Author Topic: Extra Form Fields - Do You Use Them? (Read 27670 times)

rubyroo · « **on:** December 06, 2010, 07:04 »

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.

ShadySue · « **Reply #1 on:** December 06, 2010, 07:16 »

I only fill in fields (other than the required ones) if I feel I have information that needs to go into them. For example, I fill in the description field if I have more information than will go into the caption.
I do find it odd that the require location on every shot, as it's very easy to think of studio setups where the location is totally irrelevant, again contaminating a search. (If someone keys in New York or Edinburgh or Delhi, they don't want a studio shot of a still life that happened to be shot there.)

rubyroo · « **Reply #2 on:** December 06, 2010, 07:26 »

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...

ShadySue · « **Reply #3 on:** December 06, 2010, 07:34 »

Quote from: rubyroo on December 06, 2010, 07:26

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'.

rubyroo · « **Reply #4 on:** December 06, 2010, 08:07 »

You made me look a bit harder Sue... as far as I can see, only the caption field is asterisked as 'mandatory'.

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.

ShadySue · « **Reply #5 on:** December 06, 2010, 08:21 »

Quote from: rubyroo on December 06, 2010, 08:07

You made me look a bit harder Sue... as far as I can see, only the caption field is asterisked as 'mandatory'.

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.

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.
Don't know where I got that idea from. Thanks!

LSD72 · « **Reply #6 on:** December 06, 2010, 09:05 »

You do not have to put anything in the "Location" field. You can leave it blank. Mainly if you got something that would be specific to a local, then you would put where it was at.

rubyroo · « **Reply #7 on:** December 06, 2010, 10:06 »

You're welcome Sue, and thank you too

donding · « **Reply #8 on:** December 06, 2010, 20:29 »

Quote from: rubyroo on December 06, 2010, 07:04

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.

Of course caption field is the only mandatory field, but you need to use essential keyword field as well as main keyword field for your keywords. By just having a caption it wouldn't get you many sales you gotta have keywords. Like ShadySue said, I only use the description field if there is more than I can get into the caption field that needs to be included with the image. As for location....I only use that where an actual location is involved.

rubyroo · « **Reply #9 on:** December 07, 2010, 03:16 »

Thanks Donding... of course I meant in addition to the IPTC data that's imported into the 'comprehensive keywords' field.

It sounds as though you feel it's critical to duplicate the most important keywords into the 'essential keywords' field, and not just leave them in the 'comprehensive keywords' field. In which case... I'll make sure I do that. Thanks so much.

madelaide · « **Reply #10 on:** December 07, 2010, 03:56 »

You don't repeat keuwords, you split them in the three groups according to relevance.

rubyroo · « **Reply #11 on:** December 07, 2010, 04:10 »

Oh - I thought the 'comprehensive keywords' was the whole set, and that you split that group into two priority groups, but left the body of them intact (as they were imported from IPTC) in the 'comprehensive' field.

But.. looking at it again, I do believe you're right Madelaide. It actually says 'any other', so I shouldn't be duplicating.

Thanks so much.

sharpshot · « **Reply #12 on:** December 07, 2010, 04:16 »

I fill out as much as I can and try to do it according to the way they want it. There's some info somewhere on the site or in the forum.

rubyroo · « **Reply #13 on:** December 07, 2010, 04:43 »

Thanks Sharpshot - I probably sound really lazy... It's just a daunting and time-consuming prospect for so many images when I'm also in high-production mode of new images just now. I suppose I'm so familiar with the other agencies that I'm usually on auto-pilot, and all this extra stuff/new format has thrown me a bit.

Ah well... looks as though I'll just have to get my nose to both grindstones simultaneously (ouch... my poor nose..)

Thanks so much.

ShadySue · « **Reply #14 on:** December 07, 2010, 06:32 »

@Rubyroo
Keywording at Alamy is a total nightmare for me. iStock: easypeasy, Alamy: what?
Here is the Alamy page with the info you need:
http://www.alamy.com/contributor/help/captions-keywords-descriptions.asp
(be aware that some of the info isn't fully accurate)
If you're used to using a controlled vocabulary, be very aware that Alamy doesn't have one.
Also, they don't have 'keyword phrases' as such.
So I've had search anomalies such as:
A search on someone called "Elizabeth House" threw up one of my photos of a house. My pseudonym has my Sunday Name, Elizabeth as well as my surname, so as I had the essential keyword 'house', my photo showed up on a search for "Elizabeth House". If your pseudonym is your real name, and your surname happens to be something like Glasgow or London, maybe it would be good to change your pseudo.
I had 11 hits last week on a search for 'the band great end' - I guess there's a band called 'Great End' - my photos were of different bands (essential keywords) playing at the West End festival in Great Britain (recommended as an addition to UK, as without a CV, there's no way of guessing which a buyer will search on).
Without a CV, my photos of the little place called Otter Ferry (essential keywords) often shows up in searches for Otter. Last week one search was "otter NOT oriental NOT SEA NOT seaotter NOT eurasian NOT american NOT european [RM] [Land] [FS]"
There's a current forum discussion about the 'keyword phrase' issue:
http://www.alamy.com/forums/default.aspx?g=posts&t=9446
Good luck!

rubyroo · « **Reply #15 on:** December 07, 2010, 06:47 »

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?

