Search results really are terrible. I got 6 DLs until early evening and then they completely stopped. Just when I was on the run for once . I don't think many ppl will buy anything since what they see is mostly shite

Oh great.  I wonder how long we'll have to endure the sales drop.  What a pain.

Quote from: rubyroo on September 02, 2011, 10:23
Oh great.  I wonder how long we'll have to endure the sales drop.  What a pain.

August was too good to be true, so here we have it. Judging by their incredible incompetence (with site problems so far), they won't fix this for days.

For you maybe.  

SS and DT were too good to be true for me.  Not so much iStock.

I'm happy for you though.  Good luck to you.

Not just for me, but for most, judging be the poll results (the biggest jump among the big 4).

Tnx. And to you too

Quote from: franckreporter on September 02, 2011, 07:13
it's incredible that the problems is not fix yet !!! these are milion of dollars that istock lose .....

They don't ever seem to want their staff working nights or weekends.

There's a post this morning from someone called TechVeep saying all this is a result of a code push yesterday that broke things.

I'll refrain from saying something snarky like - Oh, there's a surprise; new code on the site breaks a bunch of important working things - as that would be mean (if true).

So it's their highest priority, yada, yada, yada

Quote from: jsnover on September 02, 2011, 17:51
There's a post this morning from someone called TechVeep saying all this is a result of a code push yesterday that broke things.

I notice he's only been a 'Member since Feb 2011' so maybe Istock have been recruiting to strengthen their team and procedures. At least he was honest enough to admit that the 'outage' was in fact a self-induced code push.

Aha!  This re-setting of options may explain why I saw a nude lady yesterday.  I couldn't quite figure out from the thumbnail what I was seeing and thought it was someone in a body stocking.  I took a closer look and... oowerrr Missus!  Not quite what one expects with one's afternoon cha.

I actually forgot that the sites carried adult content, since I never have it switched on.

i have registered maybe another shake....latest images before some vettas ...

Quote from: franckreporter on September 18, 2011, 13:18
i have registered maybe another shake....latest images before some vettas ...

There's been a big shake since midweek. But again, the best match is different between different searches. On my (personal interest) searches, 'Iceberg' is still prioritising Vettas, 'African Elephant' is prioritising exclusively new files and 'Giraffe' seems totally random at first glance. Whatever, I've lost out on all three. 

if i order my port for best match the latest images accepted wiht some dwns are pushed up , above many vettas

They've been tweaking the best match slightly continually. Sometimes every few days, sometimes every week or two.

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on September 18, 2011, 13:59
They've been tweaking the best match slightly continually. Sometimes every few days, sometimes every week or two.

best match in my portfolio and my 'test' searches change multiple times a day lately, and then not at all for a few days....it's really strange. very different pattern than a 'usual' best match tweak, if there is such a thing

for what i can see now, if i search for example new york city, i see more than 100+ Edstock images with 0 dwn in first page that have bypassed hundreds of pictures with a lot dwn or Vetta ...that's quite incredible also with the filter

There isnt a best match anymore, its gone. All this best match tweaking is there to favorize certain categories om members. No matter what best match they come up with, its not there for the benefit of the buyer.

Must say its amazing, with all the expertice, all the years of experience and front-runner in this business and STILL, nothing but problems with their search-engine. Hard to believe really.

In one of my searches, giving 50K of results, the entire first page is taken up by images with hardly any dls at all, not new uploads, just mediocre stuff that have hardly sold for the past 10 months.
If they dont buy it then, there not going to buy it now. Jeez!

It has been a while that following an OK week, I always have a bad week. Is it how the new best match works? This week has been bad.

This latest best match change ( last night) has all the classic signs of a company who has lost its ambition, its incentive to do business, finding new grounds and avenues, resigned to the fact they will never regain the premiere spot and they are now quite happy to play second violin, as long as they keep already existing clients and contributors.
It clearly show a desperation, a tight rope walk of trying to keep exclusives alive, still keeping the independants. The list of alies is getting thinner and thinner, the average exclusive is full of doubts but dare not mention anything in their own forum.
Could this be the beginning of the end or just the end of the beginning?
TS,  is waiting around the corner.

