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Author Topic: I love the new DT search engine !  (Read 21079 times)

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« Reply #50 on: April 11, 2009, 21:20 »
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Interesting thread. Most of the posters so far have been photographers, and I can understand their concerns about series-of-images. Just to chime in as a lowly illustrator, my sales at DT have been doing very well since the changes, and I am very happy.


lagereek

« Reply #51 on: April 19, 2009, 05:12 »
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What worries me in any sites search is when on first two pages, you get loads of similar shots or series and when you check it out, they all got zero or maybe one DL.

Thats occupying important space.

« Reply #52 on: April 19, 2009, 06:08 »
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What worries me in any sites search is when on first two pages, you get loads of similar shots or series and when you check it out, they all got zero or maybe one DL.

Thats occupying important space.

Thats true. I just tried "animal". You would not believe DT is one of the leading microstock agencies looking at the results. Its not even a very relevant search. Compare that with the iS search. Seems that iS now has not only much better images but also much more relevant images on the first pages. However after a short break sales are back for me, so I cannot complain about that, but I still hope DT will at one time be able to rival iStocks search engine for the sake of us independents and the future of DT itself.

lagereek

« Reply #53 on: April 19, 2009, 06:46 »
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Yeah! right.  One of my specialities, Industry.  Try "oil refinery"  ( nothing else),  up comes a whole heap of just chimneys, etc, all with a minimum of DLs,  and thats on first two pages.  No good! especially not when on several pages later find highly relevant material with hundreds of DLs.

Designers are busy people, often working against tight deadlines. No way theyre going to waste time, wading through dozens of pages.
If they cant find what theyre looking for on first three pages, chances are they flick over to another site.

« Reply #54 on: April 21, 2009, 12:47 »
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Yeah! right.  One of my specialities, Industry.  Try "oil refinery"  ( nothing else),  up comes a whole heap of just chimneys, etc, all with a minimum of DLs,  and thats on first two pages. 

I don't se anything "irrelevant" in the first pages.  It's not just stacks.  Many general views (of course stacks prevail, but also high columns).  Some equipment details.  Many tanks and spheres.  What did you expect to see on top?

Number of downloads doesn't necessary mean anything, even less in a specialized subject.

Regards,
Adelaide

PS: In the first page at IS I see an oil rig. That's not a refinery!
« Last Edit: April 21, 2009, 12:48 by madelaide »

« Reply #55 on: April 29, 2009, 02:23 »
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It's true, for the relevancy sorting, there are many similars or images with lower quality, it's what we try to improve now and the latest tests show a great improvement (they would be online in a few days from now though).
Any update on the search engine? The default search is still "very low quality" compared to e.g. iStockphoto and now in addition also less relevant. It is more than two weeks ago since you said that there would be great improvement in a few days from now. I understand, if there were complications, I am just curious what the status is.

Thanks!
« Last Edit: April 29, 2009, 02:24 by Freezingpictures »


tan510jomast

« Reply #57 on: April 29, 2009, 08:54 »
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i am not even sure if i like this new SE, as my sales and views have come to almost a dead halt  >:(

« Reply #58 on: April 29, 2009, 09:05 »
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Serban, thank you for taking the time for answering!
I did some more searches as you suggested and you are right you do have some very relevant searches. It seems the majority are relevant apart from a few exceptions if you use more than just one keyword. Still, quality is lacking I would say. While I agree, new images must have a chance to be found I think it is a bit exaggerated at DT, because you can find too much of low quality images with 0 dls on the first page. Maybe the time they could be found on the first pages should be shortened by quite a bit so that if they do not get downloaded in a certain time period, they get moved back faster. In this way even new contributors will have a chance. Thanks for listening!


« Reply #59 on: April 29, 2009, 10:45 »
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Nonetheless, let us know your thoughts, again this is a permanent improvement process.

For heavens sake, don't change it Achilles! I got a great month at DT with no uploads, while SS broke down, with no uploads. There is a great mix now of old and new shots downloaded from DT. New contributors should get downloads too, if they have the patience to wait 2-3 months.

What might have helped is I slowly start to re-keyword, re-title and re-caption my older port at DT. Relevancy is obviously deduced from repeat keywords in title and caption, so everybody should pay attention to the titling. Fancy titles, like "Look here!" serve no purpose.

@Freezing: The similars are gone mostly, and it's ok there are shots with 0 downloads on the front page. Everybody deserves a chance. An eductated buyer can still decide to change the search preference to "downloads", which reflects a Darwinian principle of survival of the best, as defined by the buyer.
« Last Edit: April 29, 2009, 10:55 by FlemishDreams »

tan510jomast

« Reply #60 on: April 29, 2009, 11:02 »
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Nonetheless, let us know your thoughts, again this is a permanent improvement process.

