Thanks Sue, that's helpful to know. The location issue - yes you're right. If other studio shooters are completing that field it might well be throwing a spanner in the works...I think something has to be entered into that field for the file to be 'ready', then 'on sale': even if just Scotland or USA, or, I guess, 'studio'.
You made me look a bit harder Sue... as far as I can see, only the caption field is asterisked as 'mandatory'.Oh, that's interesting, I thought that caption, essential keywords and location were all mandatory. I've just looked and see that you're right.
I've never completed the location fields, and everything is either 'on sale' or 'ready'. I'm using the 'old version' of the manage images feature.
A quick question for Alamy contributors...
Do you think it's necessary to fill in all those extra fields for keywords and descriptions before your images go past the 'ready' stage? I wonder why the IPTC data isn't considered sufficient for Alamy. It doesn't seem to be compulsory to complete these fields in order to move images to the next stage, so I'm curious to know what others do - if you don't mind sharing, of course.
@Rubyroo
[....]
There's a current forum discussion about the 'keyword phrase' issue:
[url]http://www.alamy.com/forums/default.aspx?g=posts&t=9446[/url] ([url]http://www.alamy.com/forums/default.aspx?g=posts&t=9446[/url])
Good luck!
I've always meant to say to you... I love that Leonard Cohen quote at the bottom of your posts. One of my favourite all-time quotes - and one I need to keep in mind often :DAnd 'there wiz me' thinking no-one had noticed! ::)
Thanks so much Sue - you're so incredibly helpful! I will have a good read of those links. Sorry to hear you're getting so many fruitless viewings because of those search issues. Wow, that 'otter' searcher made a huge effort to eliminate redundancy, didn't they?
Thanks racephoto....I just spent the last three hours going through the 191 images I got on there so far, making sure the keywords were in order to the relevance of the photo. Some of the real old photos that were on there had comma's between each keywords and had the old traditional...."photo photogragh color colour landscape horizontal stock" keywords. Had to remove all those. Took awhile. Now I'm ready when the next 223 are approved... ;D
That's bad for the buyer.Thanks so much Sue - you're so incredibly helpful! I will have a good read of those links. Sorry to hear you're getting so many fruitless viewings because of those search issues. Wow, that 'otter' searcher made a huge effort to eliminate redundancy, didn't they?
Everyone gets "bad" searches with mixed words.
The whole point is every word in the search is matched with every word in your keywords, caption and location.and pseudonym
As I've said before, I have Caucasian musicians playing Japanese drums. I decided the fact that they were Caucasians could be relevant (positively or negatively) to buyers, so I put it into main keywords, but a search on ethnicity throws the images up on a search for Japanese ethnicity, and I can't avoid it.
For all I know, African Elephants might show up on a search for African ethnicity.
(checks)
Hey, that check is surprisingly clean. Most of the images are actually of African people. I wonder how come?QuoteI don't know how else someone would make a search work, except finding the words that a person is searching for? Maybe one of you can explain that to me?QuoteIf you want only accurate searches, don't fill the fields with extra keywords or close matches or concept words. Hey wait, the same thing happens on all the sites except IS, but for some reason people never stop hammering Alamy for having a 100%, find every word asked for, search.
[unquote]
I'm only saying a good CV, including keyword phrases, would be much better.
The first time I noticed this problem was when an image of mine of the "Queen Elizabeth National Park" in Uganda showed up in a search for Queen Elizabeth, Uganda, which was presumably looking for HM's visit there not long after I left. This would waste buyers' time and p*ss them off. In fact, doing a search on Queen Elizabeth Uganda doesn't have any of HM in the first 3 pages (360 files) and the fourth page just has the wheel going round and round for well over a minute.
To be fair, if they'd gone into the advanced search and entered Uganda, "Queen Elizabeth" as a phrase and NOT National Park, they could have saved a lot of time finding nil result.QuoteHere's the answer:But doing All of Alamy research, I've discovered that you can't second guess which order a searcher will put two words in (unless they're a logical phrase).
The image will be returned for a search of any of the words and in any order or combination unless a customer searches using quotations. In which case the search will look for the exact words in the exact order within the quotes.QuoteQuotes " " or ' ' or [ ] do nothing within keywords at this time. Only in searches.What do you mean 'only in searches'???QuoteDo not use commas in keywords as they are ignored and do nothing.True, but I use them anyway, in the hope that one day they will be used, in a proper CSV manner.
