Hi all,

I'm already almost a year away from the micro scene (8 months to be correct).  When I stopped uploading I thought earnings would drop to almost zero in 6 months or so.  But in fact this isn't the case.  After 8 months without any uploads I still earn 50% of my BME.  I find that pretty amazing.

I've put all in a little page on my site, together with some charts.  Just for the fun, nothing scientific 

http://www.perrush.be/SYF_micro_E_25a.html

Greetz
Stefan

Interesting post, it seems from a longevity point of view Bigstock performs very favourably

Thanks for the info.  I have slowed down uploads lately and noticed a fall with istock.  Perhaps they need new images as much as SS.

I also need to get a site up for referrals.  Don't have any with SS yet.

very interesting study ! I am surprised that IS is following SS trend but here are the numbers I guess..

Do not see anything surprising - more successful agency is, less longevity you can expect - your portfolio is getting lost in increased site one.

DT is also a successful agency, i did not upload for two months and found that sales at SS and IS dropped, but not at DT. Different search engines, that is how it looks to me.

Quote from: vphoto on July 03, 2008, 16:54
Different search engines, that is how it looks to me.

true.  I'm sure IS plays a lot with their search engine.  The surge in January isn't normal imho.  So I'm sure they tweaked it in my favor at that moment.

I had also one month at IS (I think it was March07) were I suddenly started to get much more downloads. then the months before.  This continued for about 3 or 4 months ... and then suddenly downloads decreased.  This can be easily seen in the charts.

Also very interesting to note, the spike in my second month at SS.  It's a common secret that SS favors newcomers in a big way.  It took me almost 8 months to break my BME at SS.

I'm sure the search engine tweaks are much more important than we often think.

Great work, Perrush. Pity you stopped uploading - I liked watching your new images coming... But then again, this study wouldn't be possible without it....

Thanks for that, it made very interesting reading.

I haven´t uploaded in almost a year too and my results are about the same you post (maybe even better in some instances).  I expected sales to go to down to zero but the only site that has gone way down is IS.  The rest are very average month to month.  I have focused my available time on Alamy with very nice results, it is getting to the point of making me over 50% of my monthly photo income with very little effort compared to managing six micro sites.

Quote from: michealo on July 03, 2008, 13:29
Interesting post, it seems from a longevity point of view Bigstock performs very favourably

as a newbie, i have to agree. my sales just started coming in from BigStock, and these are for my oldest uploaded images. good to know that BigStock is a slow starter but perform they do. BigStock is consistent.

Quote from: Nemo1024 on July 04, 2008, 06:42
Great work, Perrush. Pity you stopped uploading - I liked watching your new images coming... But then again, this study wouldn't be possible without it....

I think it's a pity too... I love your images! and your grey cat it's a lovely model
Anyway, thanks for your work. It was very usefull when I started, and still is.
Which bike did you buy? My husband is big fun of bikes 

Not about how many Guys.....it never was. it's how useable.

I'd echo the same comments, no uploads between November and late May, and my sales only went down slightly in that time, the popular sellers continued to sell...

Having said that, I spent a fair amount of time in June uploading, and had my BME total last month, so it does help to upload some new stuff occasionally.

Cheers, Me.

Quote from: rinderart on July 07, 2008, 06:04
Not about how many Guys.....it never was. it's how useable.

way too general....waaaaay too general.

its about how many, how useable, how well keyworded, and how much the search engine likes you   

if an awesome photo falls in a forest because its poorly keyworded, does anyone doing a search with a search engine find it?  thats the most ridiculous analogy i could come up with, but you get the idea

Quote from: ichiro17 on July 07, 2008, 18:21

Quote from: rinderart on July 07, 2008, 06:04
Not about how many Guys.....it never was. it's how useable.

way too general....waaaaay too general.

its about how many, how useable, how well keyworded, and how much the search engine likes you   

if an awesome photo falls in a forest because its poorly keyworded, does anyone doing a search with a search engine find it?  thats the most ridiculous analogy i could come up with, but you get the idea

I agree.

And the search engine is the most unpredictable part.  Look at Fotolia, once a year they change their search engine and it changes everything... most relevant images are now older ones, which explain why Perrush is having growth with them

I do see a lot of good images with poor keywords sell well though.  If the contributor has good images, the buyers seem to find them.

Quote from: sharpshot on July 07, 2008, 19:00
I do see a lot of good images with poor keywords sell well though.  If the contributor has good images, the buyers seem to find them.

I suspect image sales and keywords follow a something-like 80/20 rule: 80% of the sales are through 20% of the keywords.