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

Thanks again. So good of you to take the time.

ann · « **Reply #16 on:** December 07, 2010, 11:50 »

Quote from: ShadySue on December 07, 2010, 06:32

@Rubyroo
[....]
There's a current forum discussion about the 'keyword phrase' issue:
http://www.alamy.com/forums/default.aspx?g=posts&t=9446
Good luck!

LOL, that Keyword Phrase discussion is classic, great fun. Conflicting opinions, all sure theirs is right (none more stubborn as yours truly)

ann · « **Reply #17 on:** December 07, 2010, 11:51 »

aack, hit 'quote' instead of 'modify' - double post

ShadySue · « **Reply #18 on:** December 07, 2010, 11:53 »

Quote from: rubyroo on December 07, 2010, 06:47

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

And 'there wiz me' thinking no-one had noticed!

donding · « **Reply #19 on:** December 07, 2010, 11:54 »

I just use the essential keywords of the main subject or concept. I then put the rest under main keywords. I don't usually even put any thing under the comprehensive keywords. I don't load my photos with a ton of keywords. I pretty well keep it simple with maybe 20 at the most. In the past I didn't understand how it worked and left everything under the comprehensive keywords and some of the early shots I still gotta go correct all that. It is a pain having to do all this...sometimes it will import a caption but usually it doesn't..it just puts all the keywords in under comprehensive keywords and then you gotta go and do all the editing on that part of it.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #20 on:** December 09, 2010, 01:26 »

Quote from: rubyroo on December 07, 2010, 06:47

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.

Would you want it to NOT match words that were searched for? That would be silly...

I 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?

If 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.

Here's the answer:

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.

Quotes " " or ' ' or [ ] do nothing within keywords at this time. Only in searches.

Do not use commas in keywords as they are ignored and do nothing.

Alamy 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.

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.

Computers 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...

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!

Creating a poor search to get poor results, proves nothing, except that we can create bad data intentionally.

donding · « **Reply #21 on:** December 10, 2010, 15:19 »

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...

RacePhoto · « **Reply #22 on:** December 11, 2010, 01:28 »

Quote from: donding on December 10, 2010, 15:19

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...

Isn't Alamy a thrill sometimes. I carefully put words in importance by the three fields and then had all kinds of data in the Description field. (it used to be searched) Then people who would post a cut and paste from the encyclopedia in "description" complained about bad matches and the search, so they made it a non-search field. OK thanks... I had to go and move everything from description on over 1000 files to Comprehensive. That would be driver data, teams, car make and models, that kind of secondary information.

What next? Well Alamy changed the invisible field from Main to Comprehensive, so all my "hidden" words that I didn't want the competition to see, in MAIN, are now showing and all the third importance words in comprehensive are invisible! I gave up.

I use the "quotes" around words and [distinctive phrases] markings, even though they aren't activated and for all we know, never will be. I just don't want to have to go back and re-edit for a third or fourth time, the 1500 photos I have up now. That and I'm so lazy that I have another 500 images that I should be working on but I get distracted. Only positive outcome from that delay is I don't have to upsize anymore. Thank God! That took all kinds of time and I always worried that at 200%, or 180% whatever it was, any tiny flaw would be magnified.

Anyway, yes, for anyone who does care. Alamy has made it clear from the start...

1) The fields are weighted, use them to your advantage. Main, Essential, Comprehensive. 1-2-3
2) Word order and word proximity do count in searches.

Put the most important word first in the Main keyword box. Put words that are likely to be searched for together, in the right order and together. Your image will come up with others in alpha sort or less specific organization.

Instead of fighting the search, use it to your advantage.

BHZ is only a game, but at one point I had an image from one pseudo that had no sales, and one image from my main pseudo that has all the sales, and they appeared next to each other in the BHZ search. So much for worrying about Alamy Rank. I have more important things to do than obsess over if my image will show 5th on page 1 or 15th on page one.

If it's a good shot and shows in the first few pages, someone doing a reasonable search will find it. If they are only looking at one page, then they are not really serious about buying anything?

One of these nights, it will be snowing, I'll be up late and bored and I'll shoot off another couple hundred shots for the collection. Then what we all know is next. Wait three days and there's about a whole day of editing keywords after that.

The new bulk editor is a real time saver for me, especially when I do a whole day of shooting at once. The location and many of the details can be entered once and will get dropped in every photo. It's even quicker than entering metadata because it's Java and no software needed, just the browser and Alamy. Double click on any image and it's in edit. Grab whole batches and change them all at once. It's smooth.

Yes rubyroo - sometimes I do the minimum data fields and make photos ready, and then start over with the real data. The only thing that's really important to remember is once it's On Sale, you can't just delete it, without the 90 day wait. Before it's ready, one click and it's gone.

We can't change the license without some difficulty, writing to support, once it's On Sale.

If one day is that important in a world that's been here for millions of years, go for it. Otherwise, what's all the rush? How much difference does one day make?

ShadySue · « **Reply #23 on:** December 11, 2010, 06:58 »

Quote from: RacePhoto on December 09, 2010, 01:26

Quote from: rubyroo on December 07, 2010, 06:47
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.

That's bad for the buyer.

