution partners, and other partners are starting to report their sales. If you have any questions you can e-mail us at [email protected] or directly to me at [email protected]

Have a great summer!"

My reasoning:
They have always been vary slack on quality and unfortunately, imo, it reflected in their sales. This is a big and bold step in the right direction (and extremely labor intensive). If halving my portfolio halved will mean doubling my income, go for it Linda and team!  

I don�t see any problem with some cleaning but I see this as a "bad joke" actually, first they are wasting money on reviewing again what they should have done before, second they had our portfolios for many years and have delivered very few sales..

they should have done it properly before and spend this "reviewing money" on getting more buyers which is what they need, not the greatest stock collection around all agencies

There are many sites that should follow Yay in cleaning. Some sites didn't raise the quality bar since microstock's day one yet.
Last week I recommended to my friend (amongst new contributors very popular) site with high acceptance and he told me: "No way, I've already tried this one, I have no time to go through 50 pages of s..t to find one suitable image.

I think it is just basic common sense that clients prefer to browse through quality images to make a choice, not 80% mediocre and have to then hope that the one they like has a usable standard.

Even from a business perspective this make sense. You increase your product value, THEN you market the product like crazy. Else you are just wasting your money attracting potential buyers, who then turning back when they see your inferior product.

To answer your question csproductions, I upload to them for a few reasons:
1. When there are sales, the price is in Euro and the commission amount is quite acceptable (when converted to my currency).
2. Their upload process is a breeze and just a joy to work with.
3. Their interface is user friendly.
4. Friendly and helpful staff.

So, you are right in wondering, but for the above reasons I kept going with them, while dropping other low income earners, hoping they will come around some day (like they are doing now).