Hi,

This may be a stupid question, but how much significance in portfolio exposure should I expect from a rank increase, if any at all? I'm new to fotolia, and am about to hit 100 sales to increase me to the next rank. I know the royalty increase is barely significant, but is there any other benefit to being at a higher rank?

Thanks,
Joseph

No it doesnt. If it did I would without doubt be earning a fortune and I am not.

The thing I've noticed that seems to greatly increase exposure on Fotolia is the ratio of views to sales. So, if a photo or illustration has 50 views and one sale, it doesn't show up very early in the searches for it. However, if you're lucky enough to have an item that has only 1 or 2 views and has an immediate sale, that image will skyrocket up in the search engine.

I jacked my prices to maximum allowed when I hit emerald and saw an income boost as a result. Not everyone saw a decline in income when hitting emerald.

Quote from: angelawaye on March 07, 2017, 09:16

Nope. Does nothing at all. I'm an Emerald. Sales are horrible there for me.

Same here also Emerald and sales are almost non existant! I was earning far more three years back. The one and only reason I still stick with Adobe-Ft is because I cant really be bothered deleting or uploading. Theyre just there so to speak.

The key to success is to consistently upload which helps keep your content near the top of the search results. If you have stopped uploading, it's possible your existing content is being pushed back in the search as new, relevant content continues to flow in thus making it more difficult for customers to find your work.

-Mat

Quote from: angelawaye on March 07, 2017, 09:16

Nope. Does nothing at all. I'm an Emerald. Sales are horrible there for me.

Of course�
They tend to push the contributors they have to pay less�
Unfortunately today to be emerald (or better) has became an handicap

I definitely noticed this back when FT was independent.   I am certain it was happening then.  When Adobe took over, my sales increased by 30-40%, so I assume they got rid of that stupid policy.  I don't think my images are punished in the searches for being emerald anymore.

Would be interesting to hear from other emeralds if they noticed the same.

Quote from: MatHayward on April 24, 2017, 14:15

Quote from: derek on April 24, 2017, 14:05

Quote from: angelawaye on March 07, 2017, 09:16

Nope. Does nothing at all. I'm an Emerald. Sales are horrible there for me.

Same here also Emerald and sales are almost non existant! I was earning far more three years back. The one and only reason I still stick with Adobe-Ft is because I cant really be bothered deleting or uploading. Theyre just there so to speak.

The key to success is to consistently upload which helps keep your content near the top of the search results. If you have stopped uploading, it's possible your existing content is being pushed back in the search as new, relevant content continues to flow in thus making it more difficult for customers to find your work.

-Mat

So new is a big factor in the relevance search,  not just the search by age?  If so, this makes us like hamsters on a wheel, constantly running to stay in place.

Here's what I noticed by tracking their search results for a while. Sometimes during some holidays, contributors upload a large amount of holiday images a few weeks before. Some of them get good, not great placement and this gives them a chance to rise if they sell well. If the images sells well, they rises to the top, but to stay there, they has to keep selling. If they don't sell well over a certain period of time, they start to fall back down.

I have some images that places high and they haven't moved much in over a year despite all the new uploads. If your image keeps selling, it'll maintain a good placement not matter how many images get uploaded.

Quote from: derek on April 24, 2017, 14:05

Quote from: angelawaye on March 07, 2017, 09:16

Nope. Does nothing at all. I'm an Emerald. Sales are horrible there for me.

Same here also Emerald and sales are almost non existant! I was earning far more three years back. The one and only reason I still stick with Adobe-Ft is because I cant really be bothered deleting or uploading. Theyre just there so to speak.

The key to success is to consistently upload which helps keep your content near the top of the search results. If you have stopped uploading, it's possible your existing content is being pushed back in the search as new, relevant content continues to flow in thus making it more difficult for customers to find your work.

-Mat

The key to success is to consistently treat content on it's own merits and not assign arbitrary expiration dates to their search viability, in other words, new content isn't necessarily better. If our existing uploads that took our time and money to create and keyword sold well before and then suffer unnecessarily due to Fotolia's search algorithm choices, then yes, it will indeed be difficult for customers to find our work. It also shows a lack of appreciation for our past contributions and trust in the company, unevenly marginalizing those with higher rankings and thus higher royalty %.

It's a short-sighted, greed-driven "keep the contributors on the hamster wheel" approach which also encourages repeated, near duplicate uploading of already saturated topics to "keep up" instead of inspiring innovation and contributing to more lacking subjects.

Ultimately and no matter what agency small or large. The killer for us are the search changes which are done in hope of more profits and if it fails youre stuck with that search.

Ain't that the truth!

Quote from: derek on April 24, 2017, 14:05

Quote from: angelawaye on March 07, 2017, 09:16

Nope. Does nothing at all. I'm an Emerald. Sales are horrible there for me.

Same here also Emerald and sales are almost non existant! I was earning far more three years back. The one and only reason I still stick with Adobe-Ft is because I cant really be bothered deleting or uploading. Theyre just there so to speak.

