Author Topic: Popularity?! (Read 8502 times)

Peter · « **on:** June 17, 2008, 08:56 »

There is new search criteria on FT: by Popularity.

I have few thousand images online, and when search by popularity iz shows only about 70. What is this new feature, does anybody know how it works? I think it has something to do with number of views. I am smelling lower sales because of this.... (imagine someone search for "healthy food" sorted by popularity, and none of your images are there....

vonkara · « **Reply #1 on:** June 17, 2008, 09:07 »

That's incredibly amateur again LOL

Adeptris · « **Reply #2 on:** June 17, 2008, 09:10 »

Quote from: Peter on June 17, 2008, 08:56

imagine someone search for "healthy food" sorted by popularity, and none of your images are there....

Simple, it would mean that you do not upload popular images ..........

stokfoto · « **Reply #3 on:** June 17, 2008, 14:30 »

you know they got rid of view descending order lately and the new one seems to me a mixture of view and downloads descending.

jsnover · « **Reply #4 on:** June 17, 2008, 15:15 »

There's some chatter on their forums about this - and speculation that they haven't finished indexing this search yet. Take some common terms and many (high download) images drop out when you select "Popularity". It may well be some flavor of downloads per month, but I think the souffle's not out of the oven yet...

Peter · « **Reply #5 on:** June 17, 2008, 15:25 »

Quote from: stokfoto on June 17, 2008, 14:30

you know they got rid of view descending order lately and the new one seems to me a mixture of view and downloads descending.

yeah, but it is not just an order of images, it shows only about 1-10% of portfolio (1% in my case). And I dont think it is a bug, it is most likely going to stay that way.

stokfoto · « **Reply #6 on:** June 17, 2008, 16:45 »

Quote from: Peter on June 17, 2008, 15:25

Quote from: stokfoto on June 17, 2008, 14:30
you know they got rid of view descending order lately and the new one seems to me a mixture of view and downloads descending.

yeah, but it is not just an order of images, it shows only about 1-10% of portfolio (1% in my case). And I dont think it is a bug, it is most likely going to stay that way.

I see your point now.it's juts like what you said,only about 8% of my files show up in that search order.I hope that is something temporary and like jsnover mentioned they haven't finished indexing it otherwise it'd be terrible.

stokfoto · « **Reply #7 on:** June 17, 2008, 16:50 »

and funnily enough a good proportion of my "popular " files are my older submissions with lower res and many of them are also exclusive files ,I hope they will properly sort it out soon.

Peter · « **Reply #8 on:** June 17, 2008, 17:02 »

We shall see...

PenelopeB · « **Reply #9 on:** June 17, 2008, 19:31 »

Well... Keep up the good work Fotolia!!! I've had my best month ever.

Keep on keeping on!

Peter · « **Reply #10 on:** June 18, 2008, 00:51 »

My sales have improved as well (almost as they were before), so personaly I dont want another change of search engine. Leave it as is, and lets do business, dont change search every few months.

jsnover · « **Reply #11 on:** June 19, 2008, 11:47 »

I thought I'd track the results for a few (3) searches just to see if the number of popular files was increasing, and it is. I assume this means that in time they'll have finished whatever work they're doing and the number of files returned will be the same as for other sort criteria, just in a different order.

Here are my results for the number of files returned June 17/18/19 for these 3 searches

straw hat
relevance 1731/1723/1723
popularity 68/ 75/ 324

lotus
relevance 3856/3857/3859
popularity 179/ 197/ 608

woman gardening
relevance 829/ 831/ 833
popularity 50/ 59/ 131

stokfoto · « **Reply #12 on:** June 19, 2008, 15:15 »

They seem to be still indexing it as my figures in popularity descending have risen above 300 which was about 75 a day ago.
and sales have been pretty much normal for me but the first week of the month was great so it's BME already.

jsnover · « **Reply #13 on:** June 23, 2008, 13:50 »

So I've been looking at the numbers that show up for popularity searches, and they're now going down again (having been on the increase)

For the lotus search, for example, there were 608 (out of 3859) popular files on June 19th, but today there are only 560 (out of 3895) - the total files have increased, but the popular files have dropped. Same with all but one of the searches and the number of popular files in my own portfolio.

vonkara · « **Reply #14 on:** June 23, 2008, 13:54 »

But what's make these files in the popular search?

leaf · « **Reply #15 on:** June 23, 2008, 14:49 »

the popular search is also somewhat random.. if you load the page a few times the images will shift around a little on each load.

fotografer · « **Reply #16 on:** June 23, 2008, 14:57 »

What results do you get when you sort your own portfolios by popular?
When I do it I only get just over half of my images show up.

jsnover · « **Reply #17 on:** June 23, 2008, 15:22 »

Today, I get 856 of my 1522 files if I sort by popular - up from 146 of 1522 back on June 18th, but down from 877 of 1522 yesterday...