Quote

The whole point is every word in the search is matched with every word in your keywords, caption and location.

and pseudonym

Would you want it to NOT match words that were searched for? That would be silly...

Quote

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?
Quote
I 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?
Quote
If 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.
Quote
Here's the answer:
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.
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).

Quote
Quotes " " or ' ' or [ ] do nothing within keywords at this time. Only in searches.
What do you mean 'only in searches'

Quote
Do 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.

Quote
Alamy 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.

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.
If only you could second-guess which order buyers will put their searches in.
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?

Quote
Computers 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...

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!
That's why it's good to help the dumb computer by giving them a smart CV.
Quote
Creating 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.

rubyroo · « **Reply #24 on:** December 11, 2010, 09:43 »

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!

ann · « **Reply #25 on:** December 11, 2010, 15:53 »

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."

Congratulations on big sale, ShadySue sooo exciting!

ShadySue · « **Reply #26 on:** December 11, 2010, 16:49 »

Quote from: ann on December 11, 2010, 15:53

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."

Congratulations on big sale, ShadySue sooo exciting!

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.

KB · « **Reply #27 on:** December 11, 2010, 17:05 »

Think good thoughts; Pollyanna would.

lisafx · « **Reply #28 on:** December 11, 2010, 18:13 »

Congrats on the great sale Sue! Those biggies seem few and far between lately.

@Rubyroo, if it helps, I usually keyword the most important 7-8 keywords first in the IPTC anyway, because Fotolia gives them extra weight in the search engine. Then, at Alamy, I cut those from the general keyword field and paste them in the Essential Keywords field. I have heard that Essential keywords get more weight. Don't know if this helps me any, but I think it may.

I also fill in the year the image was taken. Not sure if it makes any difference, but I have had Alamy write me a couple of times because a customer wanted to know when an image was taken, so now I just include that too.

rubyroo · « **Reply #29 on:** December 11, 2010, 19:06 »

Thanks so much for sharing your method Lisa, that's really helpful. Also for the tip on entering the year. Most grateful.

@ Sue - as KB said 'Think good thoughts'. I hope that payment comes to fruition for you. Don't spend it all at once! (Hang on... that's my Grandmother channeling through me.... AFAIC you can spend it however you like!!)

donding · « **Reply #30 on:** December 11, 2010, 22:35 »

Quote from: ShadySue on December 11, 2010, 16:49

Quote from: ann on December 11, 2010, 15:53
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."

Congratulations on big sale, ShadySue sooo exciting!
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.

Heh I'm jealous...all I got yesterday was a novel use sale!! Any way congratulations....

ann · « **Reply #31 on:** December 12, 2010, 14:39 »

Quote from: ShadySue on December 11, 2010, 16:49

Quote from: ann on December 11, 2010, 15:53
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."

Congratulations on big sale, ShadySue sooo exciting!
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.

Well, on the Alamy forum users might be more likely to mention a good sale that falls through than a successful one, unless it's first sale or price is amazing.

If odds weren't strongly in favor of decent sales clearing I think we'd be hearing a LOT more about problems.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #32 on:** December 12, 2010, 19:13 »

Quote from: rubyroo on December 11, 2010, 09:43

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!

Good news on the sale.

I guess I'll give up because any search will find any of the words someone asks for and the words that someone has included in their keywords. Complaining that a search finds things that are there, and trying to explain it, is getting frustrating.

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.

donding · « **Reply #33 on:** December 12, 2010, 19:41 »

Quote from: RacePhoto on December 12, 2010, 19:13

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 know the commas don't work. I started uploading to Alamy back in 2006. I only had 60+ pictures on there and I sorta forgot about it. Those early pictures had comma's in the keywords. They were horrible pictures to I might add....

I didn't know any different back then which is probably why I never had any sales (or because they were horrible pictures) and quit uploading. Didn't they have a different system back then???...I don't remember it having the three field forms for keywords.

ShadySue · « **Reply #34 on:** December 12, 2010, 20:10 »

Quote from: RacePhoto on December 12, 2010, 19:13

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.
Understanding it doesn't mean I have to like it.
As Leyden is a valid alternative spelling of the Dutch town Leiden (both are used in the town itself), my pseudo sometimes gives false findings for searches for that town. Maybe I should scan and upload some of my old slides from there and give myself a double whammy!
I'm sure it must be really annoying for people genuinely searching. And what if your surname was Brown, Gray, Black or White, all of which are common enough? Why should you be almost-forced to use a pseudo other than your own name, unless you choose to do so.
If buyers want to instigate a search on a contributer, instigate the search properly, by giving a field where you can specify a pseudo, and that info is taken only from the pseudo field. Otherwise, a pseudo name shouldn't come into a search.
Also, if they want a search on ethnicity, why not have a field for that in the keywords section which the contributer can tick if appropriate, and avoid adjectives which are also ethnicities making a file show up in the ethnicity field?
There are easy ways around all of these issues, which should have been built in from the outset. But I know that the more files are in, the more contributors will hate having to change things. I was really lucky to start at iStock after they had introduced the CV, and remember the complaints from those who had big ports even back then.
But it should be all about giving the buyers the cleanest possible search result. I know by the search results I get, they're not always getting that. And I look at them all to see if I could do better, and usually, I can't. The keywords I have that led to the search are actually needed for the image.
Etc etc etc.
Another illustration: noticing that iStock issue of 'white rose' leading to pics of 'white rose potato' (as well as white roses), I searched on Alamy, DT and SS. They didn't feature the potato, but they did feature bottles or glasses of wine, presumably because they were keyworded either white, rose, red wine or wine, white rose red. Which comes from not having a CV whereby you could keyword 'white wine' 'rose wine' and 'red wine'.
I'm rambling and it's bedtime.
Slainte mhath, all.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #35 on:** December 14, 2010, 02:31 »