The key to success is to consistently upload which helps keep your content near the top of the search results. If you have stopped uploading, it's possible your existing content is being pushed back in the search as new, relevant content continues to flow in thus making it more difficult for customers to find your work.

-Mat

Thanks Mat!

and this is something people do not realize. Success is not a one way journey, its a circular path and one needs to keep on running. I have seen people complaining of no sale, terrible sale and accusing the agency... but hey are you really working and producing the right content needed?

Quote from: MatHayward on April 24, 2017, 14:15

Quote from: derek on April 24, 2017, 14:05

Quote from: angelawaye on March 07, 2017, 09:16

Nope. Does nothing at all. I'm an Emerald. Sales are horrible there for me.

Same here also Emerald and sales are almost non existant! I was earning far more three years back. The one and only reason I still stick with Adobe-Ft is because I cant really be bothered deleting or uploading. Theyre just there so to speak.

The key to success is to consistently upload which helps keep your content near the top of the search results. If you have stopped uploading, it's possible your existing content is being pushed back in the search as new, relevant content continues to flow in thus making it more difficult for customers to find your work.

-Mat

Thanks Mat!

and this is something people do not realize. Success is not a one way journey, its a circular path and one needs to keep on running. I have seen people complaining of no sale, terrible sale and accusing the agency... but hey are you really working and producing the right content needed?

Oh dear!  well I presume? or am I being silly but when people have thousands of files in portfolios and reaching four to five figure payments every month and its their full-time job and been doing it for years and years, LONG before micro-stock. YES I do presume they know what they are doing, haha !  dont you?

Quote from: derek on April 26, 2017, 01:00

Oh dear!  well I presume? or am I being silly but when people have thousands of files in portfolios and reaching four to five figure payments every month and its their full-time job and been doing it for years and years, LONG before micro-stock. YES I do presume they know what they are doing, haha !  dont you?

My "they" refer to people who complain and do nothing, I have seen many users in this forum doing lot complain and crying hard but when I go though their portfolio, its nothing. Yes there is competition, which will always be but one should not stop or slow the working.

Yes I go along with that!  there are still people after all these years that think micro-stock equals free lunches and getting rich over night and with mediocre portfolios thats true.
As far as established contributors for us the supply we been feeding is far greater then the actual demand. For many years now we have been listening to agencies urging us to upload and upload and that we have done so much so we have killed off the golden goose and basically painted ourselves into a corner.
Of course for the agencies our pictures are assets and an agencies worth equals its assets. Simple as that really.

What we didnt count with was the fact that thanks to the internet agencies could manipulate and tamper with our earnings in the form of sort-orders and algorithms desperately searching for the ultimate profit search. Oh well haha! I dont think they will ever find that one.

Quote from: MatHayward on April 24, 2017, 14:15

Quote from: derek on April 24, 2017, 14:05

Quote from: angelawaye on March 07, 2017, 09:16

Nope. Does nothing at all. I'm an Emerald. Sales are horrible there for me.

Same here also Emerald and sales are almost non existant! I was earning far more three years back. The one and only reason I still stick with Adobe-Ft is because I cant really be bothered deleting or uploading. Theyre just there so to speak.

The key to success is to consistently upload which helps keep your content near the top of the search results. If you have stopped uploading, it's possible your existing content is being pushed back in the search as new, relevant content continues to flow in thus making it more difficult for customers to find your work.

-Mat

The key to success is to consistently treat content on it's own merits and not assign arbitrary expiration dates to their search viability, in other words, new content isn't necessarily better. If our existing uploads that took our time and money to create and keyword sold well before and then suffer unnecessarily due to Fotolia's search algorithm choices, then yes, it will indeed be difficult for customers to find our work. It also shows a lack of appreciation for our past contributions and trust in the company, unevenly marginalizing those with higher rankings and thus higher royalty %.

It's a short-sighted, greed-driven "keep the contributors on the hamster wheel" approach which also encourages repeated, near duplicate uploading of already saturated topics to "keep up" instead of inspiring innovation and contributing to more lacking subjects.

I'd argue that Fotolia has far better algorithms than other stock sites, certainly way more options than others at any rate and it doesn't prioritise new content above all else since the default search is on relevance. I suspect there is some factor of image age playing a part there but it isn't terrible and it creates a good mix of new and old content since if a buyer consistently sees exactly the same content whenever they search due to the first page being full of 5 year old images with hundreds or thousands of sales it is going to make the site look stagnant and decrease sales overall.

I notice one of my images that was the first in the search for relevance is now second to a newer image that is far lower down on the downloads search and just slightly behind on the popularity search. It is even missing one of the keywords I used to search so it technically should be less 'relevant'. I imagine the view count of the image is responsible as it is a very attractive thumbnail that begs a closer look. I can't complain though... the reason my image got to the top of the search and sells so frequently is because it saw a big spike in views early on.