Fotolia has always been one of my worst sellers.  Worst are only crestock with 1 dl, featurepics with zero dl   I have only 5 dl's there since february.

But WOOHOOO!! I can find some of my images I couldn't find before! That's great! Finally!

And my rank is 21868. Who's worse than me?

QuoteHello Fotolian's,

I can not reveal the exact logic behind the search engine however please know that it is working. To our knowledge and my constant pushing for answers there is no bug in the search system. It is important to understand that more than 1 parameter is factored into the search results. Keywords are only 1 parameter.

The engineers are very aware of your concerns (almost to the point that they hate me). Fotolia must shake things up a bit to improve and move forward.

I have give the engineers a number of examples and suggestions based on your feedback and I hope to see some changes in the next few days. I do not believe it will please all of you but at lease some of you.

Down sales are not a direct relationship to search results. I already mentioned that sales are down a lot because of European holidays in May.

I am also sure many of you are having amazing days and just keeping your mouths shut. People still buy Fotolia credits every day. The US just had an awesome sales day on Monday for credits so I know people are still buying images. Maybe some of these sales are starting to spread out to other photographers.

Just give it some more time.

Chad Bridwell
Director of US Operations
Fotolia.com

My sales dropped 70-80% on FT in a last two weeks and a lot people are reporting the same on FT forum.

Chad: "...sales are down a lot because of European holidays in May."
Holidays always has an impact on sales but not in such scale like we have now and holiday don't last several weeks. The main reason is not May holidays.

Maybe some really serious damages were made with search system or somewhere else, I don't know and I have no time to learn all various website algorithms. It's not my business. All I know is that I have no sales.
Or maybe really buyers moved from FT?

Chad: "I am also sure many of you are having amazing days and just keeping your mouths shut. People still buy Fotolia credits every day. The US just had an awesome sales day on Monday for credits so I know people are still buying images. Maybe some of these sales are starting to spread out to other photographers."

It would be nice to hear some "amazing days" reports in case to hope that in general is alright on Fotolia without reference to my "dry days".

If some are reporting 70% drops and if there are "amazing days" and "awesome sales", so someone could report "WOW! I have 700% increasing!.."

Today same story - 1 sale so far (normaly should be at least 15 by afternoon). Plunged even further - 169 rank. lol!

Here is an idea - what do you think we make a petition at petitiononline.com and if many users sign it (including some emerald members) we will email it to Fotolia Mangement and perhaps they reverse search relevance order as it was before 1st may? What do you think about that?

Cappi Thompson just leave Fotolia 

Usually my rank was 700 now dropped to 2000 since search engine change May 1st.

Chode, you have "amazing day" and I have "awesome sale" of 1 download today as well! LOL... Normaly ~10.

Interesting idea about petition. Never heard about that. Just checked website. We could sign it (I red Yuri is complaining too) but I don't know if FT will listen and will react on it. Anyway, if some who knows how to do this and will begin, I would sign.

I remember when some time ago Dreamstime changed search algorithm my sales stopped also and contributors were complaining on forums about that. But after a while all things were normalized and now I have good, normal sales. Maybe the same will be on FT?

I hate that worthless therapy from administration about "amazing days" and "awesome sales". I don't need that. Is good when it's true but when a lot of people are reporting conversely they must admit that something is wrong: with search engine or with buyers.

Usually i had about 20 dls a day, but last weeks about 2 to 3 which is a huge drop. My ranking  is about 100 or less on weekly base, now is 245, overall  ranking from 101 drop to 104. Istock exclusivity is even more close now

Quote from: ragsac on May 13, 2008, 11:54
Cappi Thompson just leave Fotolia 

who or what is cappi thompson??

If Yuri sign it, believe me, they will listen. And I hope many silver and gold members will too.

Cappy was a silver member, he deleted over 1000 great images from his portfolio and left. Few of them also announced they will leave FT if this continues... If nothing changes soon, I wont upload new images at FT, its not worth it for couple of dollars. I invest a lot of money in my images and I want it back, and earn some above what I spent.

Just curious: when some leaves some agency where he is going? To be exclusive on IS? NEVER! At least for me.

From FT forum: "... I'm 92% exclusive, over 6500 images in portfolio and 2-5 sales per work day! ....huuuh  realy frustrating. "

That is one more reason not to put all eggs in one basket...

Quote from: hatman12 on May 12, 2008, 23:34
Yes, my sales have fallen sharply too.

I notice that Yuri has complained on the FT forum that his sales have dropped by 50%.

It's going to be very interesting watching Yuri's portfolio ride the wave of discontent over the coming months.

