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Author Topic: Best keyword strategy in Adobe stock  (Read 10865 times)

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« on: December 20, 2020, 18:06 »
0
I'm still wondering which is the best strategy for keywording images in Adobe stock: the first seven, maybe ten words, have best impact to search engine, and this is confirmed by Mat.

But the problem is: what is better to put in the first keywords?
The most generic, or the most specific ones?
Or may be a mix?

I ask this because I see no clear signal.
For example: I have a series of really different images produced in the same set and the risk is to put always the same keywords to the top for better description, but it should be a nice job to create something different for each one.
How to do this?
Generic ones at the top, and specific ones after 5 or 6 position?
Or maybe the specific ones on top, and the the generic ones?

I had different results so I can't understand which is the better strategy.
If you would like to share yours it could be really helpful.
Also Mat, if you like to clarify this point :)
Thanks for any thought


Uncle Pete

  • Great Place by a Great Lake - My Home Port
« Reply #1 on: December 21, 2020, 07:15 »
+2
I'm still wondering which is the best strategy for keywording images in Adobe stock: the first seven, maybe ten words, have best impact to search engine, and this is confirmed by Mat.

But the problem is: what is better to put in the first keywords?
The most generic, or the most specific ones?
Or may be a mix?

I ask this because I see no clear signal.
For example: I have a series of really different images produced in the same set and the risk is to put always the same keywords to the top for better description, but it should be a nice job to create something different for each one.
How to do this?
Generic ones at the top, and specific ones after 5 or 6 position?
Or maybe the specific ones on top, and the the generic ones?

I had different results so I can't understand which is the better strategy.
If you would like to share yours it could be really helpful.
Also Mat, if you like to clarify this point :)
Thanks for any thought

The first ten are given more weight, I don't know that 1-10 makes any difference and they don't mention that in the webinar on rank or keywords. A word in the title and the keywords has more weight than just in one of the other.

Have you watched both webinars on the subject?

I'll wait for Mat to give the answer to the first ten words question, if I'm wrong, but the way I understood it was, 1-10 are stronger and then all the rest 11-49 the same, but lower, - do not include 50 or all words are the same rank.

Seems pretty straight forward?

By the way, what all the people in the webinars said, is what I have always used as best keyword strategy. "If you were looking for this image, what words would you enter in the search" also "What words would you use to describe this image?" That and only use related words that are actually describing or what's in the actual image. Don't use irrelevant words or extras that aren't honest.

« Reply #2 on: December 21, 2020, 10:46 »
+3
I'm still wondering which is the best strategy for keywording images in Adobe stock: the first seven, maybe ten words, have best impact to search engine, and this is confirmed by Mat.

But the problem is: what is better to put in the first keywords?
The most generic, or the most specific ones?
Or may be a mix?

I ask this because I see no clear signal.
For example: I have a series of really different images produced in the same set and the risk is to put always the same keywords to the top for better description, but it should be a nice job to create something different for each one.
How to do this?
Generic ones at the top, and specific ones after 5 or 6 position?
Or maybe the specific ones on top, and the the generic ones?

I had different results so I can't understand which is the better strategy.
If you would like to share yours it could be really helpful.
Also Mat, if you like to clarify this point :)
Thanks for any thought

The first ten are given more weight, I don't know that 1-10 makes any difference and they don't mention that in the webinar on rank or keywords. A word in the title and the keywords has more weight than just in one of the other.

Have you watched both webinars on the subject?

I'll wait for Mat to give the answer to the first ten words question, if I'm wrong, but the way I understood it was, 1-10 are stronger and then all the rest 11-49 the same, but lower, - do not include 50 or all words are the same rank.

Seems pretty straight forward?

By the way, what all the people in the webinars said, is what I have always used as best keyword strategy. "If you were looking for this image, what words would you enter in the search" also "What words would you use to describe this image?" That and only use related words that are actually describing or what's in the actual image. Don't use irrelevant words or extras that aren't honest.

I couldn't have said it better myself Pete. Never max out your keywords at 50. Put the most relevant keywords in the top 10. Which keywords are the most relevant? You need to put yourself into the mind of a customer that wants to buy your image. What words would you use to find it? If it's a picture of a dog and there happens to be a basketball far off in the background, the keyword "dog" is much more relevant than "basketball."

Good luck!

