I used to be an iStock exclusive, so I knew exactly how to keyword for them, now however I am not sure anymore as vocabularies are not controlled like on Getty. I am submitting to top 9 agencies.

I'm finding myself using synonyms and different forms of the same word a lot, which sometimes gets me over the allowed number of keywords. Is this necessary? I'll give you a few examples:

laugh, laughter, laughing
disinfection, disinfectant, disinfecting
happy, happiness
radiation, radioactive
virus, viral
joy, joyful
cut-out, cut out
protection, protective
emotion, emotional

Are these considered as different keywords, or does searching for one give you results for the other as well, whether you have it in your keywords or not?

Thanks!

Another vote for different keywords.

If there is a person actually laughing in the image I would only use "laughing" and not laugh or laughter because those are more conceptual keywords.

I think a buyer searches for "woman laughing" and not "woman laugh" or "woman laughter"

I would use "disinfecting" when someone is actually performing the action. I would use "disinfectant" and "disinfection" to describe the product being used (without people in the image)

Don't forget about "cutout" 

"closeup", "close up" or "close-up" 

I think buyers with a deadline use "closeup" or "cutout" more often.

I hope that makes sense Notaslave! I'm not a top seller nor a keyword guru so this is only my 2c!

To all the buyers out there please enlighten us!

Another vote for different keywords.

If there is a person actually laughing in the image I would only use "laughing" and not laugh or laughter because those are more conceptual keywords.

I think a buyer searches for "woman laughing" and not "woman laugh" or "woman laughter"

I would use "disinfecting" when someone is actually performing the action. I would use "disinfectant" and "disinfection" to describe the product being used (without people in the image)

Don't forget about "cutout" 

"closeup", "close up" or "close-up" 

I think buyers with a deadline use "closeup" or "cutout" more often.

I hope that makes sense Notaslave! I'm not a top seller nor a keyword guru so this is only my 2c!

To all the buyers out there please enlighten us!

Person doing disinfection is most likely using some kind of a disinfectant to get the job done, in which case both keywords should apply. As far as laugh goes, I agree, what you propose makes the most sense, but who's to say people always search using full and proper sentences. I think if a person is laughing, laughter is still on point, even if the photo is not meant as a conceptual art depicting laughter per se. And yeah, all the different forms of cut outs and closeups take like 10 keywords on their own lol... Vocabs should def be smarter at least for the technical descriptions of the images, so we wouldn't have to spend so many keywords on them.

"I think buyers with a deadline use "closeup" or "cutout" more often." To save on time typing it? lol

Thanks, appreciate your input.

We need buyers input on this. Im sure there are some around here, even contributors that are also buyers so hopefully some will chime in.

I don�t know how specific a buyer goes with their search but according to Shutterstock content manager (or how they call it) the keywords they use are the opposite of specific.

Simple, what words would you use to describe the image to someone else? Specific words, what's actually in the image or happening, not just trying to find as many words as possible.

What words would someone use to search for that image? Be realistic, does anyone search for many of the words that some people include on their images, just because, more must be better?

There's no tricking the buyers or gaming the system if you are honest and use plain and simple words that buyers actually will be using.

I'll return to this: What words would you use, if you were searching for the following image?

Would you look for "Red Apple on White Background"?

or

food,isolated,object,half,natural,bio,green,product,single,biologic,bright,closeup,color,delicious,diet,diet plan,fresh,freshness,fruit,healthy,ingredient,juice,macro,mix,nature,nobody,one,organic,plant,raw,sweet,vegetarian,vitamin,wallpapers,wood,yellow,object,splash,agriculture,summer,juice,juicy,Malus domestica,crimson...

Plus a funny thing happens, when people use the word suggestion tools, they nearly always end up with all the same words as anyone else who uses the suggestion tools.  How to stand out in a crowd, look and act exactly like everyone around you? Maybe that seems odd, but if the search is the same and the words are the same, what makes anything better just because there are more of the same words or variations of the same words?

I think my point is,  I'd say, invest time in making better images instead of worrying and spending a lot of time on search word nuances, variations or counts.