Though I sometimes leave them out of essential keywords if I run out of space.QuoteAlamy makes it clear that word order and proximity do make a difference in results displayed to someone doing a search. Without getting all complicated. If the search is for London Bridge Thames, every image that has the words London or Bridge or Thames will appear in the results. ALL MATCHING WORDS! But when you see the search results, the images with all three words in the keywords, will appear first, two words second and one word, last.If only you could second-guess which order buyers will put their searches in.
Not only that, within the group that have all three words matching, the keywords that have the three words in the correct order, will appear before Thames Bridge London, for example. It's really quite simple if you look at it from a logical perspective.
AlamyMeasures can only help so far, as it can show that one order is more likely, or that so far the order I'd have searched on isn't the one most people search on Alamy.
And as over half of my sales have never been zoomed, there are a lot of searches which aren't even being recorded in AlamyMeasures.
That only shows how the Big Buyers search.
Is there any information as to what percentage of overall sales are made by those buyers whose data appears in Alamy Measures?QuoteComputers don't think. They aren't smart. They don't reason. They have no intuition and can't guess what someone was really were looking for...That's why it's good to help the dumb computer by giving them a smart CV.
All they do is respond to what humans enter into them, A bad search will give poor results. A good search will give more useful results. But please don't blame the computer, it's just doing what some human has asked it to do!QuoteCreating a poor search to get poor results, proves nothing, except that we can create bad data intentionally.
I know it's just a dream. Apparently CVs cost a fortune, and since apparently most contributers haven't gone back into their keywords and added "..." and [...], which is allegedly why these recommendations haven't been implemented (I admit, I haven't used [...] a lot), I guess they wouldn't go back and DA their existing keywords, which would be onerous in the extreme for those with huge ports, I guess the dream of an Alamy CV is just that.
Pity, that.
Anyway, it gives me something to amuse myself over a nice cup of tea, trying to work out what someone really wanted when I get a strange search.
I'm quite cokka with Alamy today, as I got a sale yesterday for $500/$300 to me, so I'm just holding my breath until it clears.
;D
ShadySue - re your "I'm quite cokka with Alamy today, as I got a sale yesterday for $500/$300 to me, so I'm just holding my breath until it clears."It's really nerve-wracking, as I keep hearing about sales that don't go through on Alamy, though I've been lucky so far with my smaller value sales.
Congratulations on big sale, ShadySue :D sooo exciting!
ShadySue - re your "I'm quite cokka with Alamy today, as I got a sale yesterday for $500/$300 to me, so I'm just holding my breath until it clears."It's really nerve-wracking, as I keep hearing about sales that don't go through on Alamy, though I've been lucky so far with my smaller value sales.
Congratulations on big sale, ShadySue :D sooo exciting!
ShadySue - re your "I'm quite cokka with Alamy today, as I got a sale yesterday for $500/$300 to me, so I'm just holding my breath until it clears."It's really nerve-wracking, as I keep hearing about sales that don't go through on Alamy, though I've been lucky so far with my smaller value sales.
Congratulations on big sale, ShadySue :D sooo exciting!
Thanks Race and Sue - what an interesting and informative read!
I was surprised to learn that phrases in quotes aren't recognised yet - but, as you say, it probably seems wise to use them, as they may be recognised in the future. The thought of having to re-describe or re-keyword a huge port at some point in the future sounds a bit of a nightmare.
I suppose you're right Race - it's a case of giving over a day to Alamy's system here and there. It's not so much that I'm 'in a rush' - it's just that I've developed certain patterns and rhythms in the way I do things (as does everyone, I'm sure)... and Alamy's system seems such a deviation from that. Just a case of getting used to it, and treating it as an entirely separate entity, no doubt.
Congrats on the big sale Sue. I'm so pleased for you! ;D
No! Commas do nothing and never will. They take up space and make it so you have less room for more good keywords, but I'll give up on that one too.
I guess I'll give up because any search will find any of the words someone asks for and the words that someon has included in their keywords. Complaining that a search finds things that are there, and trying to explain it, is getting frustrating.I understand the system, you don't need to explain it.