I'll try with real words, instead of a simple concept, about ALL WORDS ARE SEARCHED which is simple. But ask again, do you want it to ignore words through some psychic computer formula? Be logical. OK example...

five keywords in the hypothetical photo: brown toad stone bridge water

a person searches for - green toad -, and it will show. A person searches for - water skiing -, it will come up. A person searches for - Elvis leaves the building wearing a white leisure suit with sequins and walks across a bridge - IT WILL SHOW UP!

Any word that matches and all words that match. Again, would you like searches to ignore words that people search for, which would be absurd.

But, if someone searches for (with the quotes, which is important) "Green Toad" the image will not come up, because the exact words, between the quotes are not ALL found. Words precisely together in that order, will come first in the results. That's a simple two word search.

As for names and towns, people need to get over it and stop whining! Everyone's name can be found in a search and madelaide or Leyden is far less likely to be searched and found in error as about 1000 other common names including first names! Tom, Dick, Harry, Smith, Jones, Lee. Everyone's name is probably the name of a town or object, someplace in the world. In other words, we're all the same except maybe for someone named Zyzzx!

Remove the pseudonym search and people will complain that buyers can't find their work by artists name. Is there no end to the fault finding and nit picking?

If you want every detail to be in a searchable field that can be excluded or included, then we will have to enter all that data, on every one of our photos, manually. Ethnicity, cutout, what else will make a difference to someone else's pet complaint for a specific field, where's the end? Then people will complain about how complicated it is to keyword and fill in all those fields!

Have you ever heard of Occam's Razor?

All you've done is dwell on some minor negatives and ignored all the positives.

ANY WORD IN A SEARCH WILL BE FOUND! It can't be any easier and straight forward. Words between quotes in the search, are exclusive and must all be found!

"blue car" = 2,478 Results
blue car = 47,279 Results

What you've proven is that crappy searches, will produce crappy results, but not that there's something wrong with the available tools. One word searches are extra poor (and foolish as well), two word searches are pretty stinky and at three words start to refine things for a buyer. You shouldn't be getting your name, near the front pages of someones three word search. Try it yourself?

Leyden = 1,749 Results
Leyden Holland = 99 Results

And if you type in Leyden, you'll see that Alamy makes suggestions, with number of images, none of them being a pseudonym. Leyden Jar, Leyden Cheese, Leyden Holland, Leyden University. Which to me kind of shoots big holes in your theory that people are giving you false hits, to any great number, because of your name!

Amusing enough, my last name produces = 1,769 Results, and my first name = 372,510 Results!

My pseudonym 1,448 Results and as far as I can see, all are my photos and nothing else matches, not even an errant dead movie star?

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.

This isn't just for you, but since you brought it up and others have the same complaints, there's the evidence and my opinion. It's a non-issue.

madelaide · « **Reply #36 on:** December 14, 2010, 04:09 »

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.

ShadySue · « **Reply #37 on:** December 14, 2010, 06:00 »

Quote from: RacePhoto on December 14, 2010, 02:31

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.

My point was that because you shouldn't enter 'white wine', 'red wine' and 'rose wine', presumably contributers enter e.g. red white rose wine, so images of bottles/glasses of all three show up in a perfectly good and logical search for white rose.

ann · « **Reply #38 on:** December 14, 2010, 07:14 »

Quote from: madelaide on December 14, 2010, 04:09

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.

ShadySue · « **Reply #39 on:** December 14, 2010, 07:28 »

Quote from: ann on December 14, 2010, 07:14

Quote from: madelaide on December 14, 2010, 04:09
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.

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!

ann · « **Reply #40 on:** December 14, 2010, 11:49 »

Does putting quotes around words in a Title - say "Cradle of Aviation" - get them treated as a phrase in searches?

RacePhoto · « **Reply #41 on:** December 14, 2010, 15:32 »

Quote from: ann on December 14, 2010, 11:49

Does putting quotes around words in a Title - say "Cradle of Aviation" - get them treated as a phrase in searches?

No, unless the person doing the search does it. " around things" and [around things] in OUR keywords, and to reinforce, commas as well, all Do Nothing in our keywords at this point in time.

That's the whole simple point, but since I write paragraphs instead of simple answers, the simple parts get lost!

I'm sure people have linked to the answer page from Alamy many times, which shows which fields are searched, which aren't and how important they are,

Should you want to read a bunch for yourself and maybe print it http://alamy.com/contributor/help/sell-images.asp (which I did when I started) then click on "How To Submit" and have a ball. Under #6 Manage and then Captions and Keywords... you'll find this bit.

Caption and Location are the lowest importance, but they are searched. We can assume that Pseudonym is also lowest in the search.

The ranking means the buyers get the most important fields first, showing in their results first.