Mat Hayward

« Reply #3 on: December 21, 2020, 12:04 »
0
Mat, you appear to be saying that any keyword in the top 10 has the same weight.  Given the color coding, I would have thought the first 5 are weighted in order of appearance, the next 5 are all the same weight, but lower than 1-5, and the keywords after 10 have a lower weight than that.
Since Pete is correct, you are saying that:
dog, poodle, running, chase, winter, snow, ball, pet, black, basketball
will give the same search result as:
basketball, black, pet, ball, snow, winter, chase, running, poodle, dog.

Please tell me that is not so.  I just finished annotating my 8800 images so it is too late for me.  But it would be good to know going forward.

« Reply #4 on: December 21, 2020, 12:04 »
0
Ok thanks  :)

Yes I know that the first keywords are the most important, and also that I should keep in mind what could the buyer search.
My question was a little bit more specific... maybe not so relevant who knows  :)

For example:
I have a series of images of cars, luxury sport supercars, illustrative editorial. Images style is the same, cars are different
I could use the same ten keywords for all:

car, supercar, luxury, rich, shiny, powerful, touring, exclusive... and so on
But I could also put more specific
Ferrari / Porsche / european / american...

My question is not which are the important keywords, but where should I put the specific ones versus the general ones
Better to put Ferrari at first place, because there are of course less images of Ferrari than cars?
Or better to have car, and then Ferrari, to reach a larger audience?

I know it's maybe a silly question  :) but looking at the results, I really cannot understand which strategy is the best

Thanks!

« Reply #5 on: December 21, 2020, 13:28 »
0
Mat, you appear to be saying that any keyword in the top 10 has the same weight.  Given the color coding, I would have thought the first 5 are weighted in order of appearance, the next 5 are all the same weight, but lower than 1-5, and the keywords after 10 have a lower weight than that.
Since Pete is correct, you are saying that:
dog, poodle, running, chase, winter, snow, ball, pet, black, basketball
will give the same search result as:
basketball, black, pet, ball, snow, winter, chase, running, poodle, dog.

Please tell me that is not so.  I just finished annotating my 8800 images so it is too late for me.  But it would be good to know going forward.

As far as I know, the first word has more weight than the second which has more weight than the third, etc. The top ten in general have the most impact. As a best practice, I list the most important/relevant keyword first and do my best to keep all relevant keywords in the top ten. You really don't need much more than 15-25 keywords tops per asset.

-Mat

« Reply #6 on: December 21, 2020, 13:30 »
0
Ok thanks  :)

Yes I know that the first keywords are the most important, and also that I should keep in mind what could the buyer search.
My question was a little bit more specific... maybe not so relevant who knows  :)

For example:
I have a series of images of cars, luxury sport supercars, illustrative editorial. Images style is the same, cars are different
I could use the same ten keywords for all:

car, supercar, luxury, rich, shiny, powerful, touring, exclusive... and so on
But I could also put more specific
Ferrari / Porsche / european / american...

My question is not which are the important keywords, but where should I put the specific ones versus the general ones
Better to put Ferrari at first place, because there are of course less images of Ferrari than cars?
Or better to have car, and then Ferrari, to reach a larger audience?

I know it's maybe a silly question  :) but looking at the results, I really cannot understand which strategy is the best

Thanks!

This is going to depend on the context of the brand in the image. If the shot is really specific to Ferrari, with the logo prominently displayed, I would list Ferrari as my number one keyword. If it's a more general car shot that happens to be a Ford, then the brand wouldn't be the top keyword. It's all about context and it will vary from image to image.

-Mat

« Reply #7 on: December 21, 2020, 13:47 »
0
Mat, you appear to be saying that any keyword in the top 10 has the same weight.  Given the color coding, I would have thought the first 5 are weighted in order of appearance, the next 5 are all the same weight, but lower than 1-5, and the keywords after 10 have a lower weight than that.
Since Pete is correct, you are saying that:
dog, poodle, running, chase, winter, snow, ball, pet, black, basketball
will give the same search result as:
basketball, black, pet, ball, snow, winter, chase, running, poodle, dog.

Please tell me that is not so.  I just finished annotating my 8800 images so it is too late for me.  But it would be good to know going forward.

As far as I know, the first word has more weight than the second which has more weight than the third, etc. The top ten in general have the most impact. As a best practice, I list the most important/relevant keyword first and do my best to keep all relevant keywords in the top ten. You really don't need much more than 15-25 keywords tops per asset.

