MicrostockGroup

Agency Based Discussion => Adobe Stock => Topic started by: Sion on September 15, 2011, 22:53

Title: How does ranking affects placement of photos?
Post by: Sion on September 15, 2011, 22:53
How does ranking affects placement of photos in Fotolia in its search engine?
Title: Re: How does ranking affects placement of photos?
Post by: microstockphoto.co.uk on September 16, 2011, 01:24
If it does, I'm afraid nobody knows besides them: search engine internal rules are usually well kept secrets.
Title: Re: How does ranking affects placement of photos?
Post by: lagereek on September 16, 2011, 01:27
You know, Ive been 4 years with FT and I still havent a clue of how they work this,  beats me.
Title: Re: How does ranking affects placement of photos?
Post by: OM on September 16, 2011, 11:47
You know, Ive been 4 years with FT and I still havent a clue of how they work this,  beats me.

They once explained it in relation to subscriptions. Your ranking has little to do with it (unless that's changed).

Quote
Visibility
By following the rules above, you will achieve a better visibility. But there are further tips to increase your visibility:

1. By allowing the sales in subscription you will improve the ratio sold/views for each one of your contents. When a subscription customer wants to buy your image and you don’t allow the sale in subscription, your content will be marked at 0 sold for 1 view. The ratio sold/view is an important criteria within our search engine. Images that are sold each time they are viewed receive a better visibility in the results page.

So anyway I've made a bit of a 'research' project of this recently and I've come to the conclusion that there are a few pretty smart FT contributors out there. Whilst most including myself whine about newly accepted images never being seen and, of course, not selling, there are others whom I suspect have applied the system to their own, considerable, advantage. How otherwise can one explain a perfectly good food shot being viewed 250+ times and downloaded 12 times within a couple of days of its acceptance. Similar sort of thing happened with the same photographer's non-food shot one week later. IMO there are only a couple of ways of achieving this: either there are loads of customers out there hanging on your every upload and waiting to pounce or.................you do a bit of self-promotion (tax deductible) and buy a sub for a month (or get someone to do it for you). Remember, the object of the exercise is to get to page 1 in the search on the basis of relevance, popularity and downloads as fast as possible. With your sub contract for $200 you may download as many as 750 images in a month. Start downloading certain selected images of your own............and earn back your sub at 29 cents per sale (silver rank). Probably means working weekends (60 downloads) if you want to make a profit but that's not really the idea. Feel a bit queasy about embarking on this enterprise? Get someone else (or a company) to buy a sub with unlimited users......costs a little more but enables you or your proxy to mail everyone you know to go buy a designated file with attached subs code.

Don't get greedy, don't download all your 750 image entitlement thus leaving a fair bit of subs profit on the table for FT and I don't see anyone objecting! All purely hypothetical, mind you........I'm not doing it. Don't upload enough per month to make it worthwhile but there may be others for which this would work.
Title: Re: How does ranking affects placement of photos?
Post by: MatHayward on September 16, 2011, 11:51
I believe that the number of sales in relation to the number of views increases the "popularity" and probably the relevance ranking and boosts the image location in the search. 

In other words, a photo that has been viewed 100 times and purchased 50 times would show better than an image viewed 1,000 times and purchased 50 times. 
Title: Re: How does ranking affects placement of photos?
Post by: lisafx on September 16, 2011, 12:01
 


So anyway I've made a bit of a 'research' project of this recently and I've come to the conclusion that there are a few pretty smart FT contributors out there. Whilst most including myself whine about newly accepted images never being seen and, of course, not selling, there are others whom I suspect have applied the system to their own, considerable, advantage. How otherwise can one explain a perfectly good food shot being viewed 250+ times and downloaded 12 times within a couple of days of its acceptance. Similar sort of thing happened with the same photographer's non-food shot one week later. IMO there are only a couple of ways of achieving this: either there are loads of customers out there hanging on your every upload and waiting to pounce or.................you do a bit of self-promotion (tax deductible) and buy a sub for a month (or get someone to do it for you). Remember, the object of the exercise is to get to page 1 in the search on the basis of relevance, popularity and downloads as fast as possible. With your sub contract for $200 you may download as many as 750 images in a month. Start downloading certain selected images of your own............and earn back your sub at 29 cents per sale (silver rank). Probably means working weekends (60 downloads) if you want to make a profit but that's not really the idea. Feel a bit queasy about embarking on this enterprise? Get someone else (or a company) to buy a sub with unlimited users......costs a little more but enables you or your proxy to mail everyone you know to go buy a designated file with attached subs code.