This is much better than the rest of all the sites, that just search "keywords" (maybe in order, maybe not since they are alpha sorted. they don't even tell us what fields are searched on most sites!) Alamy lets us put the most important words first, in order in three fields, and we control the results to a great extent. No not perfect, but it's actually the best around and the easiest, up front, for us to manipulate our own images as we want, instead of some great mystery or secret search algorithm like the micro sites use.

Diversity means that if I have 60 pictures of the same thing and eight other people have one each, there will be one of mine and then the other eight, before my second image of the same thing, shows in the search. It's a little more complicated, but that's the point. It won't show all of one persons photos first, before anyone else. We all get a better slot at getting viewed.

Word order and proximity means if you have Red Dog Under a Tree in your words and someone else has Red Tree with a yellow dog under it and someone else has Red Tree Dog Watering it and a buyer searches for Red Dog your photo will show up first, the one with Red and Dog closest together in the keywords, and in the highest box, will show up second, and the next one will be last.

So put your 50 characters of Essential words first and don't waste those valuable 50 characters on commas. By the time I get to Main Keywords, at 300 I usually don't need to worry about how many spaces I have, as 300 is a bunch of words. Maybe too many if I want only good searches and good views, not mistakes and errors.

Comprehensive is the small stuff when someone might find something, searching for some obscure words or in my case a proper name. I don't want it coming up first.

Last of all. Alamy Rank is overly worried about and not as important as good accurate keywords and good images. Rank hardly comes into play with searches, when you consider keywords and diversity are spreading out the views, from the start. It's not like you are going to be hidden on some back page, because of your rank. Go do some searches for your images and see where you come up.

Use Three Words or more, not one or two! Anyone who is looking for a specific image is smart enough to not just use one word or two word searches!

madelaide · « **Reply #42 on:** December 14, 2010, 15:49 »

Quote from: ann on December 14, 2010, 07:14

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.

The image doesn't have "airlines" in caption, but in the main keywords (Varig Airlines). American however only appears in "South American" and "Latin American", both in quotes. If quotes were considered, mine would never return as a result. It appears only in page 30 or 87, but anyway - there are even images of American Airlines planes behind mine, so I wonder hoe these must be poorly keyworded. (Side note: I see poker images and I wonder how they got in the results!)

I know many sites ignore composed keywords, so DT sor instance would break these keywords. But it is a smart idea to use them. It may help separate "paper clip" from a paper with a clip.

I think description should be still considered, perhaps only for relevance purposes on images that have keywords. For instance, I may have an image of Rio and say in the description that it will be the seat of the 2016 Olympics, but 2016 and Olympics would be irrelevant if not appearing also in the keywords. Now, images of Rio with something about the Olympics - I have two of the bid campaign - would have Olympics and 2016 in the keywords, so appearing in both fields would indicate more relevance.

In Racephoto's examples, it doesn't make sense to me that a search for water skiing returns an image that has just water and not skiing as a keyword. Am I wrong?

ann · « **Reply #43 on:** December 14, 2010, 16:26 »

Quote from: ann on December 14, 2010, 11:49

Does putting quotes around words in a Title - say "Cradle of Aviation" - get them treated as a phrase in searches?

Oh, oh, I wasn't clear at all. Should have written:

Does putting quotes around words in the CAPTION - say writing "Cradle of Aviation" in quotes for image of that air & space museum - get them treated just as a phrase in searches?

(If not, those photos are bound to end up in searches for baby cradles, unless I leave name of museum out of caption of photo of the museum.)

ShadySue · « **Reply #44 on:** December 15, 2010, 07:31 »

Well, it seems that search not only searches all words, but gives hits for images where the word doesn't feature.
Yesterday I had a search result for Anita & me film, just like that.
One of my pics showed up, and when I checked, this is what I've got:

NB, this isn't about me or my image. It's about getting the right results before buyers. The buyer clearly didn't want any photos just keyworded Anita. (I have had one-word searches on a common first or last name.Maybe someone was writing a book/article on 'Margarets' or whatever.)
My pseudo is my name, no 'film' and the unsearchable description says, "Cargo is a play by Scotland's Iron Oxide Theatre Company produced by Chloe Dear."

madelaide · « **Reply #45 on:** December 15, 2010, 10:53 »

ShadySue,

Exactly, they are using OR instead of AND. If no results returned with all keywords, I could understand going further and showing partial matches. Even if examples such as yours are shown in the last pages, it is nonsense.

If someone searches for red car, even without quotes or without boolean operators, it's almost 100% sure that he doesn't want red ties or blue cars.

ShadySue · « **Reply #46 on:** December 15, 2010, 11:55 »

I guess I should have [Anita Vettesse] in square brackets in the Essential Keywords field, but would other people put her name in brackets in the caption too?
I also wonder if I should put an alternative spelling of her surname (one 't') as I see about the same number of Google hits for her on the wrong spelling. Actually, I've stopped wondering and will do it now.

madelaide · « **Reply #47 on:** December 15, 2010, 14:05 »

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.

ann · « **Reply #48 on:** December 15, 2010, 16:53 »

(double post - hit 'quote' instead of 'modify')

ann · « **Reply #49 on:** December 15, 2010, 16:55 »

Quote from: madelaide on December 15, 2010, 14:05

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.

