Do microstock companies want to clean out so called deadwood?  Someone mentioned Dreamstime suggesting something like this, I don't know specifics there.  For other sites, the facts generally state otherwise.  Shutterstock brags that they are adding 60,000 - 80,000 new photos per WEEK.  Dreamstime is adding thousands per week. The other big sites are undoubtedly adding large numbers as well.  New contributors are being added at the rate of many thousands per week among all companies. These sites are adding content at rates much higher than 4 years ago and accelerating.  To compensate, they are constantly tweaking (or making big changes to)  the way searches are done and the way files come up within those searches.  Often to our consternation, but they are searching for a better way to get likely sales in front of buyers eyeballs.  I think they are trying to keep up with each other in total numbers and be searchable at the same time.  As we know, they are not always right when making these changes, especially on a case by case basis.  It hurts all of us when a good seller gets kicked off the front page or two.  Frontloading the search with expensive files is simply bait and switch in my opinion, but that is another topic.  Regular buyers know how to get around these problems as mentioned several times in these forums.  I think microstock companies would like 100s of millions (eventually billions, lets think the future here) of files available, with an intuitive, efficient way for buyers to search through them.  Faceted search as an example of one attempt.  This is where the evidence seems to point if you watch what they are doing.  Afterall, that is what many of the constant changes a iStock have been about.  If someone wants to tidy up their portfolio for whatever reason, that is fine.  Do it for the good of the microstock world in general?  I'll pass, not even a drop in the bucket.  Any effect on their sales will only be negative as a result, once again, you cannot sell what you don't offer.  The sites realize this as well, thus the constant search changes, addition of large numbers of files, and not cleaning house themselves.  Remember, only the judgement of buyers and inspectors matter in this business model.  We are in some phase of a tidal wave surging over the online photo buying world.  Severe dilution and turmoil may seem to prevail on our end of things, but for a buyer that learns to navigate a sites' search engine, it is a wonderfull time.  I think most companies are, like me, happy for the steady income from older poor selling files.  They too have invested time and money, why not leave a potential for a return?  They certainly don't seem to be in a hurry to clean house, or they would just do it themselves by decree (and late Friday notification).  Sorry to be so long winded, my whole point is, if it is worth it to the site to keep "poor"  files available, it is probably worth it to us.  For me it definitely is worth it.  Happy stocking to all.

Perhaps garbagemen would be needed as much as inspectors

Quote from: raclro on June 05, 2011, 00:47

Interesting idea, and I hope lots of people do it.  I for one don't see any reason to delete a file.  My experience is limited to iStock, perhaps it is different elsewhere.  Nearly every day I have 2 or 3 (often several) old forgotten files sell for the first or second time. 

Yeah, it's definitely different at other sites than Istock.  The other major sites have stable search engines.  The best match or relevance searches are actually attempts to put the most relevant images in front of buyers, rather than elaborate and constantly changing revenue engineering experiments, like Istock's best match.  For this reason I wouldn't delete any non-seller from Istock because there's no way to know if it isn't appealing or just got lost in one of the many random best match shakeups.  Today's buried image at Istock can sputter back to life if it is resurrected by some new best match juggle.   

But on the sites with reasonable, stable search engines, like Dreamstime, the one image from a series that has gotten hardly any sales is likely to be the dog in the bunch.  No loss in deleting it if it helps the other better similars get better exposure. 

BTW, not talking about deleting some rare niche image.  More a case of deleting the poorest performing images in a batch after they have had years to prove themselves. 

True!  I have never seen anybody have such terrible problems and battles with their search as IS, ever since the day I joined 5 years back theres been problems, constant hickups, experiments, faults, glitches, bugs, pugh!  its a never ending story. probably a miracle we have had any sales at all, considering.