Doesn't it necessarily need to change if the criteria for the best match is getting the best image for the buyer?  An exclusive image has no additional value to the buyer, by that I mean the exclusive image can still have been sold thousands of times to other buyer just like a nonexclusive image.  The best match now gives a boost to exclusives, if the new best match does what they say it should don't exclusives lose a lot?  About the same as nonexclusives just lost.

I am guessing you are right about that they won't change it too much but if this new best match is going get the best search results they need to change it so exclusive or nonexclusive images are equal because there is nothing better for the buyer about exclusive images.  Something has to give, either it isn't the best search or exclusives and nonexclusives need the same best match treatment and that will hurt exclusives now.

I thought it was more than adding a relevancy factor, didn't they say "massive shift"?

It's ok quoting MrThompson but has anyone thought about WHY istockphoto is changing best match and tiering the collection.
IMO they are nervous... are you sitting down ....$1.1 million payed a week to contributors which is about 30%-40% payout.So we can assume istock makes$ 2 million from OUR work.
I have looked through the other micro sites collections these past 2 months and if istock still thinks it offers the best images at the best prices they are mistaken.
I can only keep uploading what i consider to be stock worthy images to istockphoto but i certaintly dont view the company through 'rose titnted spectacles ' anymore.

I am still reeling over this comment ... 

They're incorporating other buyers' satisfaction with a keyword/image relationship to present future buyers with the images that may actually best suit their needs. 

Won't this favour images that had sales already and have been "okayed" by a buyer?

Regards,
Adelaide

Is that wrong?  What better way to see if a keyword is valid for an image, than if a buyer spent money on an image after finding it through that keyword?

DITTO!!  100%

I wonder if the new Premium Collection for exclusive images may be a way to address this exclusive vs. non bias in the best match. 

I can't see how that would happen. My expectation is that a very small portion of content will end up in the premium collection - I don't expect anything of mine will be put there. Those people with professional setups (studio or location) are, I think, the ones who'll see their content there. I believe the notion is to provide some incentive to produce the more costly stuff, which is a great idea, but it isn't going to change how a large number of us part timers work.

So that leaves a huge portion of the content in either the bargain bin or the regular collection. I think the exclusive queue, which gives new images an edge of a few days, is probably a fine bias to keep in the best match-v2 results, but otherwise images should sink or swim based on their saleability.

What I have really disliked is watching images that sell move back in the best match ranking, especially if they just sold versus attracted a lot of looky-loos. That seems to be the polar opposite of what should be happening. What was Joe Gough's lovely analogy? Something about taking the hot selling items away from the front of the store and hiding them in a store room in the back so you couldn't find them.

none exclusives will NEVER EVER have parity with exclusives  on istockphoto...PERIOD.
Now in regards of the new proposal for best match.It will be excatly as it is now... annoying alot of contributors who continually try work it out rather than having alot of different images to temp a broad spectrum of sales so enabling the contributor to  have steady regular sales whatever the best match may be.

In case any of you missed Bitter's latest input into the discussion:

Posted By bitter:

Quote

Posted By mikemcd:
I don't know better than anyone else what this new best match shift will do to our sales, but let's take a quick look back at the original message here:

"With best match, we have one, clear goal: to put the best content in front of our clients. We have finite slots on the first page and tens-of-thousands of files vying for those spots."

As always, best match changes are done with the buyers in mind, rightfully so. I think istock is making the right move here, but that often means that many of us end up disappointed with the result. best match changes have been and will remain to be done for the buyers, not for us.

I'm as hopeful as anyone that this works out positively for everyone. But as a contributor I'm not singing istock's praises for this move and giving them the standing ovation, and I'm baffled as to why anyone else is. Some of the same people complaining about slow sales since the last best match change are now here saying "Yay, best match change!" Sure it's possible that things could get better for those who suffered because of the last change. But there's an equal chance that things will take another dive for those same people after this one.

Fingers crossed, I am cautiously optimistic about this. If it works out, great.  But if it doesn't, I won't be back here in the forums next month with the same group who will be scratching their heads saying "What happened to my sales?," as if no one could see that potential result coming.

I'm happy you noticed how carefully I chose my words. We are not promising everyone will like the new best match, nor promising increased royalties to anyone or group in particular. Our goal is to improve the search experience for clients. That's all. We have to assume that the theory of well keyworded files being found and purchased more often than poorly keyworded files is true in this endeavor.

I saw small changes everyone! It mixed some files from one page to another. Nothing extreme but it started like the said by this week...

My test case for the istock best match is to type 'business' into the search field and check out the first page (100) results. There are a few changes there from a couple of weeks ago, but not sure that the overall relevance has improved significantly.

You are never going to see significant improvements in a search that broad. I doubt that very many real buyers use one word searches that return thousands and thousands of results and don't ever enter additional words to narrow them down.

My test case for the istock best match is to type 'business' into the search field and check out the first page (100) results. There are a few changes there from a couple of weeks ago, but not sure that the overall relevance has improved significantly.

Funny - that's exactly what I do as well ... it's the best test IMHO!!

What exactly are you testing for? If it is supposed to be indicative of which images might actually be sold, shouldn't it at least be remotely close to the reality of what a buyer might search for? No designer in their right mind is going to come to a site, enter "business" into a search engine, see that their search has yielded 255,328 results, and start flipping pages.

I'm guessing you must not ever actually use the search engine for the purpose of finding a file to purchase which serves a specific need?