Putting "Quotation marks" around two or more Keywords does affect search results. (Now, if the point was that quotations marks are seldom used by searchers, that's different.)
Here's another example:

red car = All of Alamy (45,326) and you get same results for [red car]
Creative(2,580)

"red car" = All of Alamy (3,454)
Creative(259)

madelaide · « **Reply #50 on:** December 15, 2010, 19:32 »

ann,

I meant brackets and quotation marks in keywords are ignored. RP showed examples in which it does make a difference when the buyer uses "" for searches.

Having "South American" with quotation marks in my image's keywords doesn't impede the image of being found in a search for American Airlines without quotation marks (which is actually treated by the search engine as American OR Airlines, but they would not appear if the search is for "American Airlines", because the search engine understands the buyer wants this expression.

I'm not sure - RP can possibly enlighten us about this - if the quotation marks in search equal American AND Airlines (with the proximity bringing relevance) or only the perfect match (therefore if I have in my keywords American plane airlines, this image will not return because there is a word in the middle)

ann · « **Reply #51 on:** December 15, 2010, 20:30 »

@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 · « **Reply #52 on:** December 15, 2010, 20:34 »

Quote from: ann on December 15, 2010, 20:30

@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.

I believe you are right, ann. As I said, I'm not sure exactly how Alamy uses a search with quotation marks, but without them they do an OR search, so images with either one of the keywords are returned, which is obviously not what the buyer wanted.

But again, it is not just Alamy's fault. I only think they should take advantage of their more advanced keywording system.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #53 on:** December 16, 2010, 01:36 »

Quote from: ann on December 15, 2010, 20:30

@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.

Close except it's not Red and Car for the one out of quotes, it's Red OR Car

So in the "South American" example, the conclusion is that it's finding something that isn't there, but it's finding two words which ARE there.

Search:
south american = 161,784 Results
"south american" = 32,513 Results

Clearly it's finding different sets images. Someone needs to look at all the words in their keywords, title and caption for both words, and find that the search is not intuitive at all. Both words within the quotes MUST be present. In the general search, no quotes, either word can be present. Did that help a little?

It's not magic, it's really simple logic. Once you get it, the apparent wrong results, suddenly make sense.

Does it seem like I'm repeating myself? Maybe I should kust start hitting my head against the wall, because writing doesn't do anything either.

Enter "south american toad" in quotes. No Images. That's because ALL words must be present or the search won't include any images. If the two words South and American aren't in the search, nothing will show. If someone tells you the search is finding things that are impossible, you might want to check to see if they are correct, because the seacrh is a dumb computer that doesn't think.

Back to the other part, which is also falling on deaf ears. Use at the very minimum three word searches, please, if you want good results. Of course two words searches are going to get bad results, it's a crappy search!

Do we need to get into Stop Words? The words that the search ignores and you don't need to add them in a search and don't want to add them in your keywords either. Waste of time and effort. (now I'm asking for it aren't I?) LOL

and ps, there are other fields for what some have complained, should be available: Probably what the original thread started out asking.

Age
   Any
   Baby(0)
   Child(0)
   Teenager(0)
   Adult(0)
   Senior(0)
   See all ...

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 ...

Viewpoint
   Any
   Front(0)
   Side(0)
   Rear(0)
   Profile(0)

Location
   Any
   USA(0)
   UK(1)
   Europe(0)

Orientation
   Any
   Landscape(1)
   Portrait(0)
   Panoramic(0)
   Square(0)

Image Type
   Any
   Photographs(1)
   Illustrations(0)
   Cut Outs(0)

Date Taken
   Any
   Last 7 days
   Last month
   Last 3 months
   Last 6 months
   Last 12 months
   Last 2 years
   Custom ...

Minimum File Size
   Any
   1 MB(1)
   5 MB(1)
   15 MB(1)
   24 MB(1)
   48 MB(1)
   70 MB(0)

ignore the (#) It's just from the image I used for the sample.

madelaide · « **Reply #54 on:** December 16, 2010, 04:07 »

RP,

It's not that we don't understand you, your examples were very clear. It's about Alamy's search tool assumption that one will use quotation marks in a search.

if someone types Mario Andretti, he is not looking for images of Michael Andretti. Unless Mario is in them too, nor for Mario Bros. Now, if no results using the AND operator are found, then the search engine could offer partial matches.

ShadySue · « **Reply #55 on:** December 16, 2010, 05:17 »

Quote from: RacePhoto on December 16, 2010, 01:36

Quote from: ann on December 15, 2010, 20:30

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.

