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Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: josephjacobs on February 21, 2019, 16:28

Title: Was uploading a whole portfolio at once a bad idea?
Post by: josephjacobs on February 21, 2019, 16:28

I'm a young contributor, and I started uploading to fotolia (those were the days) and istock before I turned 18. This means that I had a good couple years before I could get onto shutterstock. When I finally did get on Shutterstock, I uploaded almost 1,000 images over the course of a few weeks to get all the photos up. It's been almost a year, and shutterstock hasn't been growing very quickly - I still make almost 5 times as much on adobe stock than I do with shutterstock, even though my portfolio is larger there than on adobe.

Should I expect shutterstock to pick up over time, or did uploading so many photos at one time bury them all in the algorithm?

Title: Re: Was uploading a whole portfolio at once a bad idea?
Post by: mindstorm on February 21, 2019, 17:14

Nobody really knows what the algorithms are.  If anyone tells you they know, take it with a very large grain of salt.

That said, it is generally believed that steady, frequent uploads help keep your images nearer the top of search results (quality and all other things being equal).  When I entered a new agency, I did 10% of my images per month. That way they got them all within a year, and I stayed higher in searches... or so I hope.

Did it work?  I have absolutely no idea, since I cannot produce two identical portfolios and submit each at a different rate to find out...