Author Topic: to spam, or not to spam - that is the question (Read 26351 times)

Lee Torrens · « **Reply #25 on:** July 29, 2009, 10:44 »

Yep, valid point stocktastic. It must be keyword specific, otherwise the model is - as you say - the same as popularity.

puravida · « **Reply #26 on:** July 29, 2009, 10:53 »

Quote from: stockastic on July 28, 2009, 17:08

Despite my flagging interest in microstock I decided to submit a few more shots. And once again I'm in keyword gridlock.

I have a nice one of an abalone sea shell. Looking for ideas, I check SS for the 'most popular' images of abalone shells, and naturally I find that they've been spammed to the max, with keywords like "beauty", "beautiful", "texture", "pattern", "details", "pieces", "colorful", etc. etc.

As we all know, microstocks are preaching to us that we shouldn't spam, spamming is bad, spamming will only hurt you, spamming will be punished. And as we can plainly see, spamming works.

So - do we keep spamming away, or play by the new rules? Are the new rules really enforced?

good observe, stockastic.

i think it all depends on who you are. what i mean is, many times i look at the best sellers for "inspiration" on keywords, and see many of them spamming.
so i think it's highly subjective matter. whether you know the reviewer (s) or has a buddy working there. you know what i mean ?

Squat · « **Reply #27 on:** July 29, 2009, 11:00 »

Keywords police-ing is dependant on the knowledge of the reviewer. Much like editorial reviewing.
I give you an example . Once I submitted an editorial of a very famous ship with a history . I included the story of that person so the reviewer would know it is relevant.
The image was rejected as not having editorial interest.
Yet I still see lots of girls walking around in editorial features, with less "editorial" relevance that are being accepted.

So, if the reviewer does not know the relevance of the person or object, it really does not make a difference.

P.S.
I don't want to make a big deal about it, but for specifics, anyone interested can PM me and I will go into further detail.

stockastic · « **Reply #28 on:** July 29, 2009, 11:08 »

Alamy sounds great. Except that most posters here say you might as well drop your images into the ocean, as upload them into Alamy's 17 million...

The basic problem I see with microstock is - they took in millions of images before they understood the real issues of keywording; and they can't afford to do much about it now. It isn't possible, today, to write a piece of software that recogizes the objects in an image and checks the keywords for relevancy. Maybe in 25 years - but today, it requires paid reviewers. As John Griffin points out, actually doing anything about keyword abuse is expensive.

IS has addressed the problem, but at a cost - the loss of concept images. Unless they're supplying the concept keywords themselves; i.e. if a buyer enters "mortgage" do they get pictures of houses?

For myself, I'll do what I think is honest and conservative keywording, because I don't want to be snagged in the future and forced to redo it all. I will, however, use some concept keywords when I think they make sense.

Squat · « **Reply #29 on:** July 29, 2009, 11:32 »

Concept keywording, ah yes.!

Incidentally, I am contemplating on that right at this moment. I am aware of getting some keywords pointed out as irrelevant but if I leave it out, I may cut myself off from some potential uploads.

So what do I do? Do I use those concept keywords or play safe, and hope the reviewer I get find the keywords relevant.
With Veer, it's a soft reject and it's convenient to resubmit. With others, it counts as a total rejection, and hurt my approval percentage. And of course, having to wait yet another xxx hours for the review again.

A dilemma, isn't it?
In all, I think Veer has pretty much the ideal solution to keyword spamming, for now. It's encouraging me to keep uploading there. What do you think?

PD:
yes, Alamy is something else. I like Alamy, but it's difficult to like when you don't see any sales. Having to upsize is a big pain. You need some incentive if you truly want to keep at it for Alamy.

madelaide · « **Reply #30 on:** July 29, 2009, 15:56 »

Quote from: Adeptris on July 29, 2009, 10:40

Alamy is a bit more involved than that, you have three sections of keywords, essential, main and comprehensive, the keywords in each section are weighted for the search by section.

Then they split images with the same keywords from the same photographer in the search to split up sets and similars.

I think they have a very smart system.

I worry a bit however about the "punishment" when an image is found and is not clicked on. When I see the activity, I see many searches don't return a single click (not just in mine, but overall). And even if mine if not clicked, that doesn't mean it is irrelevant or spammed or inferior.

A recent example: someone searched for "puma". This can be the animal, the sportswear or - in my case - one of the boats in Volvo Ocean Race. Another: a search for "american airlines" returned an image of a Brazilian airlines airplane - it has "airlines" and "South American", but not just "American". There is nothing wrong with my keywords.

True spamming for me is "red" in an image of a blue satin sheet or "caribeean, jamaica, maldives, fiji, tahiti" in a beach image.

puravida · « **Reply #31 on:** July 29, 2009, 16:08 »

Quote from: madelaide on July 29, 2009, 15:56

True spamming for me is "red" in an image of a blue satin sheet or "caribeean, jamaica, maldives, fiji, tahiti" in a beach image.

so agree there with you.
like "summer" in a hamburger or barbecue closeup; "sun" in a girl with bikini.

Quote from: 50%egg on July 29, 2009, 11:00

Keywords police-ing is dependant on the knowledge of the reviewer. Much like editorial reviewing.
I give you an example . Once I submitted an editorial of a very famous ship with a history . I included the story of that person so the reviewer would know it is relevant.
The image was rejected as not having editorial interest.
Yet I still see lots of girls walking around in editorial features, with less "editorial" relevance that are being accepted.

So, if the reviewer does not know the relevance of the person or object, it really does not make a difference.

P.S.
I don't want to make a big deal about it, but for specifics, anyone interested can PM me and I will go into further detail.

i had the same thing happened to me once a long time ago, actually.
a picture of the famous ship "bounty". i insert "captain, blight, mutiny, mutineer".
the reviewer charged me for using these words as irrelevant, simply because the reviewer did not study or worse, ignorant in naval history.

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Author Topic: to spam, or not to spam - that is the question (Read 26351 times)

Lee Torrens

puravida

Squat

stockastic

Squat

madelaide

puravida

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