ShadySue · « **Reply #56 on:** December 16, 2010, 06:43 »

And today's unfortunate search:
I had a search on 'office party', because I have a photo of the 'head office' of Sinn Fein (caption and the essential keywords) and 'political party' in the main keywords.
On the blog, we had recent remonstration about making sure our keywords don't lead to unwanted searches for the buyer or our AR would suffer. But they're not helping us.
I agree that we're all suffering in the same way, so it's not as though some ARs will suffer in relation to others.
But the main thing is that it's all about helping, and not p*ssing off the buyer!
And well, clearly two word searches give poor results, but an 'office party' is an 'office party'. It's a 'well-known phrase or saying'.

ann · « **Reply #57 on:** December 16, 2010, 17:01 »

@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

ShadySue · « **Reply #58 on:** December 17, 2010, 06:32 »

And today's worst (not as funny as office party, but it still illustrates the point)
cattle Botswana. My photo was of a "Cattle Egret" in Botswana, both words in the caption and essential keywords, no way out of it. But it certainly wasn't what the buyer wanted.
Hmmmm. I did ethics at Uni (back in the day. I've forgotten it all now!) Interesting question: whether to claw back some money from the excellent charities to invest in marketing and getting a really good search architecture, for possible long-term gain (in a time when returns per image are dwindling). Answer in 5000 words.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #59 on:** December 18, 2010, 22:57 »

Quote from: ann on December 16, 2010, 17:01

@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

I wish I understood what that was. No doubt that you are accurate, but for some reason it should come up with many more for Red Car. Funny that we ended up with that one.

What do you get for "Red Car" in quotes.

And ps, it's still a crappy search, I started it, and I'm guilty, but two words is a bad search, waiting to give bad results.

Red = 1,378,075 Results (I have RM and RF checked, not all four boxes)
Car = 459,822 Results (strange that we get different numbers, but no big deal)
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!)

Yes I'll also confess that we assume that someone using the search, knows how to use it. So do you give a gun to someone, and send them out hunting and assume they know how to use it safely? Sorry but the search has the same issues, not as lethal but just as much of a problem. I should have picked a better search!

Part of the argument is, the search should find things that we want and know what the buyer wants (like psychic search engine maybe?) and not give the person searching, what they actually ask for... because it gives bad results. Hey wait, it just gives back, what it does and what it's asked to do.

The problem is the human doing the search, not the search computer. That's been my point from the start.

Yes we can find erroneous search results, we can create bad searches that will give crummy results, but it's the search, not the results that are the problem most of the time. I really don't think that finding some obscure two words that can be confused makes much sense. How many people are looking for that? Wouldn't the logical point be that what you search is what you get?

Ooh Ooh, Michael or Mario or Marco Andretti, what a great search example. No quotes used in any of these:

Mario Andretti = 54 Results (no mario Bros either)
Michael Andretti = 35 Results (no michael jackson or anyone else, just the right one?)
Marco Andretti = 16 Results (no michael, mario, or anyone else, five of my shots)

OK tell me how the search is flawed, when it's producing good results for almost everything we search for, except some very unusual crossed words or dual meanings for two words that might come out in the same search? Office Party! That's a good one! Maybe some other two word search with multiple vague meanings would be another point, but the same.

True Sue: A vague search will give vague results!

ShadySue · « **Reply #60 on:** December 19, 2010, 05:15 »

Quote from: RacePhoto on December 18, 2010, 22:57

The problem is the human doing the search, not the search computer. That's been my point from the start.

Ah. The 'myth of the stupid user'.

Originally coined by Jakob Nielsen:
"Wsability is important to me. If the purpose of technology is to make our lives better, then that purpose is subverted when designers fail to pay due regard to the user and the context of use. The software industry has been particularly negligent in this regard, to the extent that a large number of people feel that they are 'too stupid' to handle computers. In effect, these people have been disenfranchised - one of the greatest boons of our times has been denied them because software designers have failed to meet their needs.
For me, usability is about the move to counter this trend. I believe that usability activities can have a direct and beneficial impact on the quality of people's lives. I get enormous satisfaction from doing work that results in products that are easier to use.
I believe that we are far too willing to accept what I call 'the myth of the stupid user'. It's time that we started to reject products that confuse use, are rude to us or in any way belittle us."

"By 'the myth of the stupid user' I mean the belief that users are stupid, and the concomitant inference that inability to use a particular product can be blamed on the user, thus exonerating the product itself and the development team.

Anyone who hangs around with IT professionals knows that many of them consider users to be stupid. Do an internet search for 'stupid users' and you will find thousands of stories about the stupid things people do with their computers. For example, you can read dozens of variations of the story on the person who rang up their ISP and asked 'Is this the Internet?'

This attitude permeates the whole of the IT and web development industry. Many people will be familiar with this attitude from dealing with technical support staff whose technical skills far outweigh their ability to communicate with other humans.

My take on this is that it's a cop-out. Retailers don't treat their customers as if they are stupid. If a shop had a sign that no-one could read, the owners would change the sign, rather than throwing their hands in the air and lamenting the stupidity of shoppers."

See also: http://www.goodexperience.com

Nowadays, if Google does something one way (phrases in "..."), it behooves everyone else to do it the same way. (at the moment. Two, five, ten years hence, who knows).
The visitor should NOT have to learn how to navigate or search in a site. That's the designers' job.

Usability studies with a group of people not connected with the site (possible new buyers would be ideal!) and see how they do searches without instruction other than "think of something you might buy an image of and try to find it", don't help them, don't make suggestions, get them to articulate aloud what they're doing and why (without interrupting), and what they think about the search process and results. Interview them afterwards.
Make changes.

madelaide · « **Reply #61 on:** December 19, 2010, 14:23 »

Quote from: RacePhoto on December 18, 2010, 22:57

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).