For heavens sake, don't change it Achilles! I got a great month at DT with no uploads, while SS broke down, with no uploads. There is a great mix now of old and new shots downloaded from DT. New contributors should get downloads too, if they have the patience to wait 2-3 months.

What might have helped is I slowly start to re-keyword, re-title and re-caption my older port at DT. Relevancy is obviously deduced from repeat keywords in title and caption, so everybody should pay attention to the titling. Fancy titles, like "Look here!" serve no purpose.

@Freezing: The similars are gone mostly, and it's ok there are shots with 0 downloads on the front page. Everybody deserves a chance. An eductated buyer can still decide to change the search preference to "downloads", which reflects a Darwinian principle of survival of the best, as defined by the buyer.

FD, it's not true that the new SE favours newbies. I am a newbie (almost one year soon), but since the new SE I have been getting deadsville. Before that I was doing more or less alright as a newbie.

Achilles, if I may say so, I think it's a bit confusing to both buyers and contributors to suddenyl change the SE. Especially for a newbie like me. Once I  thought I got the hang of using the right and effective keywords, you go and change it. This brings me back to Step One.
How many times do we have to re-learn the keywords techniques?
Just my thoughts here, as you invited...

« Reply #61 on: April 29, 2009, 11:35 »
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Nonetheless, let us know your thoughts, again this is a permanent improvement process.


For heavens sake, don't change it Achilles! I got a great month at DT with no uploads, while SS broke down, with no uploads. There is a great mix now of old and new shots downloaded from DT. New contributors should get downloads too, if they have the patience to wait 2-3 months.

What might have helped is I slowly start to re-keyword, re-title and re-caption my older port at DT. Relevancy is obviously deduced from repeat keywords in title and caption, so everybody should pay attention to the titling. Fancy titles, like "Look here!" serve no purpose.

@Freezing: The similars are gone mostly, and it's ok there are shots with 0 downloads on the front page. Everybody deserves a chance. An eductated buyer can still decide to change the search preference to "downloads", which reflects a Darwinian principle of survival of the best, as defined by the buyer.


Yes maybe everybody deserves a chance, but if you look at the images which are up front you will notice that some are relatively old and have 0 dls and are low quality. Beach woman is again a prime example. BTW many similars.  The similars happen, because they have exactly the same keywords. DT search relevancy is much too strong on keywords over every other factor, like dls, views etc..
I am not saying an image can be up front when it has 0 dls, I am saying it can get a chance, a short time, if it does not get downloaded it should go down in the search.

Look, an example are these two images. Both have beach and woman in keywords, title, description.
This one:

http://www.dreamstime.com/woman-on-the-beach-image4565219


is ahead in search of this one:

http://www.dreamstime.com/woman-on-beach-image6429099

The first one is by far not as nice as the second one.
The first one is older than the second one.
The first one has ZERO downloads, the second over 100.

This shows, that the search is not working properly. I assume it is because some kind of magic combination of keywords, in addition to the keywords beach and woman.




batman

« Reply #62 on: April 29, 2009, 11:44 »
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Yes maybe everybody deserves a chance, but if you look at the images which are up front you will notice that some are relatively old and have 0 dls and are low quality. Beach woman is again a prime example. BTW many similars.  The similars happen, because they have exactly the same keywords. DT search relevancy is much too strong on keywords over every other factor, like dls, views etc..
I am not saying an image can be up front when it has 0 dls, I am saying it can get a chance, a short time, if it does not get downloaded it should go down in the search.

Look, an example are these two images. Both have beach and woman in keywords, title, description.
This one:

http://www.dreamstime.com/woman-on-the-beach-image4565219


is ahead in search of this one:

http://www.dreamstime.com/woman-on-beach-image6429099

The first one is by far not as nice as the second one.
The first one is older than the second one.
The first one has ZERO downloads, the second over 100.

This shows, that the search is not working properly. I assume it is because some kind of magic combination of keywords, in addition to the keywords beach and woman.






So Dreamstime has a fetish for half naked women, what 's wrong with that?  ;D

RacePhoto

« Reply #63 on: April 29, 2009, 23:30 »
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First one has 34 keywords, second one has 47. Could be that percentage of matching words in relation to total words, makes a difference. I haven't searched for my images, I don't really bother once something is uploaded, but I can guarantee that if less words helps elevate in a search, I'm going to be towards the top.  ;D

I only use actual words for whats in a photo and don't use concepts or distant similar words. If I was looking for a red tomato I wouldn't type in Crimson Solanaceae. I think most people who search don't use strange and obscure synonyms, but if it makes you feel good, keep loading up those keywords and reducing the relevancy percentage of the search results.

If proximity counts, which is totally illogical for keywords with Alpha sort, but what the heck, who says it's logical? There are 43 words between Beautiful and Woman, and the one that shows first 30 words. Only one more for Beach and Woman in both cases. Both have the same title.

