Author Topic: Istock -- organizing keywords and phrases? (Read 14594 times)

smphoto · « **on:** October 14, 2006, 16:13 »

Sorry if this has been discussed before, but I've been out of the loop for while. I noticed that IS changed the way you keyword your images now. Do I need to go back and change all of my previous images? I'm still selling old ones so is this necessary?

Thank you!

leaf · « **Reply #1 on:** October 15, 2006, 04:11 »

it is up to you. If you think it is worth your time you can go back and edit all your images. Otherwise just leave them and hope for the best. You coudl go and check a few images and see how bad they are, or how much they could be helped, and then decide if it is worth checking the rest.

GWB · « **Reply #2 on:** October 15, 2006, 08:52 »

I don't presume to be an expert on what is going on with the search engines changes at IS, but I have found that images appear in the search much better with phrases. Now, having said that, it could all change in an instant, with it all in a flux. I did notice that images where I have the proper tags were not appearing and when I used a phrase, they popped right up.

If you have the time, check out the "Current Search Issues" thread on the IS forums. It's rather lengthy but has some good info.

G~

admart01 · « **Reply #3 on:** October 15, 2006, 09:07 »

I've changed a few as a "test" -- it's taking a real long time for the "Under review" process - not the 24 hours they state. I have not sold a photo since I started the test and was having the best start ever. Hope I didn't put a "whammy" on me

GWB · « **Reply #4 on:** October 15, 2006, 14:11 »

Yeah, I noticed the results were really fast after I made changes. Not the 24 hours they state.

My sales seemed to go up after I made the changes and added phrases. Last week was my best ever on IS, though I get the feeling it may be ebb and flow.

G~

pixelbrat · « **Reply #5 on:** October 15, 2006, 21:00 »

This could likely be due to ebb and flo but my sales went up remarkably after I finished going through all of my images and changing/adding where appropriate. YMMV. I personally think it would be smart to go through your images if for nothing else than to correct any existing keywords that may have been given the wrong meaning by default. There were quite a few of these on mine. I went ahead and added a ton of phrases while I was in there. I truly feel for the folks who have 1000's of images in there portfolio. Mine only has 174 and it really sucked going through them all but my sales are higher than ever so I can't complain too much.

yingyang0 · « **Reply #6 on:** October 16, 2006, 01:02 »

I don't think it is just ebb and flow. The more phrases you put in the system, the more rewards you get. example phrase (silly boy): lets say that before you added the phrase 'silly boy' if a buyer were to search "silly boy" the search engine would search for "silly AND boy". But now that you've added the phrase to their system, when anyone searchs for "silly boy" the system will only return the photos that have that exact phrase. It is normally a much smaller return.

This example is based on a real example I tried out. The photo sold for only the second time, in three months, the day after I made the change. It was a Sunday too!

CJPhoto · « **Reply #7 on:** October 16, 2006, 01:41 »

My problem with iStocks new system is this is not how people have learnt to search. To find "silly boys", I would start with "boy", then "silly" if I got to many hits and then add more words till I got a sensible size amount of results and view those.

Quevaal · « **Reply #8 on:** October 16, 2006, 05:43 »

It's not ebb and flow now, the results changed dramatically for phrases.

The first 12 days searching for a phrase would only return the images with that exact phrase. Today, they return all pics with the actual keywords, no matter if they're phrases or not. So happy days are over.

GeoPappas · « **Reply #9 on:** October 16, 2006, 06:24 »

Quote from: yingyang0 on October 16, 2006, 01:02

I don't think it is just ebb and flow. The more phrases you put in the system, the more rewards you get. example phrase (silly boy): lets say that before you added the phrase 'silly boy' if a buyer were to search "silly boy" the search engine would search for "silly AND boy". But now that you've added the phrase to their system, when anyone searchs for "silly boy" the system will only return the photos that have that exact phrase. It is normally a much smaller return.

This example is based on a real example I tried out. The photo sold for only the second time, in three months, the day after I made the change. It was a Sunday too!

This is not true. Although there are times that the search engine will return the phrase, there are other times that the search engine will NOT return the phrase, so it is a crap shoot.

