Author Topic: Keywords - I feel a rant coming on (Read 9797 times)

disorderly · « **on:** April 06, 2009, 23:26 »

Would someone please tell me I'm overreacting? I'm going through my latest review notices from iStock. Some of the images were rejected for inappropriate keywords, others were accepted despite their disapproval of those same keywords. The keywords in question: women & child. The subject: a fifteen year old girl. Am I wrong to think that a client might find either one relevant, in addition to words like female and teenager?

Of course, a keyword rejection is a double whammy at iStock. Since I get so few upload slots in the first place, it's unlikely I'll ever have the chance to revisit the rejected images.

bittersweet · « **Reply #1 on:** April 07, 2009, 00:02 »

It would probably help to see the photo, but my first thought is that it would depend on how old the girl looks. If someone needs a photo of a woman, it's unlikely they'll search for "child", and vice versa. If the photo is so ambiguous that it's not clear she is a child, then that would make it less likely to be purchased as a result of a search using that keyword. Teenager, adolescent, and the like would be more appropriate.

That's just my opinion though, based on my own search habits as a buyer.

Graffoto · « **Reply #2 on:** April 07, 2009, 00:20 »

How about using the somewhat more generic term 'girl'. This can be a young woman as well as a teen or a child.
I'm sure you would need to DA it though during the upload process.

Graffoto · « **Reply #3 on:** April 07, 2009, 00:24 »

By the way I just had this image accepted today, but the review rejected my use of 'sex symbol' in the keywording.
Oh, well each to their own... but I though she was sexy.

http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/9032337/2/istockphoto_9032337-sexy-young-hispanic-woman-in-black-swimsuit.jpg

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #4 on:** April 07, 2009, 08:48 »

I might buy "woman" for a 15 year old, depending on the context. Definitely not "child" unless there was a parent, and you were keying the parent-child relationship.

disorderly · « **Reply #5 on:** April 07, 2009, 08:53 »

Quote from: nosaya on April 07, 2009, 00:20

How about using the somewhat more generic term 'girl'. This can be a young woman as well as a teen or a child.
I'm sure you would need to DA it though during the upload process.

I did include girl as well as female. The question is whether someone looking for the other terms would find these photos of interest. Here's one example from the set:

Maybe it's my advanced age, but I do think of someone of junior high school age as a child.

donding · « **Reply #6 on:** April 07, 2009, 09:38 »

My personally thoughts are she is a young woman as well as a child. Sometimes iStock gets funny about their keywords. A while back I had some rejects for the keyword pepper when the shot was of green peppers and as it sounds like the same thing happened to you...they accepted some of them that were keyworded exactly the same way as the one that was rejected.

batman · « **Reply #7 on:** April 07, 2009, 09:48 »

Quote from: donding on April 07, 2009, 09:38

Sometimes iStock gets funny about their keywords.

rofl , donding ... SOMETIMES?

lisafx · « **Reply #8 on:** April 07, 2009, 10:36 »

FWIW, I agree that for teens you should be able to use both words.

But considering how the model looks is valid. IMO that "girl" looks a lot more like a woman than a child, whatever her age. Particularly with her choice of hairstyle, makeup and clothing. I seriously doubt anyone searching for a "child" would be looking for that young lady.

sharply_done · « **Reply #9 on:** April 07, 2009, 10:46 »

Given how IS implements the CV, I think it might be more important here to discuss the keywords you didn't use - namely One Teenage Girl, Teenage Girls Only, Teenagers Only, Youth. I agree that Women might also be relevent, and if that's the case One Woman, One Woman Only, Only Women, Young Women should also be used. Your images use only Teenage Girls, Teenager, Adolescence, Teenagers Only, which means you've used only 4 of the 13 keywords available - better get on that!

tan510jomast · « **Reply #10 on:** April 07, 2009, 11:03 »

Quote from: sharply_done on April 07, 2009, 10:46

Given how IS implements the CV, I think it might be more important here to discuss the keywords you didn't use - namely One Teenage Girl, Teenage Girls Only, Teenagers Only, Youth. I agree that Women might also be relevent, and if that's the case One Woman, One Woman Only, Only Women, Young Women should also be used. Your images use only Teenage Girls, Teenager, Adolescence, Teenagers Only, which means you've used only 4 of the 13 keywords available - better get on that!

sharply_done never fails to give keywording pointers.
but one teenage girl, teenage girl only, teenagers only, one woman, only women..
would not they be redundant? they all mean the same thing.
why is this so different from spamming?
i could add a teenager alone, a girl in her teens, girl in her teens by self,etc..
please explain . cheers

thesentinel · « **Reply #11 on:** April 07, 2009, 11:15 »

Those phrases all have different meanings, subtle but different. That's the difference between tautology and refinement.

loop · « **Reply #12 on:** April 07, 2009, 11:16 »

That's a "teenager", it's easy. "Teenager" (Early teens) and woman, Not a child, at all.

tan510jomast · « **Reply #13 on:** April 07, 2009, 11:27 »

Quote from: thesentinel on April 07, 2009, 11:15

Those phrases all have different meanings, subtle but different. That's the difference between tautology and refinement.

thanks. so I should be using these sort of permutations in my keywording?
it would increase my views, I know. but how would this increase my sales?
I thought the lower view/sale ratio is better

DanP68 · « **Reply #14 on:** April 07, 2009, 11:34 »

It's not spamming unless the keywords are unrelated to the image. You make a good point on the views/sales ratio however. At one point it played a large role in the best match search order, and I think it still does to a certain extent looking over my stats. So a lean and mean keyword set is best for buyers, and for contributors too.