I think his stuff peaked about 12 months ago and since then we've seen a steady decline by all accounts.

Observers may put it down to a downturn in the economy but I theorise it's little more than an attack of the clones when he made the dreaded mistake of publicising his earnings.

That, or the Russians are coming, I can't work out which is worse?

Quote from: 4seasons on May 13, 2008, 12:17
Just curious: when some leaves some agency where he is going? To be exclusive on IS? NEVER! At least for me.

From FT forum: "... I'm 92% exclusive, over 6500 images in portfolio and 2-5 sales per work day! ....huuuh  realy frustrating. "

That is one more reason not to put all eggs in one basket...

Photographers don't need the exclusive excuse to leave whatever agency.   People can only put up with crap for so long in any relationship before they say good riddance.  What good is this partnership if an agency can't get their act together.  Its just like dating, once the high school boyfriend matures he might be worth giving a second chance after college.   

I wonder what's happening. Suddenly, I have my BDE at FT, with a solid margin, and there are many hours left.

Quote from: epixx on May 13, 2008, 18:48
I wonder what's happening. Suddenly, I have my BDE at FT, with a solid margin, and there are many hours left.

Same here. We must be the lucky ones 

My ranking was 1750 -- now it's 5621... 

My rank is #30 and FT remains my #1 seller. Especially now that i raised my pricing to 2credits.

Quote from: CofkoCof on May 13, 2008, 19:42

Quote from: epixx on May 13, 2008, 18:48
I wonder what's happening. Suddenly, I have my BDE at FT, with a solid margin, and there are many hours left.

Same here. We must be the lucky ones 

If it was consistent, yes, but it isn't. The two weeks preceding this day have been my worst there in months.

As far as I am concerned, the 2 past weeks were awful but that's typical in Europe (and especially in France) at this time. Very clear and sudden drop. Sales started again only on Wed (3 sales per day on average -I'm starting). My 7-day rank went down from 900 to 2000+ as I guess I am worse off being exposed to the French market.  I don't think the search engine change has any impact on my sales.

I hope you guys see sales peaking up too by now!

Quote from: epixx on May 14, 2008, 01:13

Quote from: CofkoCof on May 13, 2008, 19:42

Quote from: epixx on May 13, 2008, 18:48
I wonder what's happening. Suddenly, I have my BDE at FT, with a solid margin, and there are many hours left.

Same here. We must be the lucky ones 

If it was consistent, yes, but it isn't. The two weeks preceding this day have been my worst there in months.

Yeah same here. Didn't have any downloads in the first week of May, now I'm getting a few a day. My 7 days rank is goinig crazy, currently at 470 (my overall rank is 8000+).

Quote from: Contakt on May 13, 2008, 14:49


It's going to be very interesting watching Yuri's portfolio ride the wave of discontent over the coming months.

I think his stuff peaked about 12 months ago and since then we've seen a steady decline by all accounts.

FYI, On iStock he's trebled his sales over a year, and as top seller by month will shortly be outselling the former queen bee poster child lisegagne by a factor of 2.

My sells are coming back little by little but I'm afraid a new search system is created to promote some photographs. It can be understood if in first pages appears images of well ranked photographers but if in first page appears non related to search keyword photos from a very small portfolio of ~70 images than there is only one thought: this photographer is promoted by FT administration.
It is rumored about that on FT forums. 

Otherwise a new search system is an absolute nonsense...

Just read the bit on the Fotolia forums.  Very worrying examples of small portfolios with mediocre pictures being bumped the the front of every search that contains one of the used keywords. 

Most likely this is an accidental byproduct of some programming change because the pictures and portfolios listed are not the quality level that I think Fotolia would be trying to promote on purpose. 

Sales are gradually improving there so hopefully this means an effort is being made to fix the issue. 

if everyone is dropping on the rank, who is going up?
i'm down a lot too...
had few sales the first week of May, then zero for a week!
and a XS today... terrible!

Quote from: khwi on May 17, 2008, 16:54
if everyone is dropping on the rank, who is going up?

I have gone from rank #5515 or something in that range to 2107 currently in the last 3 weeks. 

I honestly wish I had an answer for you guys.   I'm not sad that I'm selling but I wish everyone was having a better month overall. 

Most of my sales are *still* older images.  Stuff that I had on FT before most of you heard of FT if you know what I mean.  Those do *not* have the "7 keywords" thing going for them. 

Of my last 7 sales, only 1 has been from an image I added in the last 2 months.  5 were added in early 2006 and one was added in late 2007.

(I have NO clue what any of this means or how it's happening but I want to give you guys the raw data to play with)

My sales on FT are about 50% down too:-(