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Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: kuriouskat on March 21, 2017, 12:14

Title: Email from Alamy
Post by: kuriouskat on March 21, 2017, 12:14
ALAMY IMAGE MANAGER IS LIVE!

It's now even easier to get your images online with our new Alamy Image Manager.

You now only need to add a caption and 5 tags (keywords) to get your images on sale.

If you have this information embedded within your images then your images will go on sale with your default pseudonym and license type once they've passed through QC - you won't need to do anything further.


Does this mean I now longer have to worry about 'poor visibility'? I like the idea of uploading and doing nothing further but is it really as simple as that? No 'super-tags', no location, no categories?
Title: Re: Email from Alamy
Post by: Pauws99 on March 21, 2017, 12:37
ALAMY IMAGE MANAGER IS LIVE!

It's now even easier to get your images online with our new Alamy Image Manager.

You now only need to add a caption and 5 tags (keywords) to get your images on sale.

If you have this information embedded within your images then your images will go on sale with your default pseudonym and license type once they've passed through QC - you won't need to do anything further.


Does this mean I now longer have to worry about 'poor visibility'? I like the idea of uploading and doing nothing further but is it really as simple as that? No 'super-tags', no location, no categories?
yep
Title: Re: Email from Alamy
Post by: kuriouskat on March 21, 2017, 12:51
ALAMY IMAGE MANAGER IS LIVE!

It's now even easier to get your images online with our new Alamy Image Manager.

You now only need to add a caption and 5 tags (keywords) to get your images on sale.

If you have this information embedded within your images then your images will go on sale with your default pseudonym and license type once they've passed through QC - you won't need to do anything further.


Does this mean I now longer have to worry about 'poor visibility'? I like the idea of uploading and doing nothing further but is it really as simple as that? No 'super-tags', no location, no categories?
yep

Really, so I can just ignore all those on my dashboard that say 'poor discoverability'? I hope that gets changed, as it's annoying to look at :)
Title: Re: Email from Alamy
Post by: Pauws99 on March 21, 2017, 14:03
ALAMY IMAGE MANAGER IS LIVE!

It's now even easier to get your images online with our new Alamy Image Manager.

You now only need to add a caption and 5 tags (keywords) to get your images on sale.

If you have this information embedded within your images then your images will go on sale with your default pseudonym and license type once they've passed through QC - you won't need to do anything further.


Does this mean I now longer have to worry about 'poor visibility'? I like the idea of uploading and doing nothing further but is it really as simple as that? No 'super-tags', no location, no categories?
yep

Really, so I can just ignore all those on my dashboard that say 'poor discoverability'? I hope that gets changed, as it's annoying to look at :)
I don't know to what extent it affects your search results....I think for editorial location helps. The discoverability thing is a red herring I think it just seems to "reward" keyword spamming. The categories are so half hearted its ridiculous. I think the more information you provide the better but its hard to judge if its worth the time....your call!
Title: Re: Email from Alamy
Post by: pancaketom on March 21, 2017, 15:00
I wish they wouldn't go live without some action on our part - at least let us decide RM or RF first. I am glad it isn't as much of a pain as it used to be, although maybe that limited competition slightly.

Title: Re: Email from Alamy
Post by: stockastic on March 21, 2017, 16:11
Based on the sales I've had this year, I'd say my current visibility is somewhere between that of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster.   So any change is fine with me, there's nowhere to go but up. 
Title: Re: Email from Alamy
Post by: Pauws99 on March 21, 2017, 16:19
I wish they wouldn't go live without some action on our part - at least let us decide RM or RF first. I am glad it isn't as much of a pain as it used to be, although maybe that limited competition slightly.
I ve now set mine to the correct default it wasn't great when they were putting stuff for sale automatically as RM when it broke their own rules. its an improvement but I hope they make a few refinements that could make it much better. Getting rid of silly categories would be a great start.
Title: Re: Email from Alamy
Post by: sgoodwin4813 on March 21, 2017, 16:59
Does this mean I now longer have to worry about 'poor visibility'? I like the idea of uploading and doing nothing further but is it really as simple as that? No 'super-tags', no location, no categories?

