best match is all over the place, as always. last week I had two BDE, then yesterday and today sales are slow, for me anyways. I think the only thing consistent these days about sales on iStock, is that they aren't consistent. each month finishes okay to good on the whole so that's the number I'm keeping an eye on. the daily stats are enough to drive you crazy.

FYI - someone did quote this section from Lobo in the other best match thread here ;-) but yes, try not to focus on the daily stats. they're frustrating.

On my portfolio, I don�t really see a difference between best match and newest uploads. And my bestsellers seem to have disappeared in my test searches.

Well, guess I need to shoot and reshoot otherwise it all goes to the copycats.

I hope what I see is not what the customers see...

Just checked after reading this thread. My best match is almost identical as File Age. Not a good day, but not the worst either.

All that counts in a best match, are the first 5 pages, the rest is dog meat.

Sorted as 200 images per page?

Wow.  So this is the best match "for the foreseeable future" according to Lobo?  Well, then, I am truly screwed.  Sales are less than half what they would normally be on a Monday.  And by that I mean less than half the new crappy normal, not the ideal normal of a year or so ago.  Istock seem determined to make themselves irrelevant to most contributors.

Well Lisa!  for the first time I have to say,  if this is the final best match,  then this IS venture is a lost cause,  there is absoloutely no point in even wasting time with this anymore, time that could be far better spent making SS, DT and FT, stronger.

its ofcourse going to get even worse after this fleemarket merger.

I'm actually cautiously optimistic about the new best match, so far this week I've seen sales improving somewhat.

John!

As an exclusive you can afford that, as an independant the best match, is worse then a smack in the bollucks,  worse then a smack on each ball even.

as an independant the best match, is worse then a smack in the bollucks

I do understand that istock may want to reward loyalty though, and give exclusives more of a push. That only seems fair to me.

Being an exclusive I feel scared by this new best match.

Make a search for t-shirt. If a buyer wants a t-shirt, he usually wants a t-shirt and not people wearing them. At least there should be a balance between people wearing t-shirts and t-shirts only. But this is just rediculous. I bet this is again scaring buyers away - when will istock realize that they have to please their buyers and ask them what they want instead of assuming what might be right.

Maybe they did ask - there was a survey lately (not the contributor survey). But they asked me too whether I wanted to take part and so did they ask other contributors that occasionally buy images. Of course those contribs were asking for newer files to be given a bigger priority. But people who are mainly contributors shouldn�t be asked and allowed to take part in buyer surveys that are meant to get an idea of the markets demands.

Oh well...

Giving new files a chance is a good thing, but the way it was implemented last week is really really frightening. I hope it will be rolled back pretty soon.

its not just a bad best match,  its an embarrassing best match, its amateurish, exactly like the TS, best match, and it shows the IS  migration to TS, is close at hand,  i.e. they have to lower their standards to beneath a weekend snapping merchant.

All in all, if this is the final best match, its not worth the troubles bothering with, not for us independants anyway. When I think of that some of my shots, dld, over 2000 times are going to end up in this sheit-street, no thanks, I rather delete them.

Just deactivated 3 files, with a total of over 5000, dls. Not even worth contemplaiting about.

If this best match is truly a result of what the customers want and if it will bring in more buyers and increase our sales, so be it.

But if proven sellers get killed every year, than we will all be forced to endlessly duplicate our content, otherwise downloads will go to those who copy us. I would prefer to shoot new concepts or at least try a new twist on an old theme. But if things stay like this, we won�t have a choice.

But the search is so similar to the newest file search, that I wonder what is the purpose of a best match, if this is the result?

Anyway, it will change unexpectedly, guess that is the only thing that is certain.

Despite Lobo saying that the best match was how they want it, my test terms have changed at least twice since, at least once today. Interesting that in one case, the same three files have always been top throughout the past months, despite everything else being all over the place. (Do 3D renders automatically have an advantage over photos?)
Again, I'm not seeing any particular advantage to exclusives in my own 'test' searches, but I suspect there are different BMs for different keywords.
One file accepted yesterday and into my port today is somewhere below best match 1000 on its main keyword. (And yes, it is searchable, I did a combination keyword search and found it.)