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Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: gborce on February 21, 2008, 14:11

Title: How important is selecting categories for your uploads?
Post by: gborce on February 21, 2008, 14:11

I find selecting categories (most sites want 3) the most time consuming part of uploading pics. What is people's experience about the usefulness of categorizing for sale of images? Do any buyers browse by category? I would imagine most or all do it by keywords.

Also did anyone notice decrease in sales with just one category selected (I think most sites force you to select at least one)? How about if you just randomly click wherever in the categories just to get it over with as fast as possible; does miscategoriziation have any effect on sales, or is virtually every buyer searching by keywords only and ignoring categories altogether?

cheers,
BG

Title: Re: How important is selecting categories for your uploads?
Post by: takestock on February 21, 2008, 15:00

Not so sure about this.

Personally, I always fill in the 3 and try to take my time on it.
How it affects sales probably differs from site to site.

I suppose the only real way to know is to contact support of each site and see what they say.

Title: Re: How important is selecting categories for your uploads?
Post by: fotografer on February 21, 2008, 15:01

On some sites you could have an image rejected if your put the wrong catagories up.  I put holiday for some of my vacation shots for SS as thats the word we use in england and had them rejected.

Title: Re: How important is selecting categories for your uploads?
Post by: maunger on February 22, 2008, 09:18

my contention is that nobody searches by category these days (buyers i mean) - i think they are a total waste of time and usually i put in as few as possible.

unfortunately, there are too many variables for anyone to try to figure this out except for the sites themselves.

Title: Re: How important is selecting categories for your uploads?
Post by: vonkara on February 22, 2008, 10:09

I always put categories even if I don't like it too much. FT have a good category concept, but it's very long to choose the best category. For me I think SS have the best category system. Simple and relevent

Title: Re: How important is selecting categories for your uploads?
Post by: gborce on February 22, 2008, 14:47

I haven't had a photo rejected for miscategorization, but I have been asked to recategorize some photos. Probably the bottom line is that choosing one category is a necessary evil, but more than that is probably a waste of time in terms of increasing sales.

Title: Re: How important is selecting categories for your uploads?
Post by: louoates on February 22, 2008, 16:10

A year or so ago there were a lot of threads on IS and other forums about this. My opinion then and now is that they're a total waste of time. I don't recall anybody (buyers) saying they ever used categories. I usually use the first relevant category that presents itself and that's it. I've never had a rejection because of it.
It's one of the things that LO has right--no categories.