In short, for those who like to search the search, look for relevancy and proximity, see what you find. Maybe it's rejection rate and total sales, by photographer? Could be a whole bunch of things that are not as intuitive and straight forward as what actually matches what a buyer is looking for! Interesting concept, search results that match what someone is searching for?

ps every one of my images uploaded in 2008 shows this, which I don't understand... (and I'm about down to the I don't give an expletive deleted  anymore either) This image has been rightfully reported as having bad keywords and an editor approved the needed corrections. At this time you can add more keywords only through the key-mentoring system.

I don't know why all my images have been reported for having bad keywords? They hardly have any to start with.  ;)
« Last Edit: May 05, 2009, 13:31 by RacePhoto »

« Reply #64 on: April 30, 2009, 20:01 »
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The first one is by far not as nice as the second one.
The first one is older than the second one.
The first one has ZERO downloads, the second over 100.

This shows, that the search is not working properly. I assume it is because some kind of magic combination of keywords, in addition to the keywords beach and woman.

Unless quality is assigned at review time, this is something a search tool can not see.  Older with no sales MAY or MAY NOT be more relevant than one with lots of sales - I agree that sales/views must have a weight, but not a very high weight, otherwise new images will in general fall way behind in a search. 

I think Racephoto is right about relevance also being related to proximity, it makes sense.  The first image is in fact a woman at the beach.  The second (beautiful image by cdwheatley, btw) is more a beach scenery with a woman.  Not that this isn't what a buyer typing "woman beach" may be looking for.

« Reply #65 on: May 01, 2009, 01:32 »
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The first one is by far not as nice as the second one.
The first one is older than the second one.
The first one has ZERO downloads, the second over 100.

This shows, that the search is not working properly. I assume it is because some kind of magic combination of keywords, in addition to the keywords beach and woman.

Unless quality is assigned at review time, this is something a search tool can not see.  Older with no sales MAY or MAY NOT be more relevant than one with lots of sales - I agree that sales/views must have a weight, but not a very high weight, otherwise new images will in general fall way behind in a search. 

I think Racephoto is right about relevance also being related to proximity, it makes sense.  The first image is in fact a woman at the beach.  The second (beautiful image by cdwheatley, btw) is more a beach scenery with a woman.  Not that this isn't what a buyer typing "woman beach" may be looking for.

Madelaide, the difference simply  is that in the first one the woman is more prominent in the image and in the second one the beach is more prominent. I am pretty sure that the buyer prefers the second one, no doubt about that. And I am pretty sure beach woman is the keyword under which the second one has got most of its dls, while the first one got ZERO dls.

As I said new images deserve a chance to show up in the front, I am all for it. When it shows up in the front the quality can be measured, and the image can proove that it is exactly what buyers are searching for (Quality measure views and dls). But if there is no interest it should move back.

Maybe the rest of the keywords of the first image are more related to "beach woman" and maybe the amount of keywords and proximity counts. But I do not think that DT's search engine can do a perfect job with this and than add to this that there is not one perfect keyworder that people keyword very differently, this cannot work right.

Both images should have the same ranking from their keywords, they should have the same positioning, at least pretty closely. The other keywords should not matter so much as they currently do. Now put into addition to that the interest of buyers for the image and how old it is. Clearly the second one should win and should have moved far ahead in ranking before the first one. Seeing how old that first image is and never has been bought, it should have moved much further back, clearly there is no interest in this image for buyers, so what is it then doing so high up in the search?

Dreamstime's concern should be to show the buyer what he or she is searching for. While the images are now doubt relevant to the search term (In fact most times highly relevant), very often the images are NOT relevant for the buyer in terms of what he is actually searching for. What the buyer is search for is GOOD QUALITY IMAGES relevant to the keywords and sadly that is often not what he is getting at DT, at least not in the amount he should be.

I honestly wish Dreamstime would catch up to iStockphoto. Commission is by far better. But if I would be a buyer and compare this two agencies and do a few sample searches, I would clearly decide for iStockphoto. iStockphoto's stepped far ahead of every other agency due to its new search engine. I really really want Dreamstime to succeed. I do believe we all would benefit from it in the long run. And of course there always will be people hurt and complain if search engine changes. But if you produce qualtity images you should not worry about a search engine which is a bit stronger on quality, and DT's leadership should stand up towards quality and bring this message to buyers and contributors alike. Currently Dreamstime sacrifices quality for keyword relevancy. The buyer wants quality relevant to keywords and this is lacking at DT.

« Reply #66 on: May 01, 2009, 20:05 »
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Freeze,

I did the same search in both sites, and I agree with you that IS is giving better quality results.  They are both giving valid reults, but I agree that DT is perhaps not balancing results very well.  Also it is one situation in which it is still showing many images of the same series together, what looks boring.

I don't think DT considers proximity in the keywords - it could use in description, but I am not sure about this either.