Last one. Alamy using quotes, the way the search was designed. Sorry, no images were found for '"white rose potato"' In other words, it works.actually, my point wasn't about "white rose potato", but since you mention it, there's a niche for an American Alamy 'tog.
I like the way Alamy uses the three groups of keywords for relevance, but I,do wish that photographer names was a separate field in the search form, like other sites do, and also that they would consider keywords in quotation marks. for example, I have images with "varig airlines" and "south american" and it appears in a search for American Airlines.
yes, both title and caption are also searchable, so you have to be careful how you write them, and decide which words should go into the caption and which to the description. Sometimes a difficult call, trying to second-guess how a buyer would search, bearing in mind that buyers don't always think like 'I' (and, by extension, 'you') do!I like the way Alamy uses the three groups of keywords for relevance, but I,do wish that photographer names was a separate field in the search form, like other sites do, and also that they would consider keywords in quotation marks. for example, I have images with "varig airlines" and "south american" and it appears in a search for American Airlines.
I'm under impression that Title words factor into search results, madelaide, so I'm guessing you got that American Airlines result because the words Airlines and American are in your Title, if they each appear only as part of a phrase in quotes in keywords.
Does putting quotes around words in a Title - say "Cradle of Aviation" - get them treated as a phrase in searches?
I'm under impression that Title words factor into search results, madelaide, so I'm guessing you got that American Airlines result because the words Airlines and American are in your Title, if they each appear only as part of a phrase in quotes in keywords.
Does putting quotes around words in a Title - say "Cradle of Aviation" - get them treated as a phrase in searches?
I think Race Photo is right that quotation marks and brackets are ignored in Alamy searches. And even if it was used, terms in brackets are searched individually as well.
@madelaide {{{hugs}}} I so appreciate your kind perseverance in clarifying this, since keywording can significantly help make or break an image, esp on Alamy:
So it seems I don't really understand why there's such a different # of results when buyer searches red car VS "red car" :-[
I thought it was because the specific phrase "RED CAR" appears with quotation marks around it in a KEYWORD Box for around 3-thousand images, and the words RED and CAR appear somewhere as Keywords and/or in Captions in 45-thousand images.
@madelaide {{{hugs}}} I so appreciate your kind perseverance in clarifying this, since keywording can significantly help make or break an image, esp on Alamy:
So it seems I don't really understand why there's such a different # of results when buyer searches red car VS "red car" :-[
I thought it was because the specific phrase "RED CAR" appears with quotation marks around it in a KEYWORD Box for around 3-thousand images, and the words RED and CAR appear somewhere as Keywords and/or in Captions in 45-thousand images.
and ps, there are other fields for what some have complained, should be available: Probably what the original thread started out asking.
Number of People
Any
None(1)
1 Person(0)
2 People(0)
3 People(0)
4 People(0)
Groups or Crowds(0)
Ethnicity
Any
African(0)
African American(0)
Caucasian(0)
Chinese(0)
Indian(0)
Japanese(0)
See all ...
But again, these can lead to poor results for the buyer. vide my Japanese drums showing up as Japanese ethnicity.
Also people. For example, my recent good sale had three totally unrecogniseable bits of people. I was going to clone them out, but then I'd have had to mark it as 'manipulated' so not 'strict' editorial - and one, though completely silhouetted, was the driver of the vehicle, so pretty essential (but tiny). You can hardly see them, but they're there and must be accounted for. Fair enough, for MR purposes, but not for search.
But if someone was wanting a photo of 'three people', I can cast iron guarantee they didn't want to see my photo. They wanted three clearly visible people.
For example, someone searches for 'London' and ticks 'three people', they want to see three clear people in London, not a London cityscape and 'spot the indistinguishable people'.
Of course for MR/editorial purposes, you have to state whether or not you have people, buts of people, blurred people, silhouetted people etc. But that doesn't mean that these people should be automatically returned in a search for people.
It's all about the buyer. Not forcing them to try to think of some way of avoiding returns for unrecognisable people.
Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think should be compulsory reading for everyone involved in search architecture.
@RacePhoto - Re: "Close except it's not Red and Car for the one out of quotes, it's Red OR Car"
Not quite that simple, based on results for below search.
Total results for just red search is significantly more than for red car search.