Nope, you still get the "poor visibility" issue and now it doesn't select any super tags so you have to add them all in afterwards (assuming they actually are helpful).  They never did have location or categories on Alamy as far as I am aware.  The new system does seem to recognize keyword phrases, though, which is a nice improvement.  It also looks like you can select the license type after acceptance, with RF as the default.  Overall I think it's a great improvement, although it still can require some effort after acceptance.
Title: Re: Email from Alamy
Post by: Zalee on March 21, 2017, 17:18
It also must be acceptable for the buyer to decide whether or not it has to be editorial because that is optional.
Title: Re: Email from Alamy
Post by: sgoodwin4813 on March 21, 2017, 17:37
There doesn't seem to be an editorial option - maybe that is still coming?  Or maybe the newsworthy archive is what they consider to be editorial - I am holding off on submitting editorial until that gets sorted out.
Title: Re: Email from Alamy
Post by: dirkr on March 21, 2017, 17:40
There doesn't seem to be an editorial option - maybe that is still coming?  Or maybe the newsworthy archive is what they consider to be editorial - I am holding off on submitting editorial until that gets sorted out.

Under Optional there is a check box for "editorial only".
Title: Re: Email from Alamy
Post by: kuriouskat on March 22, 2017, 05:22
Well I guess I'd just like a definitive answer as to whether we can just upload and forget, or whether there is actually an advantage to adding the super tags, categories, etc.

I tried to check out Alamy's forum but discovered it was a bit of a maze. Maybe I will email them directly......
Title: Re: Email from Alamy
Post by: ShadySue on March 22, 2017, 06:23
Well I guess I'd just like a definitive answer as to whether we can just upload and forget, or whether there is actually an advantage to adding the super tags, categories, etc.

I tried to check out Alamy's forum but discovered it was a bit of a maze. Maybe I will email them directly......

By all means email them, but what they officially say about search doesn't always/usually match with the results that my testing shows up. I'd advise doing your own tests. I do my searches both logged in, and logged out in a different browser with all history/cookies whatever removed. (not much difference, usually, presumably because I'm not a buyer). Results can swing dramatically from week to week.

Title: Re: Email from Alamy
Post by: Pauws99 on March 22, 2017, 06:50
Well I guess I'd just like a definitive answer as to whether we can just upload and forget, or whether there is actually an advantage to adding the super tags, categories, etc.

I tried to check out Alamy's forum but discovered it was a bit of a maze. Maybe I will email them directly......

By all means email them, but what they officially say about search doesn't always/usually match with the results that my testing shows up. I'd advise doing your own tests. I do my searches both logged in, and logged out in a different browser with all history/cookies whatever removed. (not much difference, usually, presumably because I'm not a buyer). Results can swing dramatically from week to week.
I very much doubt the would say "hey those fields we've asked you to complete arent really much use"
Title: Re: Email from Alamy
Post by: sharpshot on March 22, 2017, 07:27
It only takes a few seconds to do the super tags.  If they aren't working now, I'm sure they will be in the future.  The worst thing is that a lot of my keywords from old images have been lumped together, so I have to look through my entire portfolio to fix them.
Title: Re: Email from Alamy
Post by: Pauws99 on March 23, 2017, 14:23
http://www.alamy.com/blog/tagging-images-on-alamy (http://www.alamy.com/blog/tagging-images-on-alamy) really tells you the obvious a well described image will do better.
Title: Re: Email from Alamy
Post by: Stockmaan on March 23, 2017, 15:39
I still have 22 images "Images not on sale." What about this? Don't understand correctly this email from Alamy..
Title: Re: Email from Alamy
Post by: kuriouskat on March 24, 2017, 03:00
It only takes a few seconds to do the super tags.  If they aren't working now, I'm sure they will be in the future.  The worst thing is that a lot of my keywords from old images have been lumped together, so I have to look through my entire portfolio to fix them.

This article is part of what had me asking the original question. It's kind of misleading for Alamy to send an email saying you don't need to do anything more, when it is clearly advantageous to do so. Perhaps they should have said the images will go on sale as they are and, if you wish to improve your chances in the search, you can invest a little extra time behind the scenes.
Title: Re: Email from Alamy
Post by: Zalee on March 24, 2017, 06:43
I still have 22 images "Images not on sale." What about this? Don't understand correctly this email from Alamy..
The few that I have "not on sale" were ones I had forgotten to put a title on. If some part of the mandatory section is missing it won't go on sale until you have filled in that information. It's either keywords or the caption. The other information on the mandatory section is by default.
Title: Re: Email from Alamy
Post by: sgoodwin4813 on March 24, 2017, 10:33
There doesn't seem to be an editorial option - maybe that is still coming?  Or maybe the newsworthy archive is what they consider to be editorial - I am holding off on submitting editorial until that gets sorted out.

Under Optional there is a check box for "editorial only".

OK, thanks.  I haven't noticed that but will check the next time I submit there.