Magnum · « **Reply #15 on:** April 07, 2009, 11:38 »

Here´s a bunch of childs...

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/industry/education/5516656-young-study-group.php?id=5516656

sharply_done · « **Reply #16 on:** April 07, 2009, 11:41 »

Quote from: tan510jomast on April 07, 2009, 11:03

...but one teenage girl, teenage girl only, teenagers only, one woman, only women..
would not they be redundant? they all mean the same thing.
why is this so different from spamming?
...

You shouldn't apply the same keywording technique on IS as you do on sites that don't have a CV. If you take a bit of time to play with it, you'll begin to understand how the CV works and how each of these seemingly equivalent keywords are arrived at. Given the recent implementation of 'More like this' and visibly ranked keywords at IS, it's important to investigate the keywords that competing images use. Failure to do these things will give your image less than it's maximum possible exposure.

Each site has it's own keywording quirks: SS automatically adds plurals, DT uses titles and description, FT ranks the first 7(?). In order to maximize exposure you should know the ins-and-outs of each site and take advantage of the tools available to you. The bottom line is this: You may have made the best image in the world, but if you fail to keyword it optimally you will have handicapped your income from it.

tan510jomast · « **Reply #17 on:** April 07, 2009, 12:51 »

Quote from: sharply_done on April 07, 2009, 11:41

Quote from: tan510jomast on April 07, 2009, 11:03
...but one teenage girl, teenage girl only, teenagers only, one woman, only women..
would not they be redundant? they all mean the same thing.
why is this so different from spamming?
...

You shouldn't apply the same keywording technique on IS as you do on sites that don't have a CV. If you take a bit of time to play with it, you'll begin to understand how the CV works and how each of these seemingly equivalent keywords are arrived at. Given the recent implementation of 'More like this' and visibly ranked keywords at IS, it's important to investigate the keywords that competing images use. Failure to do these things will give your image less than it's maximum possible exposure.

Each site has it's own keywording quirks: SS automatically adds plurals, DT uses titles and description, FT ranks the first 7(?). In order to maximize exposure you should know the ins-and-outs of each site and take advantage of the tools available to you. The bottom line is this: You may have made the best image in the world, but if you fail to keyword it optimally you will have handicapped your income from it.

awesome, thx again st!

miskolin · « **Reply #18 on:** April 07, 2009, 13:08 »

The most rejections I had lately were not (surprisingly) for keywords, but for "artifacting when viewed at full size". I don't get it, but lately my acceptance ratio is somewhere near 20% of all images I submit. It used to be much better. Just don't know if I'm getting worse or the inspectors are more and more strict.

tan510jomast · « **Reply #19 on:** April 07, 2009, 14:01 »

Quote from: miskolin on April 07, 2009, 13:08

The most rejections I had lately were not (surprisingly) for keywords, but for "artifacting when viewed at full size". I don't get it, but lately my acceptance ratio is somewhere near 20% of all images I submit. It used to be much better. Just don't know if I'm getting worse or the inspectors are more and more strict.

or the hare just FOUND his spectacles

;Djethro tull passion play

travismanley · « **Reply #20 on:** April 08, 2009, 12:19 »

I was getting a lot of rejects for keywords so I finally started rekeywording everything for IS using deepmeta. It is a pain, but deepmeta helps a lot. I just add around 10 of the most relevant keywords and after they are accepted I usually go back and add some more. It doesnt really matter though because IS randomly will rekeyword my photos so its a never ending battle.

I think if you keep your amount of keywords to a min when you submit you dont really have to worry about keyword rejects. I think it just sends out a big red flag when you have like 50 something.

sharply_done · « **Reply #21 on:** April 08, 2009, 14:13 »

Quote from: travismanley on April 08, 2009, 12:19

...
It doesnt really matter though because IS randomly will rekeyword my photos so its a never ending battle.
...

Huh? You think IS is randomly rekeywording your stuff?

travismanley · « **Reply #22 on:** April 08, 2009, 14:20 »

Quote from: sharply_done on April 08, 2009, 14:13

Quote from: travismanley on April 08, 2009, 12:19
...
It doesnt really matter though because IS randomly will rekeyword my photos so its a never ending battle.
...

Huh? You think IS is randomly rekeywording your stuff?