^^^That seems a bit dramatic, this is only a best match change that can be quite temporary.  They need to keep istock strong.  TS is going to get flooded with images now, we aren't going to make much there.  If sales drop with istock, I doubt many of us will stay there.  The only reason I'm there is because I can't afford to lose the income at the moment.  If that changes, I'll just leave.

Well there seems to have been the biggest shift yet overnight. Looks like newer files are doing better, and particularly edstock. In a search for "Berlin" I get 105/200 results from edstock, including many that are full of irrelevant keywords.

Look at this for example, which makes that best match (and isn't even shot in Berlin):



Pick the relevant keywords:
Lifestyles, Horizontal, Outdoors, Tourist, Germany, Museum, Easter, Traditional Culture, Berlin, Season, River, Spree River, Bioreserve, Capital Cities, Human Interest

Hi Holgs!

Yeah?  serbians preparing for Easter?  and thats searching "Berlin",  as you say not even German. jeez!  i sincerely hope this is a temporary best match, a test or something.

Why mixing commercial with editorial?  dont get it.

best.

Buyers can filter out editorial, so I suppose that's not a huge problem for them?  The spam keywords are going to annoy editorial buyers, that's good, hopefully they will find what they want here http://www.alamy.com/

Quote from: sharpshot on September 21, 2011, 08:08
Buyers can filter out editorial, so I suppose that's not a huge problem for them?  The spam keywords are going to annoy editorial buyers, that's good, hopefully they will find what they want here http://www.alamy.com/

Alamy's search is a load of fetid dingoes' kidneys, I'm afraid.
I'd love Alamy to be successful, but the search certainly isn't going to attract buyers with little time or patience for searching.
For example, three recent poor 'hits' on my files on Alamy:
'man carrying woman' - my file is a woman carrying a man
'sign language' - a sign in the Gaelic language
'crazy children' - children playing crazy golf

Quote from: ShadySue on September 21, 2011, 14:16

Quote from: sharpshot on September 21, 2011, 08:08
Buyers can filter out editorial, so I suppose that's not a huge problem for them?  The spam keywords are going to annoy editorial buyers, that's good, hopefully they will find what they want here http://www.alamy.com/

Alamy's search is a load of fetid dingoes' kidneys, I'm afraid.
I'd love Alamy to be successful, but the search certainly isn't going to attract buyers with little time or patience for searching.
For example, three recent poor 'hits' on my files on Alamy:
'man carrying woman' - my file is a woman carrying a man
'sign language' - a sign in the Gaelic language
'crazy children' - children playing crazy golf

You just won't give up on this will you? All the words are in the keywords, what do you want the search to do, find images through psychic channeling. Or maybe like IS find words you didn't ask for because they are somehow code related?

It's doing exactly what it's supposed to do, finding the same words as entered in the search.

Yes words can have a few meanings and there can be ambiguity but it's finding precisely what was asked for.

A search is not intelligent and not intuitive. What you ask for is what you get. Or would you rather get something you didn't ask for? 

Now back to the regular bashing IS channel. One would think with all the hoops we jump through, the CV and disambiguation, that IS would have the best match on the planet. Instead, it seems to be weighted for random never ending variety? We've already seen that where you are, changes the results. It's also possible that what time of day and just a random selection process is always going on.

The fact that people find a difference just about every day now, should make the point, that rank, sales, age, maybe artist status, collection, and who knows what else are constantly swirling around as the weighting for a search.

Watching it, writing here, or trying to understand why, will not change anything. IS is manipulating, changing and altering the search, all the time! People might as well be chasing the wind or their shadow.

I don't know what they've done, but I like it!