ShadySue · « **Reply #62 on:** December 19, 2010, 14:48 »

Quote from: madelaide on December 19, 2010, 14:23

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'.

madelaide · « **Reply #63 on:** December 19, 2010, 14:52 »

There was one of a red button on a dashboard (we can't see the color of the car. And it was in the first page of results (ok, it depends on how it was keyworded). Also a red present in the trunk of white car. But I am not complaining of these results, just trying to uinderstand why in one case (red car) the quotation mark made a huge difference but not in the other (Michael Andretti).

ann · « **Reply #64 on:** December 20, 2010, 17:10 »

Most recently, I can't figure how to word description for image of young girl wearing Santa hat so it can be found, but not show up in searches for Santa. (in keywords, Santa only appears in phrase "Santa hat")

RacePhoto: your Psychic Search Engine - is that what happens when NumbErs and PSYCH get together?

RacePhoto · « **Reply #65 on:** December 21, 2010, 04:14 »

Quote from: madelaide on December 19, 2010, 14:23

Quote from: RacePhoto on December 18, 2010, 22:57
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).

Because the search engine doesn't write the keywords!

As for Mario, probably my error when I cut and pasted. Oops, stupid users syndrome. Nope, just that Mario Andretti is unique enough that both produce the same results. Which by the way, is contrary to the contention that the search finds things with one word out of two.

But here I go again. Three Word Searches! Two words aren't enough.

Bad searches make for bad results. Why can't I get that point across, and then people keep coming back with examples of two unrelated vague words, that don't produce an expected, vague and obscure result instead of the logical common things connected to those TWO WORDS! Many words have more than one meaning. There's no point in arguing that the search for ambiguous words and terms, will obviously produce, ambiguous and vague results.

The uneducated user is not a myth. Computers and technology have proven this to be even more true than ever before. I get phone calls and emails daily that document this.

If I perfect the psychic search engine, I'll be richer than Google! Hey wait, there's an idea, try your "office party" in Google and see if you get something about a political office?

Do we want to continue with Red Car, which I confess is not a great search to start with? Yes, red tail light on car will come up. Red Box behind a white car will come up. But most of the time, the highest percentage of the images are Red Cars, aren't they?

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 - http://tinyurl.com/26jvbdl hey look, 805 images of girls wearing santa hats. It's easy. (No quotes were harmed in making this search)

ann · « **Reply #66 on:** December 21, 2010, 15:52 »

Quote from: RacePhoto on December 21, 2010, 04:14

[....]

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 - http://tinyurl.com/26jvbdl hey look, 805 images of girls wearing santa hats. It's easy. (No quotes were harmed in making this search)

Thanks for posting that link to search results for girl wearing santa hat, RacePhoto - since my photos showed up on first page, I guess their keywords are okay. 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.

donding · « **Reply #67 on:** December 21, 2010, 16:05 »

Quote from: ann on December 21, 2010, 15:52

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.

ann · « **Reply #68 on:** December 21, 2010, 16:26 »

Quote from: donding on December 21, 2010, 16:05

Quote from: ann on December 21, 2010, 15:52
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.)

donding · « **Reply #69 on:** December 21, 2010, 16:30 »

Quote from: ann on December 21, 2010, 16:26

Quote from: donding on December 21, 2010, 16:05
Quote from: ann on December 21, 2010, 15:52
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.)

Nope it's donding....I picked that name up many years ago when my sister's screen name was Dordo and I tryed to take the screen name of dingdong. I couldn't use dingdong so adopted donding...
Real name Donna...

madelaide · « **Reply #70 on:** December 21, 2010, 16:32 »

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

)

RacePhoto · « **Reply #71 on:** December 22, 2010, 02:01 »

Entertaining isn't it? With a bunch of us testing and trying, it teaches us how to write better keywords for the Alamy searches. I've been doing all kinds of experiments since I started uploading there. Things like putting keywords as the first two in a box and then moving them to last to in the same box. Take a different photo (identical subjects from same day, same event, same driver Etc.) and change the order of those two words. Wait at least a day or past Midnight here = 7AM there, one day later and see what it does for the placement and order they show up.

The question about changes reminded me of this. They resort the database once a day that I can see. I haven't tested hour by hour.

Back to those other two, word order and proximity and they do make a difference. So it's not just finding words and what box they are in.

Then the one that I think is most favorable for all of us. The diversity algorithm. Where all of the one persons images don't show up in a pack. We get spread out across the search, which means all of us get better views for the same search, not just the person with the highest rating or most photos of that subject.

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!

Quote from: madelaide on December 21, 2010, 16:32

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 )

ann · « **Reply #72 on:** December 22, 2010, 16:49 »

You put things nicely in perspective, RacePhoto, and, yes, it is both helpful and fun to share trials and tribulations of keyword searches.

Reading some of madelaide and ShadySue's search results experiences reminds me of fun project my writing students would do. They'd illustrate a sentence with a misplaced modifier, and then illustrate the sentence with the error fixed, to show how incorrect wording unintentionally alters meaning.

   NO: Hundreds of thousands of miles away, Pat looked through his telescope
   at the lunar eclipse.

   YES: Looking through his telescope, Pat saw the lunar eclipse
   hundreds of thousands of miles away.

   (still have the great drawings of Pat far away in space looking through telescope,
   and then Pat safely here on earth...)

search: "lunar eclipse" telescope

results: http://tinyurl.com/25fyhfg

Quote from: RacePhoto on December 22, 2010, 02:01

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!

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