A couple of tips for those who burn CDs and post them to Alamy.

As they have 4.9 million images and rather lax upload controls ( alot of similar shots) keywording is so important if your images will ever been found.

1 keywords must be separated by a space just because having a comma dioesn't mean anything to them

2 they have a search option which cuts though the dross - exact phrase
so group your keywords appropriately so obviously

St Andrews cathedral Scotland

but also

river tay estuary
will show up for searches for river tay and tay estuary

So for those contributing its worth doing a few searches to see if you can find your images and tweak your keywords appropriately.

I think folks are waiting for the uploading as the review process seems to be getting quicker though I seem to get one disc piggy backing on a DVD sent the previous week

Date received� � � � date online� � wait
5 May� � � � � � � � � �31 May� � � � �26 days
12 June� � � � � � � � 10 July� � � � �28 days
27 June� � � � � � � � 25 July� � � � �28 days
06 July� � � � � � � � �25 July� � � � �19 days
24 July� � � � � � � � �11 August� � 18 days
2 August� � � � � � � 11 August� � � 9 days

So the reviewing of the� last batch was quicker than CanStockPhoto and BigStock !!�

If only somebody would buy something.�

As Alamy's keywording screen is the same as shutterstock's I send off the files unkeyworded as using pixvue would alphabetize the keywords which is very bad.

Yep always group your keywords so that the exact phrase search will pick up the keywords in the correct order

so first search option all keywords "edinburgh castle scotland" - 1052 results

second keyword option "edinburgh castle scotland" - 138 results

Strangely "castle edinburgh scotland" picks ups 69 results who used that phrase mostly in the title

I sometimes just copy and paste the title into keywords then add citadel stronghold fortress etc etc

I'm not sure how much grouping your keywords will help you, since someone could search on "castle Scotland Edinburgh"...

i am starting to think why did I start this thread

Geopappas you are correct somebody could search for castle edinburgh scotland

IRCrockett you have to visit the site and try a search to appreciate there is a difference at Alamy

http://www.alamy.com/stock-photography-adv-search.asp

looking back at some searches using the exact phrase option will give fewer results but I'm not entirely sure why. I think the title is extremely important I found one image where none of the search words were in the keyword but they were in all in the title, maybe it just searches the titles of the images.

Anyway most of us don't submit to Alamy so DON'T WORRY

Can someone explain the ranking?  How do I know what my ranking is?  How do I change my ranking?

Ranking: how good you are. How do you know: by having some pictures sold. How to change: by being a good stock photographer.

How do you get your pictures sold if you are at the end of the search because you just started and haven't sold any pictures.  You can be an awesome photographer but if your picture doesn't come up on the first few pages because your ranking is low because you haven't sold anything yet then there is not way you will sell a picture and your ranking will stay low. 
So I guess it sucks 

No, it doesn't suck. Alamy has 5 million photos in its database. You can still sell pictures. Just as a new amateur photog you won't sell much: most likely nothing. I've sold several thousand photos through microstock so far and two through traditional agency methods. Those two sales netted me $199.50 each. The most I've gotten through microstock for a single sale was $100 for a special license request through iStock, but the average sale nets me 50 cents. Anyways back to traditional stocks: even pros don't sell much there. My friend sells an average of 1 picture for each 100 in his portfolio per year. With a 2000+ photos he gets 2 sales a month. BUT... with Alamy's pricing, he can get as much as $1500 in commission for a single sale! There was just a photo he's sold taken on Santorini for which he's gotten $950. With RM sales I could do with one or two sales a month.

me