-Mat

OK, good.  That is what I thought too.  I spent a lot of effort getting the top 10 keywords in priority order, rather than, for example, the supertag designation that Alamy provides for 10 keywords in any order. 

Uncle Pete

  • Great Place by a Great Lake - My Home Port
« Reply #8 on: December 22, 2020, 09:28 »
+1
Mat, you appear to be saying that any keyword in the top 10 has the same weight.  Given the color coding, I would have thought the first 5 are weighted in order of appearance, the next 5 are all the same weight, but lower than 1-5, and the keywords after 10 have a lower weight than that.
Since Pete is correct, you are saying that:
dog, poodle, running, chase, winter, snow, ball, pet, black, basketball
will give the same search result as:
basketball, black, pet, ball, snow, winter, chase, running, poodle, dog.

Please tell me that is not so.  I just finished annotating my 8800 images so it is too late for me.  But it would be good to know going forward.

As far as I know, the first word has more weight than the second which has more weight than the third, etc. The top ten in general have the most impact. As a best practice, I list the most important/relevant keyword first and do my best to keep all relevant keywords in the top ten. You really don't need much more than 15-25 keywords tops per asset.

-Mat

You folks didn't say that in ether the keywords or the search webinar. Can you get a confirmation?

And yes, I already do that, but just because it looks pretty.  :) OCD people do things like that, in order, even if it doesn't matter.

Mat, you appear to be saying that any keyword in the top 10 has the same weight.  Given the color coding, I would have thought the first 5 are weighted in order of appearance, the next 5 are all the same weight, but lower than 1-5, and the keywords after 10 have a lower weight than that.
Since Pete is correct, you are saying that:
dog, poodle, running, chase, winter, snow, ball, pet, black, basketball
will give the same search result as:
basketball, black, pet, ball, snow, winter, chase, running, poodle, dog.

Please tell me that is not so.  I just finished annotating my 8800 images so it is too late for me.  But it would be good to know going forward.


Yes, there used to be that confusion (Before Mat!) We had been told the top 7 or the top 9 and the colors didn't match the theories. So when the lady (I forget her name now) said it was the top ten, I believed that was enough to convince me it's ten.  8) So I haven't even noticed there's any colors anymore. Are there?

I'll wait for the definitive answer from Mat on the rank of the first ten words. That could change things, but since I usually did put them in order anyway, I will just make sure for the future.

One more note from both of the webinars, which I watched at least twice and took notes... after 30 days, the effect of changing the keyword order is very little. By then your images have been ranked.

However (this comes from me and others, a logical consideration) adding words that were left out, could help the images in future searches by buyers. But the image rank won't change. It can't hurt to add better words or words that are missing.


« Reply #9 on: December 22, 2020, 15:14 »
0
I'll wait for Mat to give the answer to the first ten words question, if I'm wrong, but the way I understood it was, 1-10 are stronger and then all the rest 11-49 the same, but lower, - do not include 50 or all words are the same rank.

Why not use all 50 words? If there is an option for 50 then I'll write 50 of them.

« Reply #10 on: December 22, 2020, 15:30 »
0
I'll wait for Mat to give the answer to the first ten words question, if I'm wrong, but the way I understood it was, 1-10 are stronger and then all the rest 11-49 the same, but lower, - do not include 50 or all words are the same rank.

Why not use all 50 words? If there is an option for 50 then I'll write 50 of them.

Because you cannot give them priority in such a case. If you have 49 words or less, the first ones are more important than others (otherwise all of them are weighted equally) and I think ability to set priority is much more useful than one (usually) not very important 50th word. 

« Reply #11 on: December 22, 2020, 16:39 »
+4
I'll wait for Mat to give the answer to the first ten words question, if I'm wrong, but the way I understood it was, 1-10 are stronger and then all the rest 11-49 the same, but lower, - do not include 50 or all words are the same rank.

Why not use all 50 words? If there is an option for 50 then I'll write 50 of them.

If you max out at 50, the system removes the advantage of the top 10 keywords carrying more weight and instead all 50 keywords are given equal weight at 1/50 which is not ideal. I highly recommend you cap it at 49.

-Mat

« Reply #12 on: December 22, 2020, 21:20 »
0
Really? 49? Only 1 keyword decide about it?

Some images need 50 keywords, but if the difference is that much if reduce it to 49, okay! Good to know!