Don't get greedy, don't download all your 750 image entitlement thus leaving a fair bit of subs profit on the table for FT and I don't see anyone objecting! All purely hypothetical, mind you........I'm not doing it. Don't upload enough per month to make it worthwhile but there may be others for which this would work.

I don't see gaming the system as "smart".  I see it as dishonest.  Not to mention very, very risky.  People have had accounts closed for similar types of behaviors.
Title: Re: How does ranking affects placement of photos?
Post by: Sadstock on September 16, 2011, 12:53



So anyway I've made a bit of a 'research' project of this recently and I've come to the conclusion that there are a few pretty smart FT contributors out there. Whilst most including myself whine about newly accepted images never being seen and, of course, not selling, there are others whom I suspect have applied the system to their own, considerable, advantage. How otherwise can one explain a perfectly good food shot being viewed 250+ times and downloaded 12 times within a couple of days of its acceptance. Similar sort of thing happened with the same photographer's non-food shot one week later. IMO there are only a couple of ways of achieving this: either there are loads of customers out there hanging on your every upload and waiting to pounce or.................you do a bit of self-promotion (tax deductible) and buy a sub for a month (or get someone to do it for you). Remember, the object of the exercise is to get to page 1 in the search on the basis of relevance, popularity and downloads as fast as possible. With your sub contract for $200 you may download as many as 750 images in a month. Start downloading certain selected images of your own............and earn back your sub at 29 cents per sale (silver rank). Probably means working weekends (60 downloads) if you want to make a profit but that's not really the idea. Feel a bit queasy about embarking on this enterprise? Get someone else (or a company) to buy a sub with unlimited users......costs a little more but enables you or your proxy to mail everyone you know to go buy a designated file with attached subs code.

Don't get greedy, don't download all your 750 image entitlement thus leaving a fair bit of subs profit on the table for FT and I don't see anyone objecting! All purely hypothetical, mind you........I'm not doing it. Don't upload enough per month to make it worthwhile but there may be others for which this would work.

I don't see gaming the system as "smart".  I see it as dishonest.  Not to mention very, very risky.  People have had accounts closed for similar types of behaviors.


----------------------------------------------------
Not to mention, it screws all the other contributors. 

If you have the data, I suggest you report it to FT rather than to emulate it.  (not to mention that you might have just flagged your FT portfolio for extra close attention  ;D) 

There was a huge scandle years ago on Istock where people were doing this and they were banned.  Would not be surprised if at the time istock shared the names/info about those scamming contributors with the other micros.  I know they share info about people who submit stolen images as their own. 
Title: Re: How does ranking affects placement of photos?
Post by: Pheby on September 16, 2011, 13:02
How otherwise can one explain a perfectly good food shot being viewed 250+ times and downloaded 12 times within a couple of days of its acceptance.
Simply like this:
Since the relaunch of the site, there are 28 images featured in the newest uploads section. Three of those are visible on the front page for a couple of hours, sometimes all day long. Those are the images that get lots of views and sometimes more than 20 downloads on their first day on the site. It happens to a lucky few every day now...
 
Title: Re: How does ranking affects placement of photos?
Post by: Pheby on September 16, 2011, 13:12
I believe that the number of sales in relation to the number of views increases the "popularity" and probably the relevance ranking and boosts the image location in the search. 

In other words, a photo that has been viewed 100 times and purchased 50 times would show better than an image viewed 1,000 times and purchased 50 times. 