But if red car = red OR car in searchable fields, then results should be at least 1,312,632.
<<<Unless I'm totally misunderstanding you, and red OR car is not meant to be same as red AND/OR car. But no one's going to type exactly red car in search box and want results to AVOID all images with both red AND car in searchable fields, so that's not it.>>>
red: All of Alamy(1,312,632) Creative(187,468)
car: All of Alamy(459,632) Creative(36,705)
red car: All of Alamy(45,382) Creative(2,750) (no quotation marks used in the search)
with good cheer - Ann
The problem is the human doing the search, not the search computer. That's been my point from the start.
Red Car = 45,433 Results (hey look the search is kind of smarter than I thought? red and car?) Not Red OR Car OOPS!"Mario Andretti" = 54 Results
"Red Car" = 3,463 Results (getting better!)
(...)
Mario Andretti = 54 Results (no mario Bros either)
In the "red car" results, not everything is a red car either (I saw a few exceptions).On Alamy, as everywhere else, there are bad keyworders. In fact in the first 72, I only found one which didn't appear to have a 'red car', (the one which shows the red rear lights of a car driving away. I couldn't see the car, but I'm not sure how youd best keyword that image. red trailing light? What would someone likely search on? rear red car light, maybe, giving rise to 'red car'.
Red Car = 45,433 Results (hey look the search is kind of smarter than I thought? red and car?) Not Red OR Car OOPS!
"Red Car" = 3,463 Results (getting better!)
(...)
Mario Andretti = 54 Results (no mario Bros either)
"Mario Andretti" = 54 Results
So why there is a difference in the first search with and without quotes, and not in the second? ???
In the "red car" results, not everything is a red car either (I saw a few exceptions).
[....]
Ann, I don't think you can have a word in your keywords and not have it show in searches according to a specific "not" at the same time. If you ask for Santa Hat, you are going to get Santa and Hat results, unless you trust the buyer/searcher to do something as simple as search for - girl wearing santa hat - [url]http://tinyurl.com/26jvbdl[/url] ([url]http://tinyurl.com/26jvbdl[/url]) hey look, 805 images of girls wearing santa hats. It's easy. (No quotes were harmed in making this search)
Earlier today, I took the word Santa out of title, just referring to hat as Red and White Christmas Hat, but change didn't kick in yet. I'm going to put it back to original wording.
Earlier today, I took the word Santa out of title, just referring to hat as Red and White Christmas Hat, but change didn't kick in yet. I'm going to put it back to original wording.
Doesn't it take 24 hours for it to be updated in the search engine after the change? I think I read that somewhere.
Earlier today, I took the word Santa out of title, just referring to hat as Red and White Christmas Hat, but change didn't kick in yet. I'm going to put it back to original wording.
Doesn't it take 24 hours for it to be updated in the search engine after the change? I think I read that somewhere.
I think you're right. Since I saw RacePhoto's post within hours of the change, I was able to refer to images' live online description and essential keywords when re-editing the info (?I thought your username was dongding, like a bell in reverse.)
The only reason that occured tome for the Mario Andretti vs "Mario Andretti" is that maybe all the images have "Mario Andretti" with quotation marks, and when exact matches are found the search engine doesn't look further - but this is just a theory.
I was checking another example (sorry, RP, two words, as in the case of most people's names): Westminster Cathedral (a catholic church in London, not Westminster Abbey). Most images are the Cathedral. Some are the Abbey but the caption says Westminster Cathedral, so people who keyworded them did not know it well.
Westminster Cathedral: 1284 results
"Westminster Cathedral": 589 results, still some are the Abbey with wrong caption
Julian Assange: 74
"Julian Assange": 73
Smithsonian Museum: 1998, the first pages I saw seemed all relevant
"Smithsonian Museum": 354
Desert Edelweiss: 6 images
"Desert Edelweiss": 4 images (all mine :D )
Entertaining isn't it? With a bunch of us testing and trying, it teaches us how to write better keywords for the Alamy searches.
[....]
Something about the way they are counting views and zooms has also changed. My view went through the floor a few months ago. Either that or people just stopped searching for everything I shoot, suddenly? My CTR right now is .74
With all of that, Alamy rank means less and less and I don't really think we should worry so much about errant views from poor searches. We all get them.
It's been fun! ;D