BTW: to know: No agency clarify detailed how to use keywords at its best on their site. Isnt it stupid? If they give the information and the contributors follow that advice, then the agency also benefit from it!

1 month decide about the ranking:
I repeat my idea: It might be better to delete old images even if we changed the keywords to its best (after that 30 days), because the rating is very important.
For instance it makes everything chaotic and i.g. Adobe will be upset seeing contributors doing that: delete and upload/submit again. But we cannot say the system was wrong - The agency which did not give enough information about it was wrong.
What is the benefit for the agency NOT to tell the best way for keywording?

« Reply #13 on: December 23, 2020, 08:15 »
0
I'll wait for Mat to give the answer to the first ten words question, if I'm wrong, but the way I understood it was, 1-10 are stronger and then all the rest 11-49 the same, but lower, - do not include 50 or all words are the same rank.

Why not use all 50 words? If there is an option for 50 then I'll write 50 of them.

If you max out at 50, the system removes the advantage of the top 10 keywords carrying more weight and instead all 50 keywords are given equal weight at 1/50 which is not ideal. I highly recommend you cap it at 49.

-Mat

Oh, didn't know that. Thank you!

« Reply #14 on: January 08, 2021, 13:29 »
+1
Mat, how do keyword combinations or keyphrases work on Adobe?

« Reply #15 on: January 13, 2021, 00:59 »
0
Mat, how do keyword combinations or keyphrases work on Adobe?
Does anybody know?

« Reply #16 on: January 13, 2021, 05:07 »
0
I have all my images with 50 keywords, if I remove one from them will I get better rank for first 10 keywords or it is just for new uploads?

« Reply #17 on: January 13, 2021, 10:17 »
0
Mat, how do keyword combinations or keyphrases work on Adobe?

It depends on the context. If the word combination would be found in the dictionary then yes, it's appropriate for a compound keyword. For example, an image of an Arctic Fox, you would use the keywords "arctic fox" and "fox" but not "Arctic." "Golden Gate Bridge" you would use all three words as one keyword in addition to "Bridge" but you wouldn't' use "gate" for example since that's irrelevant.

However, words like "Red Dress" should not be used as a compound keyword but instead separated into two different keywords.

Hope that helps,

Mat

« Reply #18 on: January 13, 2021, 10:19 »
+1
I have all my images with 50 keywords, if I remove one from them will I get better rank for first 10 keywords or it is just for new uploads?

Unless the content is new, I wouldn't put that effort in. Be sure to limit your keywords to no more than 49 moving forward. Seems like a lot to have for every image, make sure you are adding only words that are relevant to the submission. If you add vague or irrelevant keywords, that will hurt your placement in search.

-Mat

« Reply #19 on: January 13, 2021, 11:17 »
+2
I have all my images with 50 keywords, if I remove one from them will I get better rank for first 10 keywords or it is just for new uploads?

Unless the content is new, I wouldn't put that effort in. Be sure to limit your keywords to no more than 49 moving forward. Seems like a lot to have for every image, make sure you are adding only words that are relevant to the submission. If you add vague or irrelevant keywords, that will hurt your placement in search.

-Mat

thanks, but I still dont understand why is it allowed to put 50 when 49 is optimal for performance. Seems very strange and confusing move.

From now on I will do only 49 so maybe something will change.


« Reply #20 on: January 13, 2021, 12:06 »
0
Mat, how do keyword combinations or keyphrases work on Adobe?

It depends on the context. If the word combination would be found in the dictionary then yes, it's appropriate for a compound keyword. For example, an image of an Arctic Fox, you would use the keywords "arctic fox" and "fox" but not "Arctic." "Golden Gate Bridge" you would use all three words as one keyword in addition to "Bridge" but you wouldn't' use "gate" for example since that's irrelevant.

However, words like "Red Dress" should not be used as a compound keyword but instead separated into two different keywords.

Hope that helps,

Mat

Thank you Mat!

I've used some common nouns as compound keywords (as a guess what the buyer would search), so would removing them improve my placement in searches?

Do hyphenated compound keywords work in Adobe search engine? Eg. arctic-fox, artificial-intelligence, electric-car.

« Reply #21 on: January 14, 2021, 11:21 »
+1
Mat, you appear to be saying that any keyword in the top 10 has the same weight.  Given the color coding, I would have thought the first 5 are weighted in order of appearance, the next 5 are all the same weight, but lower than 1-5, and the keywords after 10 have a lower weight than that.
Since Pete is correct, you are saying that:
dog, poodle, running, chase, winter, snow, ball, pet, black, basketball
will give the same search result as:
basketball, black, pet, ball, snow, winter, chase, running, poodle, dog.