Every now and then I get emails that keywords have been added or removed from my photos.

sharply_done · « **Reply #23 on:** April 08, 2009, 16:47 »

What you're seeing is not iStock randomly rekeywording your images, it's buyers and/or contributors 'correcting' the keywords you used.

travismanley · « **Reply #24 on:** April 08, 2009, 16:50 »

Quote from: sharply_done on April 08, 2009, 16:47

What you're seeing is not iStock randomly rekeywording your images, it's buyers and/or contributors 'correcting' the keywords you used.

Ahhh...thanks for clearing that up. So some random person can go in a change all my keywords on any given image? That seems kind of crazy.

fotografer · « **Reply #25 on:** April 08, 2009, 17:10 »

No it doesn't happen like that. Contributors or buyers can denounce bad keywords or suggest better ones but it has to be approved by IS staff.

RT · « **Reply #26 on:** April 08, 2009, 17:28 »

Quote from: sharply_done on April 08, 2009, 16:47

What you're seeing is not iStock randomly rekeywording your images, it's buyers and/or contributors 'correcting' the keywords you used.

Yes but the way I understood was that it then went through the 'wiki' team who are meant to oversee and approve the additions/subtractions from your keywords.

My own personal experience of this is that the majority of times it works out OK and I've been thankful for some of the suggestions, however amongst others I've had an image of a calculator on a white background whereby someone has suggested the removal of the keyword 'calculator' and it was then removed by the wiki team, and only this week I got a notice telling me that my image titled 'businessman walking a tightrope' (which as you can probably guess is a shot of a man in a suit walking along a piece of rope) had the suggestion of adding the word 'nobody' and again this was approved by the wiki team, even if they didn't look at the image the title alone should surely suggest to even the most uneducated person that the word 'nobody' shouldn't apply.

The conclusion I draw is there are people who suggest the adding and removal of keywords for vindictive reasons, also that on some occassions the wiki team don't even bother checking whether the suggestion is accurate.

travismanley · « **Reply #27 on:** April 08, 2009, 18:34 »

I agree with Richard, I doubt there are a lot of istockers out there adding and removing our keywords out of the goodness of their hearts. Why would you waste your time?

sharply_done · « **Reply #28 on:** April 08, 2009, 18:54 »

There are some who seem to delight in it though. There's one person on this forum - I won't name names - who does it so often that he's earned a special red badge for all his hard work!

madelaide · « **Reply #29 on:** April 08, 2009, 18:59 »

I also had an image of a rose in which "rose" was deleted. A bit crazy. I do wiki images sometimes, but only obvious spams (such as a blue satin sheet with "red" and "gold").

sharply_done · « **Reply #30 on:** April 08, 2009, 19:34 »

I do wiki sometimes, too - but only to madelaide's images. (grin)

fotorob · « **Reply #31 on:** April 13, 2009, 09:01 »

Correct me if I am wriong, but if a buyer or another person corrects or disapproves of your keywords, you get a notification mail...

Bye, Robert

Milinz · « **Reply #32 on:** April 13, 2009, 09:36 »

Istock should publish two books:

Book 'How to use the right keywods for finding what you need' for buyers and Book 'How to keyword your images' for uploaders ;-)

PaulieWalnuts · « **Reply #33 on:** April 13, 2009, 10:46 »

Did we lose another member to the ban button?

batman · « **Reply #34 on:** April 13, 2009, 11:30 »

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on April 13, 2009, 10:46

Did we lose another member to the ban button?

hmm, i was thinking the same thing, but maybe that person just got pissed off and delete the account here. too bad, it's good to be able to shoot the sh#t here, regardless of whether you 're happy with the response or not. a good way to pass the time while waiting for your file to download, lol

Inga · « **Reply #35 on:** April 15, 2009, 11:59 »

The following keywords used for this file do not appear to be fully relevant to the subject.

{[ Golf Course (Sports Venue)]}

travismanley · « **Reply #36 on:** April 15, 2009, 12:04 »

Quote from: Inga on April 15, 2009, 11:59

The following keywords used for this file do not appear to be fully relevant to the subject.

{[ Golf Course (Sports Venue)]}

The thing that bugs me too is if you want to send it to support to get reviewed again you have to wait like a month to hear back from them and you can only do that three times a month.

Of all the photos I have sent to be reviewed again they only ever overturned one once.

Inga · « **Reply #37 on:** April 15, 2009, 12:11 »

Quote from: travismanley on April 15, 2009, 12:04

The thing that bugs me too is if you want to send it to support to get reviewed again you have to wait like a month to hear back from them and you can only do that three times a month.

Of all the photos I have sent to be reviewed again they only ever overturned one once.

The keyword was not the only rejection reason. They seam to have found some artifacting issues. I'll see what I can do and just re-submit it. Of course I'll use the keyword "golf course" again, since I think this was a mistake by the reviewer

All my scout images(all=3 or so) have been accepted after contacting scout.