For example, if you search using the keywords"American passport" (WITHOUT the quotes), then the search results show for "american AND passport" and you will receive 23 results. If you search using the keywords "American passport" (WITH the quotes), then you will receive the phrase "American passport" and you will receive 1 result.

The same is true of the famous example "red car" and many other keyword combinations.

But other examples, such as searching for the keywords "American flag" (WITHOUT the quotes) will show up as you stated (with results from the phrase).

So there is no rhyme or reason to the searches at this point.

On top of that, the search results keep changing as the days go by. One day, the keywords will return the phrase and on another day they will return the separate keywords...

Bateleur · « **Reply #10 on:** October 16, 2006, 13:57 »

Quote from: yingyang0 on October 16, 2006, 01:02

... lets say that before you added the phrase 'silly boy' if a buyer were to search "silly boy" the search engine would search for "silly AND boy". But now that you've added the phrase to their system, when anyone searchs for "silly boy" the system will only return the photos that have that exact phrase. It is normally a much smaller return.

Yeah, but is this good for us?

For example, you may have used the phrases 'stupid boy', 'foolish boy', 'crazy boy', 'silly kid', 'silly child', etc ... etc ... etc ... for your images. There are a dozen different ways of saying it.

And all of these images of yours may fit a buyer's need for a picture of a silly boy. But they'll be missed if the search engine homes in on just that original phrase.

If your image is in that smaller return, great!

But if it isn't because you've used a slightly different phrase ... ?

yingyang0 · « **Reply #11 on:** October 16, 2006, 19:23 »

Quote from: GeoPappas on October 16, 2006, 06:24

This is not true. Although there are times that the search engine will return the phrase, there are other times that the search engine will NOT return the phrase, so it is a crap shoot.

For example, if you search using the keywords"American passport" (WITHOUT the quotes), then the search results show for "american AND passport" and you will receive 23 results. If you search using the keywords "American passport" (WITH the quotes), then you will receive the phrase "American passport" and you will receive 1 result.

The same is true of the famous example "red car" and many other keyword combinations.

But other examples, such as searching for the keywords "American flag" (WITHOUT the quotes) will show up as you stated (with results from the phrase).

So there is no rhyme or reason to the searches at this point.

On top of that, the search results keep changing as the days go by. One day, the keywords will return the phrase and on another day they will return the separate keywords...

American passport proves my point. Red car is not an official addition to their tagging system. American flag is. You completely missed what I said and proved my point. I'm talking about using the "Did you mean" thing to add the phrase to there system.

phildate · « **Reply #12 on:** October 16, 2006, 19:30 »

The current system is so flawed it's not funny. Try the same search on IS compared to SS or DT and see the difference in the returns. At the moment on IS, many contributors are trying to second guess the system by adding phrases but unless everyone does this, the system is going to be flawed. I have no idea how they are going to resolve this issue apart from by employing keyworders/taggers to sort this system out and not let contributors do their own keywords a la Getty.

My sales haven't suffered too much but I have been uploading my full quote of 50 images a week so I would be expecting my royalties to be climbing steadily. Oh well, we will wait for the official word from someone there, but it's been a week since anyone has communicated anything and I sense the troops are getting restless. Even Hidesy has been on the forums to say she is confused so hopefully admins will take note.

yingyang0 · « **Reply #13 on:** October 16, 2006, 20:36 »

Quote from: phildate on October 16, 2006, 19:30

My sales haven't suffered too much but I have been uploading my full quote of 50 images a week so I would be expecting my royalties to be climbing steadily.

I had my best day ever today. My sales have gone up exponentially since the change. I think the old hands are just upset because they had the old system clocked and now they have to figure out a new system, and until they do the rest of us have a far shot.

Freezingpictures · « **Reply #14 on:** October 18, 2006, 06:20 »

My sales have been more than doubledl last week. This week the went down again. Although more of my pictures went up if they are searched by best match..

Quote from: yingyang0 on October 16, 2006, 20:36

Quote from: phildate on October 16, 2006, 19:30
My sales haven't suffered too much but I have been uploading my full quote of 50 images a week so I would be expecting my royalties to be climbing steadily.

I had my best day ever today. My sales have gone up exponentially since the change. I think the old hands are just upset because they had the old system clocked and now they have to figure out a new system, and until they do the rest of us have a far shot.