Please tell me that is not so.  I just finished annotating my 8800 images so it is too late for me.  But it would be good to know going forward.

As far as I know, the first word has more weight than the second which has more weight than the third, etc. The top ten in general have the most impact. As a best practice, I list the most important/relevant keyword first and do my best to keep all relevant keywords in the top ten. You really don't need much more than 15-25 keywords tops per asset.

-Mat

You folks didn't say that in ether the keywords or the search webinar. Can you get a confirmation?

And yes, I already do that, but just because it looks pretty.  :) OCD people do things like that, in order, even if it doesn't matter.

Mat, you appear to be saying that any keyword in the top 10 has the same weight.  Given the color coding, I would have thought the first 5 are weighted in order of appearance, the next 5 are all the same weight, but lower than 1-5, and the keywords after 10 have a lower weight than that.
Since Pete is correct, you are saying that:
dog, poodle, running, chase, winter, snow, ball, pet, black, basketball
will give the same search result as:
basketball, black, pet, ball, snow, winter, chase, running, poodle, dog.

Please tell me that is not so.  I just finished annotating my 8800 images so it is too late for me.  But it would be good to know going forward.


Yes, there used to be that confusion (Before Mat!) We had been told the top 7 or the top 9 and the colors didn't match the theories. So when the lady (I forget her name now) said it was the top ten, I believed that was enough to convince me it's ten.  8) So I haven't even noticed there's any colors anymore. Are there?

I'll wait for the definitive answer from Mat on the rank of the first ten words. That could change things, but since I usually did put them in order anyway, I will just make sure for the future.

One more note from both of the webinars, which I watched at least twice and took notes... after 30 days, the effect of changing the keyword order is very little. By then your images have been ranked.

However (this comes from me and others, a logical consideration) adding words that were left out, could help the images in future searches by buyers. But the image rank won't change. It can't hurt to add better words or words that are missing.

@Pete, I have confirmed that as of this moment in time, yes...keyword 1 has slightly more weight than keyword 2, which has more weight than 3 and so on...I'm told this is not something you should obsess on when indexing as the advantage within the top ten over one another is negligible. Just be sure you are putting the most important words in the top ten and you should be good to go.

-Mat

« Reply #22 on: January 14, 2021, 11:23 »
0
Mat, how do keyword combinations or keyphrases work on Adobe?

It depends on the context. If the word combination would be found in the dictionary then yes, it's appropriate for a compound keyword. For example, an image of an Arctic Fox, you would use the keywords "arctic fox" and "fox" but not "Arctic." "Golden Gate Bridge" you would use all three words as one keyword in addition to "Bridge" but you wouldn't' use "gate" for example since that's irrelevant.

However, words like "Red Dress" should not be used as a compound keyword but instead separated into two different keywords.

Hope that helps,

Mat

Thank you Mat!

I've used some common nouns as compound keywords (as a guess what the buyer would search), so would removing them improve my placement in searches?

Do hyphenated compound keywords work in Adobe search engine? Eg. arctic-fox, artificial-intelligence, electric-car.

The user guide says to avoid special characters when indexing but it doesn't really matter if you want to add a hyphen. Your call, they won't break anything. I personally don't use them with my content.

-Mat

Uncle Pete

  • Great Place by a Great Lake - My Home Port
« Reply #23 on: January 15, 2021, 08:54 »
+1

@Pete, I have confirmed that as of this moment in time, yes...keyword 1 has slightly more weight than keyword 2, which has more weight than 3 and so on...I'm told this is not something you should obsess on when indexing as the advantage within the top ten over one another is negligible. Just be sure you are putting the most important words in the top ten and you should be good to go.

-Mat

Before that gets lost in a long, quote, quote, quote series. Thank You Mat!

Who me obsess?  ;) No I don't really, I just like to know if I'm missing something and I like to know the rules and how things work. I'm happy with my stabs at getting the best ten keywords in the first ten, and the really really few important words in the title as well.

I was happy with the webinar and the repeating advice, that going back to edit or adjust keywords, has minimal value. The only exception I can think of personally, is when I'm adding an important word that I missed completely. I understand that image rank is pretty well set after 30 days.



 

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