Things are just not working right on the site; it shouldn't be this inconsistent

jsnover · « **Reply #18 on:** June 25, 2008, 10:46 »

Today I see that the number of search results is the same for Popularity as for Relevance, Downloads, etc. So I guess the indexing of things is finished.

I still don't really understand how they're deciding the ranking though. For one of my test search terms, straw hat, I have a number of images. One group was all shot at the same time and my top 3 selling images (at FT) are from that group.

The #2 image, by downloads and views, is more "popular" than the number 1 in FT's ranking, both in a search for straw hat and looking at my porfolio. I can understand the downloads/month type ranking, but given similar age of the images, that can't be the reason.

Looking at my portfolio, page 17 is where the first 0 DL image shows up - by popularity. These are recent files, so I guess I understand their boost. By DLs, page 33 is where the first 0 DL shows up.

However I have a couple of files from last fall that sold more than a couple - 19 for one and 6 for the other that are on page 18 and 19, way after other files with fewer DLs, many of which are older than they are. How did these relatively "good" files get pushed so far back?

stokfoto · « **Reply #19 on:** June 25, 2008, 11:23 »

Quote from: jsnover on June 25, 2008, 10:46

Today I see that the number of search results is the same for Popularity as for Relevance, Downloads, etc. So I guess the indexing of things is finished.

I still don't really understand how they're deciding the ranking though.

I guess that explains why my sales back to normal now.but yea I don't understand how they rank.

CofkoCof · « **Reply #20 on:** June 25, 2008, 11:32 »

Quote from: jsnover on June 25, 2008, 10:46

The #2 image, by downloads and views, is more "popular" than the number 1 in FT's ranking, both in a search for straw hat and looking at my porfolio. I can understand the downloads/month type ranking, but given similar age of the images, that can't be the reason.

Maybe the keyword order is what made the #2 image in front.

Karl Bolf · « **Reply #21 on:** June 25, 2008, 12:30 »

I guess the ratio Number of sales / Number of downloads is relevant in their ranking. Some popular picture is one that is sold often when viewed. It seems also combined with date of entry and number of sales since that date.

As any aggregate indicator, this popularity rating is imperfect : it simplifies a multi-criteria, complex system down to a single variable ranking.

Question is : among other tools, does it help customers looking for pictures?. I feel it does, in most cases

jsnover · « **Reply #22 on:** June 25, 2008, 13:50 »

Quote from: Karl Bolf on June 25, 2008, 12:30

I guess the ratio Number of sales / Number of downloads is relevant in their ranking. Some popular picture is one that is sold often when viewed. It seems also combined with date of entry and number of sales since that date

That doesn't appear to be the explanation. I have a number of situations where images uploaded around the same date are in an odd order, whether you look at it by total downloads or the number of views per download. Keywords aren't an issue if you're sorting your own portfolio by popularity.

I'm partially indulging in idle curiosity, but also sales at FT are much lower this month than last (and their relative position vs. other sites is slipping for me) and I'm assuming some search engine shuffle is behind this.

snoozle · « **Reply #23 on:** June 26, 2008, 08:54 »

I don't know what they did to my files when they changed the search engine. Must have thrown them in the bin!

I am on target to achieve 11% of my monthly average for 2008 in June, and almost certainly achieve my worst month ever. Thankfully this isn't mirrored in the other sites that I upload to.

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Author Topic: Popularity?! (Read 8502 times)

Peter

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Adeptris

stokfoto

jsnover

Peter

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Peter

PenelopeB

Peter

jsnover

stokfoto

jsnover

vonkara

leaf

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stokfoto

CofkoCof

Karl Bolf

jsnover

snoozle

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