Freezingpictures · « **Reply #15 on:** October 18, 2006, 07:41 »

Do you mean the "did you mean" word in the brackets?

Quote from: yingyang0 on October 16, 2006, 19:23

American passport proves my point. Red car is not an official addition to their tagging system. American flag is. You completely missed what I said and proved my point. I'm talking about using the "Did you mean" thing to add the phrase to there system.

yingyang0 · « **Reply #16 on:** October 18, 2006, 16:04 »

Quote from: Freezingpictures on October 18, 2006, 07:41

Do you mean the "did you mean" word in the brackets?

Quote from: yingyang0 on October 16, 2006, 19:23
American passport proves my point. Red car is not an official addition to their tagging system. American flag is. You completely missed what I said and proved my point. I'm talking about using the "Did you mean" thing to add the phrase to there system.

WHAT? now you're confusing me, what brackets? I'm talking about when you edit the keywords to your photo. When the system doesn't recoginze a word or phrase it puts a pull down menu where the keyword should be. If you choose add 'whatever the word/phrase is' (and sometimes you have to do it many times), then the pull down menu goes away and the word/phrase is now part of the iStock word/phrase library.

Freezingpictures · « **Reply #17 on:** October 19, 2006, 04:52 »

Thanx, now I got it. On the right side there is another section with Did you mean, and there is also a meaning in brackets..

mattb · « **Reply #18 on:** October 19, 2006, 07:33 »

Anybody know how long its taking for keywords to be reviewed? Mine have been under review for almost a week.

My downloads have taken a turn for the worse so I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for my keywords to be updated.

yingyang0 · « **Reply #19 on:** October 19, 2006, 08:35 »

Quote from: mattb on October 19, 2006, 07:33

Anybody know how long its taking for keywords to be reviewed? Mine have been under review for almost a week.

My downloads have taken a turn for the worse so I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for my keywords to be updated.

I think you did it the wrong way. Did you go to the photo's buy page and then hit edit? If so then you just wiki'd yourself and it normally takes several months for that to clear up. You were suppose to go to the edit page. To do this: Click on your name in the upper left side of the page; then hit the 'My Uploads' on the right hand side; then click the edit button next to the photos. The keywords should update automatically from your view point, and the search engine sees the changes within 24 hours.

mattb · « **Reply #20 on:** October 19, 2006, 08:55 »

Here's what I did... I think I did it correctly(maybe). I went to the My Uploads section and clicked on the Edit File Information in the Admin Tools section. Was that not the right place to do it? Please tell me it is, even if it's not. Ignorance is bliss.

CJPhoto · « **Reply #21 on:** October 19, 2006, 09:14 »

mattb - I think you did it correctly and they updates automatically - no need for approval.

mattb · « **Reply #22 on:** October 19, 2006, 09:25 »

phew, sigh of relief. I did not want to go through the keyword process again. Now I just have to figure out why my most popular images don't seem to come up on the searches they normally would.

yingyang0 · « **Reply #23 on:** October 19, 2006, 15:47 »

Quote from: mattb on October 19, 2006, 09:25

phew, sigh of relief. I did not want to go through the keyword process again. Now I just have to figure out why my most popular images don't seem to come up on the searches they normally would.

Yeah you did it the right way, I just didn't understand why you thought that iStock needed to approve your keywords. Good luck trying to figure out why they aren't coming up. If you actually figure out how the search engine is working now, let me know.

admart01 · « **Reply #24 on:** October 20, 2006, 07:44 »

Quote from: mattb on October 19, 2006, 07:33

Anybody know how long its taking for keywords to be reviewed? Mine have been under review for almost a week.

My downloads have taken a turn for the worse so I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for my keywords to be updated.
[/quote

I think I did it the same way you did as my keyword changes are taking forever to be approved. What's the coaching here if someone did it the wrong way?

Thanks in advance for all advice]

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Author Topic: Istock -- organizing keywords and phrases? (Read 14594 times)

smphoto

leaf

GWB

admart01

GWB

pixelbrat

yingyang0

CJPhoto

Quevaal

GeoPappas

Bateleur

yingyang0

phildate

yingyang0

Freezingpictures

Freezingpictures

yingyang0

Freezingpictures

mattb

yingyang0

mattb

CJPhoto

mattb

yingyang0

admart01

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