Regards,
Adelaide

« Reply #67 on: May 01, 2009, 21:53 »
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Look, an example are these two images. Both have beach and woman in keywords, title, description.

Correct. Looking for "beach woman" brings up an image with 0 views and 0 downloads on position #4, while cdwheatley's beautiful level 5 image with almost 6000 views is on page #2 (20 thumbs per page). They must have been playing with the search machinery again, and at the moment it looks awful, at least for this search. The new uploaders should be happy though, for now.

It can't be the keywords/description/title only since "beach" and "woman" appear in Cdwheatley's title, description and keywords. Sorting by downloads still gives the best collection.

I have more luck with "beach jump" : 3 of my shots on row #1 page #1, and that with "relevancy". Look into what buyers use to buy your shots: almost always 1-2 words. Be clever and use the strongest 2 relevant keywords in title/description, and phase out everything above 30 or so, since they are mostly too far-sought.

First one has 34 keywords, second one has 47. Could be that percentage of matching words in relation to total words, makes a difference.

Bingo! ;D (sometimes I wonder whether DT doesn't use semantic clustering and linguistic proximity to determine relevance too; maybe too farfetched.)
« Last Edit: May 01, 2009, 22:20 by FlemishDreams »

« Reply #68 on: May 04, 2009, 09:16 »
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Is it an upturn in the economy, or the new search engine, or the new flash browser? Sales of my illustrations have started selling after a six month dry spell from July to February. During this period, I only had scattered sales.

Pat


« Reply #70 on: May 05, 2009, 07:24 »
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Your examples above are for more specific subjects, leading to a smaller pool of images. Our engine is quite spamproof, but when you reach the lower end of the spectrum, we may still face some spam.

Try a search on 'Air Travel'. That's quite a wide subject with over 15k results however 75% of the images (out of the first 80) are essentially the same illustration with different backgrounds.

'Breakfast eggs bacon' isn't much better with one image series hogging 46 of the top slots.

How do these people get so many 'similar' images accepted? If that's not spamming I don't know what is.

« Reply #71 on: May 05, 2009, 09:37 »
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Your examples above are for more specific subjects, leading to a smaller pool of images. Our engine is quite spamproof, but when you reach the lower end of the spectrum, we may still face some spam.
We have worked with the most popular searches and the ones providing a high number of results.
As time goes by we work to clear the more specific results too so you should continue to see improvements, even if the changes are not as drastic as with the main updates.

A comparison between an agency that had a great engine all the time, with one that was updated recently, may be unfair, especially if you look closer. It would be extremely easy for us to provide eye appealing images and made them quite relevant, but they wouldn't be the most relevant. On the long run it proves bad because fresh content cannot make it and new photographers will not earn enough.
I do agree that we should provide nice images not just meta-data-nice images, that is what we are trying to do.

Serban, I do not think it is unfair, when I compare DT with IS. Don't misunderstand me, I do not want to put DT down, I am sorry if you had that impression. I actually wish Dreamstime would do better than IS.
Its just, if I would be a buyer, I would not care about how long it takes to update a search or that the one company had much more time to develop a good search. What I want as a buyer is simply a good search. What you should aspire to, is have the best search engine and currently reading what you are saying it seems you think you have a pretty good search engine. Although you think its not perfect it seems you are pretty satisfied and only some more minor modifications are necessary to do.

But when I compare for the sake of seeing how a very good search engine works I do think DT's search engine needs some more "drastic" changes and not minor changes. But maybe you are indeed striving for more than only minor changes and I misread you. Thats what I am concerned about.

Let me add I do think DT is a great agency, I like it, I have respect for the people working there and I have recommended it to buyers in the past and wish DT all the best for its future, but that is also why I am writing this.
« Last Edit: May 05, 2009, 09:42 by Freezingpictures »

« Reply #72 on: May 05, 2009, 14:29 »
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Try a search on 'Air Travel'.That's quite a wide subject with over 15k results however 75% of the images (out of the first 80) are essentially the same illustration with different backgrounds.


 :o

Wonder, why this was not sieved out by "too many of the same..."-rejections!


tan510jomast

« Reply #74 on: May 06, 2009, 06:22 »
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EDITED FOR POINT
A few months ago, a few contributors were overtaking lots of spots, now this is balanced with more users.
For the other searches, the similars are indeed an issue and we're now addressing that.


Achilles, are you referring to the past where one contributor's images flooded the first page or more burying the others with less images of the searched keyword? If so, I applaud this, as I was wondering how it is always the same contributor with variations of the same theme that dominated the first few pages. What chances do the rest of us have if our images are buried on page  101?
Even when I am searching for my own image to see if my keyword works, I give up by the time I get to page 2 with so many images of one contributor. I am sure the buyer would have less patience than I the contributor.
I hope I explained my question correctly.


 

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