Guess the algorithm got us all wondering. I got some images that is on their first page but others are sunk below. As a buyer i cant see myself wasting time going through all the pages. On another thread someone suggested productivity could also play a role these days, like uber's algorithm here locally favours drivers who works more.
Yeah, productivity could be a factor.
In the old days, when iS's algorithm changed, it was usually more than easy to work out what the factors were - often recently uploaded files got a short 'boost'.
Probably a good proportion of buyers don't look past the first page or two. Certainly on Alamy, I notice that some buyers only look at 100 files (1 default seach page), but others look at over 2000 - or more, with a very general search term. Maybe the latter are looking for lots of files for e.g. a book.