Author Topic: "Relevance" search engine change caught red handed? (Read 6424 times)

Aetherial · « **on:** September 15, 2008, 05:27 »

Today I was trying to find several of my very new images on FT with shopping as a theme. almost all of them contained "shopping" as a first keyword. It was early morning here (around 6 am GMT) and I was very surprised to find several of them spread over first, second and third page of search results. I double and triplechecked by repeating search. It was sorted by relevance. I thought, "Good, when the buyers get to work I will hit s**tloads of dls" (about time!) because those images are very good in my honest opinion, so naturally I tried this again four hours later and the results are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. not that my images are nowhere to be seen near first 7 pages (I quit looking after that), but only images that retained their position in my previous and this search are Yuri's shopping girls (well deserved because those images are fantastic, I even saw them on bank posters in my country).

Did I catch search engine change?? Regular monday morning search engine change (*, couldn't they wait another day, those images were accepted over the weekend?!)?? Did you notice something like that too? Will I ever make daily dls at FT???(ok, don't answer this one)

Aetherial · « **Reply #1 on:** September 16, 2008, 01:44 »

nobody?

Today I tried again the same thing at around 6:30 am GMT. I got lots of results for newer images, and now (around 8:30 GMT) I again get only older images with lots of downloads. both sorted by relevance.

Is there a possibility that Fotolia has a, let's call it, "diurnal" search engine? favoring good sellers for a half of day, and then favoring new images for other half? Unfortunately, it seems that my images are on front pages during the night, when there is a chance only for someone i Asia to see it during his/her workhours. it never occured to me before, but that might actually be a good and fair sytem to have several best match algorhytm changing in equal time slots each day.

or I am doing something wrong and got this all wrong?

PLEASE, try searching for your images (same keywords, new images) several times a day (with at least 12 hours between search would be best) to see if this might be true.

Peter · « **Reply #2 on:** September 16, 2008, 01:56 »

Nice theory. Only it has to be proven.

I might do a few searches of my own images, and see what happens.

Peter · « **Reply #3 on:** September 16, 2008, 08:51 »

You are right! This morning, for certain keywords, I had 6-7 images on 1st page. 7 hours later, I cant find them on first 5 pages, found few on 6th page.

Your theory is right. Bravo!

Elenathewise · « **Reply #4 on:** September 16, 2008, 10:22 »

it all may be true, but what are you doing to do about it? Their search engine, they can do whatever they want with it:) They are trying to maximize their sales, not yours:)

Peter · « **Reply #5 on:** September 16, 2008, 11:56 »

i think it is more fair this way. new and old images have chances.

louoates · « **Reply #6 on:** September 16, 2008, 15:16 »

The only explanation is that they have some sorting procedure that they think gets them more sales. It has nothing to do with the search parameters that you select. Trust me on this one. Ever since FT's newest software version there is no way you can find your own images in any logical fashion using searches that use more than one (sometimes) keyword. Try it for yourself. Search for your best selling image using five of your best keywords. Lots of luck. Just accept it and move on.

michaeldb · « **Reply #7 on:** September 17, 2008, 00:31 »

Quote from: louoates on September 16, 2008, 15:16

Lots of luck. Just accept it and move on.

Informative thread IMO.

I guess 'luck' is the key word. It's ok for us to just accept it and move on, and having images appear more or less randomly probably isn't a bad thing for submitters. But what about buyers? If I am a designer working on a real project on a real deadline, I think I would like the best images / best matches turned up on some kind of predictable basis?

This is one problem I have had with IS skewing best match results toward exclusives. It seems that the customers have a right to expect the REAL best matches to their searches.

Pixart · « **Reply #8 on:** September 19, 2008, 09:43 »

I'm not sure what is going on, but I've had sales this week, lots of them for Fotolia. The only month this year that I've earned more was July, and it's only the 19th.

It looks to me like they've fixed the search engine, not broken it.

I get very few sales after about 10:00 on FT. All European customers I am guessing.

MicrostockGroup Sponsors

Author Topic: "Relevance" search engine change caught red handed? (Read 6424 times)

Aetherial

Aetherial

Peter

Peter

Elenathewise

Peter

louoates

michaeldb

Pixart

Related Topics

Sponsors

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors