...just checked the Alexa stats and it seems like traffic on ALL the Micro sites is falling rapidly. Around 30-40% loss of traffic in the last three month for most sites.

1. Are your sales / views falling at a same rate or are your stats showing no difference to previous month?
2. Assuming the Alexa rank is valid: what might be the reason for the rapid fall? Google image search? Global crisis?

Personally, my sales are going down more or less in accordance with the Alexa ranks, but I was not too active in the last two month, so my stats are not so relevant I think 

I can't speak for every agency, but the Google Image changes took a big hit out of my traffic numbers. Fortunately, it didn't seem to really affect sales.

I'm not sure how Alexa collects its data, but I'm having a harder time taking traffic reports seriously. They all seem to change their reporting practices all the time. I still look at them, but I don't see them as the gospel.

With the way images are displayed on Google now, I'm surprised there are any sales anywhere. Why buy when they are giving them away. Recent searches I have done the last couple of days shows that they are now even sorting by vector, png, etc. and displaying those categorized results at the top of the page. I found that process to be a little buggy, but I clicked on some images that were pngs and sure enough they would display in the google window so you could see the transparency.

I can't speak for every agency, but the Google Image changes took a big hit out of my traffic numbers. Fortunately, it didn't seem to really affect sales...

I don't have the info available to site owners, and I can't prove it but I have a suspicion that Google is really starting to hurt us and it's going to get worse. Comments by Kelly at GL and, as I recall, Duncan at CanStockPhoto have been pretty dire sounding. Hope I'm wrong.

stock agencies should make a deal with google to get all their images on google images with a BUY button or something.

and this would also educate users that images are not free.

either that or the cost to acquire buyers is going to go skyrocket, most of the small agencies relied too much on google images for that and now they're laying off employees.

Maybe Google itself should get a content developer instead of just a SE....whats holding them back?

Liability, model releases, tons and tons of people posting stolen photos.

What I think I read was that the WAY Google images views images that has changed and it doesn't produce a recorded site visit or hit. That's the change. Seems most people here are translating that into Google has ruined views. More like, Alexa doesn't know that some site visits take place and removing search engine views would make a huge difference.

Alexa is really only useful as a site to site comparison tool, if at all. If you want Alexa stats to go up, just install the toolbar and visit the site - you can make a difference.

Not only what ppdd wrote but it's only stats and data, it's not documented absolute law and fact. People are extrapolating sales changes from views, when just like everything else, there are numerous other factors involved.

If the only thing that changed is the way Alexa records Google views, maybe the change is... It's June!  Voted by many people as the worst month of the year for microstock.

And to answer the OP. No sales aren't really falling 30-40% in relation to the perceived view drop. No I don't assume that the Alexa rank is valid at all. But I would like someone to come back in the Fall when things are going up and see how that matches the view drop analytics on Alexa? What then? Less views = more sales? Same views = more sales?

I don't think Alexa is worth all the concern when the way it tracks sites changes.

Heres the reason. http://www.webpronews.com/google-image-search-changes-have-not-been-kind-to-webmasters-2013-04