And, BTW, Google has no interest in licensing. I was a sighted guide at an RNIB technology conference in September. One of the sessions was by Google. I was in a sort of 'ante-room' during the sessions, and I heard them describing all sorts of accessibility features, but I couldn't actually see what they were demonstrating. One section was about DTP, and I heard the speaker say, '...then you just do a google image search for an image and when you've found the one you want (aside: some of the delegates were partially sighted, so that wasn't as odd as it might seem) insert it like this ..." Not one word about checking copyright. That was just it. Find an image on Google and use it.

That'll be fine then! I'll see them in court.
Seriously I've thought for a long time now that most sales are going to professional / business buyers who want "safe", licensable content.
No proof of course, but the uses I find point that way.
So that would mean buyers searching on sites where they know the content is safe and licensable. . .
 

I ve sold 33 images on SS today. The stock world didn't come to an end then?

Quote from: Semmick Photo on May 27, 2015, 15:14

I ve sold 33 images on SS today. The stock world didn't come to an end then?

I just went to see how many I have sold today, and I get an Unable to Connect error page. 

It's not just you! http://submit.shutterstock.com looks down from here.

I just opened a thread about it

This is my last comment to ShadySue and others who got it totally wrong. When i said "entire stock market" I have not referred only to photography, there r various artists selling video clips, audio clips, vectors, AE & motion templates, CG and so on ...not all these artists sell through subscription program (or any other program),many of them opt out. I personally sell my clips and CG directly at a rate of 60 %, the other 40 % coming from subscription programs.

That's why I said that many of us depend on Google/search engines, even agencies. I have friends who have created all sorts of demos (clips, Ae templates ,CG's) and uploaded them to youtube for a greater visual impact and to attract direct clients.
I don't believe in the phrase " serious microstock buyers " for me r just buyers and they are all over the world.

If start a new thread, then the topic is up for discussion. That's what forums are for surely?
Not everyone is going to agree with you.
Particularly if you didn't make your point 100% clear to start with.

There are many changes that google made to its Penguin algorithm (search engine)...But I can give you two examples which effects ALL agencies:
1: all sites with "duplicate content" = Google's penalty (i think this is a huge problem for all agencies, since all agencies have duplicate content)
2. all sites which r not "mobile friendly" = Google's penalty (this type of problem can be solved with a new look, but it takes time "months" to regain the position you lost it in google)

Duplicate content has been penalized for years ... it's kind of ... their way of keeping up with re-bloggers.

Also, mobile ready sites have always been given priority ... on mobile devices ... I don't know if you know this or not but, Google developed the android operating system, and Chrome ... having a site data that displays well on all devices and browsers is just ... a given.

Dallas , i don't know if u have a site of u're own or if u manage one....but i do and it has just one problem : it is not mobile friendly.
Do u want to know when google announced me that I will be penalized ?
18.03.2015 i received that msg from google...not in 2014 or 2013, and I felt on my skin what that means.

Looks like there has been a recent update to Penguin as well as the change that strongly favors mobile websites, these recent changes at Google could be the main cause of low sales and clipviews in the last two months that everyone including myself have been complaining about.  I started digging deeper when I was reading comments about low to no sales in all forums, dated recently and not just video but stills as well.

As we can see from the basic Alexa site, a LOT of views come from the Google search engine, sites like the ones we use would stand to take a Google penalty on duplicate content I would thing, my specially is mostly weather, all kinds of weather and then I have a ton of on-campus events plus a little bit of everything else and I've uploaded batches and batches of content with the same titles descriptions and keywords, sure others have as well.  This might be ok with the site's internal search engine but not to Google.    This might be what we are up against.

I think we all need to learn SEO real quick and set up as much external promotion as possible but be carefully not to make it spammy or Google will ignore that as well, it's a lot to learn real fast that's for sure and I am one of them who until recently has no clue about all of this.

My clip views have dropped more than 50% in recent weeks, sales as well and on the site I used I practically own all things weather and on campus related, it's not that I have a lot of competition yet everything just came to a stop with the exeption of this week, severe weather sale resumed quite spectacularly for a couple of days but I suspect that one one customer buying multiple clips and it was strictly my severe cold and snow content.

ttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/pond5.com [nofollow]

http://www.pond5.com/artist/WeatherENG [nofollow]

google giveth and google taketh away.

especially for the smaller sites I bet google search is pretty important - supposedly the last round of changes pretty much sunk GL.

It would be good to be able to improve SEO for our images, but why we'd want to do that for IS, FT, SS, or any of the big players that take the biggest chunks is beyond me. It would be definitely worth doing it if you have your own site though. Also maybe for P5 or similar.

The biggest problem is that what might help you now might hurt you later. So unless you are willing to go back and change things each time google changes it is probably best to just have accurate and descriptive titles, keywords, etc.

Dallas , i don't know if u have a site of u're own or if u manage one....but i do and it has just one problem : it is not mobile friendly.
Do u want to know when google announced me that I will be penalized ?
18.03.2015 i received that msg from google...not in 2014 or 2013, and I felt on my skin what that means.

I did get the message ... and I can't say that my sites couldn't use an update but, at least the important one is mobile friendly.

How did people get the messages from Google? I have a personal website which is essentially moribund, and one I manage for others, which is 'dormant', and no message from Google on either. No note for my husband's site either.
None of these are selling anything; maybe that's why?

ShadySue for the beginning try google webmaster tools, add a property(website) if u have one...Google will verify if you are the owner of the property and it will give u details about u're property(site layout,indexing status,etc) and also other messages )))

Oh, thanks; I thought you meant they'd sent you an email or something.
I don't go there, as none of my sites are currently being updated.