Me and Alamy are a bad marriage, I dont get any of their rules and BS CT rating, blah, but apparently you need to keyword with few keywords, and exact.

I don't think 'zooms', CT etc actually mean anything.  The sales I got were photos that never showed up as 'zooms'.   I got excited for a while last year when I made some sales, but it died a hard death later in the year.

I tend to agree that all the mumbo jumbo about clicks, zooms and views is hardly important. Yet it gets some people worried and excited, because someone looked or because they are found in a search. I'd be more worried about what doesn't get found in a search!

At least two of my over $200 sales were without a view at all.

Simple answer use those 50 characters in the main box for the most important and useful keywords. Alamy is not useful for keyword spam. Besides people looking don't use obscure and complicated search terms. Go look at what they do use and see. It's very straight forward.

Recent Sales -

pondicherry french    1   5   12   372   3.23
HEART HANDS    1   3   8   3,481   0.23
dominican republic entertainment    1   3   2   120   1.67
Loire River nantes    1   3   5   119   4.2
cottage name uk    1   2   3   205   1.46
compost bin    2   2   5   1,546   0.32
dog training    2   2   9   1,230   0.73
Easton columbus ohio    1   2   1   30   3.33
exotic cars    1   2   1   60   1.67
flodden battlefield    1   2   3   55   5.45
butlins    3   2   7   1,290   0.54
bacon brown sauce    1   2   4   90   4.44
male model    2   2   3   1,230   0.24
ipad    21   2   31   9,010   0.34
johannesburg skyline    2   2   12   260   4.62
hearst castle    1   2   2   834   0.24
house name uk    1   2   4   1,200   0.33
group of children playing    1   2   3   3,720   0.08
maurier    1   2   2   34   5.88
mature woman mascara    1   2   1   262   0.38
snow plough train    1   2   2   35   5.71
spring garden    1   2   20   3,330   0.60
Stena RoRo    1   2   2   110   1.82

Does anyone see vague or strange synonyms? Buyers look for what they want! (although plough is spelled wrong, so maybe?)

I don't understand multiple sales from a search for a specific file number, and some are things like a tool booth or gas station. Not exactly a popular high demand image. Two and three sales at $50 each?

CXTNXP    1   3   1   1   100.00 (abandoned gas station in the Fall)
CY5DJY    1   3   1   1   100.00
CWBP1J    1   2   3   3   100.00
CWAWR4    1   2   1   2   50.00
D08497    1   2   1   1   100.00
D1X2HJ    1   2   1   1   100.00
CRT88X    2   2   2   2   100.00
CTHECF    1   2   1   1   100.00

Now I want to add one new word to about 1000 images, I'm not sure there's an easy way to do that. Schlog, schlep and drudgery.

Heart Hands