I agree. And I strongly assume that the "popularity" factor has gained weight in the new best match.
Title: Re: How does ranking affects placement of photos?
Post by: OM on September 16, 2011, 13:32



So anyway I've made a bit of a 'research' project of this recently and I've come to the conclusion that there are a few pretty smart FT contributors out there. Whilst most including myself whine about newly accepted images never being seen and, of course, not selling, there are others whom I suspect have applied the system to their own, considerable, advantage. How otherwise can one explain a perfectly good food shot being viewed 250+ times and downloaded 12 times within a couple of days of its acceptance. Similar sort of thing happened with the same photographer's non-food shot one week later. IMO there are only a couple of ways of achieving this: either there are loads of customers out there hanging on your every upload and waiting to pounce or.................you do a bit of self-promotion (tax deductible) and buy a sub for a month (or get someone to do it for you). Remember, the object of the exercise is to get to page 1 in the search on the basis of relevance, popularity and downloads as fast as possible. With your sub contract for $200 you may download as many as 750 images in a month. Start downloading certain selected images of your own............and earn back your sub at 29 cents per sale (silver rank). Probably means working weekends (60 downloads) if you want to make a profit but that's not really the idea. Feel a bit queasy about embarking on this enterprise? Get someone else (or a company) to buy a sub with unlimited users......costs a little more but enables you or your proxy to mail everyone you know to go buy a designated file with attached subs code.

Don't get greedy, don't download all your 750 image entitlement thus leaving a fair bit of subs profit on the table for FT and I don't see anyone objecting! All purely hypothetical, mind you........I'm not doing it. Don't upload enough per month to make it worthwhile but there may be others for which this would work.

I don't see gaming the system as "smart".  I see it as dishonest.  Not to mention very, very risky.  People have had accounts closed for similar types of behaviors.

I view such a method as being dishonest too and wouldn't do it, as I already stated. No doubt it is risky but in these hard times much seems to depend these days on whether it's 'just not done' or whether it's downright illegal /forbidden. Is there any rule when buying a sub that says that you can't use all your downloads buying just one contributor's images multiple times? Or just to be safe, you get a proxy to buy a sub and download mostly your images multiple times plus a few of someone else. At what point does FT accuse you of being a proxy for a contributor gaming the system that they created for their benefit? As I said, it's all my own fantasy. No evidence only observations and questions.   
Title: Re: How does ranking affects placement of photos?
Post by: OM on September 16, 2011, 13:35
How otherwise can one explain a perfectly good food shot being viewed 250+ times and downloaded 12 times within a couple of days of its acceptance.
Simply like this:
Since the relaunch of the site, there are 28 images featured in the newest uploads section. Three of those are visible on the front page for a couple of hours, sometimes all day long. Those are the images that get lots of views and sometimes more than 20 downloads on their first day on the site. It happens to a lucky few every day now...
 

Yup, excellent explanation. It was just my fantasy after all. Ignore all my prior ramblings. Thanks.
Title: Re: How does ranking affects placement of photos?
Post by: lisafx on September 18, 2011, 08:06
Just an update:  I wanted to get an idea of how Fotolia would feel about the above-described system of downloading one's own images by subscription, either directly or through a proxy, and this is the reply I got from a high level Fotolia administrator:

It is not smart to play these games for sure. If we notice abuse (and we have ways to see) then we will delete the accounts associated with these games.

Section 4 of the terms and conditions addresses this issue:

"You may not use the Website in a fraudulent manner, or otherwise in a manner for which the Website is not reasonably intended to be used. By way of example, and without limiting the generality of the foregoing statement, you will not download works for the primary purpose of artificially inflating the ranking of a given contributor or for the primary purpose of artificially triggering payments to contributors. A contributor, or someone else on his/her behalf, may not download Works that such contributor has uploaded."



Title: Re: How does ranking affects placement of photos?
Post by: OM on September 19, 2011, 04:42
Thanks for that info, Lisa.