just wanted to let you know lately I had a few files of mine rejected  for irrelevant keywords  not that I had so irrelevant keywords  but  I guess they are getting more strict with it  as they indicate in their rejection notice:

Under the new controlled vocabulary system that we now use, images need fewer keywords to do well in searches. The site handles translations and synonyms, so you do not have to.

 Please provide a set of simple, descriptive, focused keywords for this image before resubmitting.

I like the idea of fewer keywords but I think that makes it really difficult decide what keywords to include and which one to exclude. Hopefully I'll get used to it without getting more rejections for the same reason.
 

yeah. they tighten up rules about keywording. so I have to cut out 80% of my keywords now for them, lol! If it is a picture of apple, now I put just "apple, fruit, food, isolated" keywords, and thats it. lol. nonsense.

An apple is fruit and food, so "apple, isolated" would be enough. Don't forget "green" for the color. Not all apples are created equal.
So forget "apples, fruity, health, healthy, slimming, calory, calories, low, cholesterol, medicine, agriculture, nature, tasty, juicy, slim, diet, dieting, natural, sexy" 

So if I had an image of an apple, the keywords:

religion paradise adam eve serpent sin lust desire

would not be acceptable?? What a shame, these guys are just too restrictive... 

zorki,

I agree with you, to some extent.

If sites did not allow keyword editing without inspection, this would probably work well, as long as policies were kept coherently.

For instance, if one could use "walkman" in the past and now the site does not accept it because it's a registered name, new images without "walkman" are in disadvantage compared to the old ones that still have "walkman".  So the right thing would be the site delete any instance of "walkman" in their portfolios.  But they don't do that.

Now, as in my example, IS does not accept "low cal" in the CV.  They may reject the image for that, it seems, and in this case you would have to re-upload without this word.  Yet, older images have "low cal" and appear in searches if you type "low cal".

If they don't allow me to have "kid" and "child" because they are synonyms, and I pick "child", my image won't show (or will appear behnd) if someone searches for "kid".  Am I wrong?

Also, I agree I spam all my heart images with "Valentine".  But if I don't, and people search for "valentine", mine won't show.  So if everyone uses this stretch, I have to use it too, not to be left behind. 

Now, I have seen spammed keywords that are just absolute pure spam, like "blue" in a red image, or "tropical" for a snowed mountain scene.

Regards,
Adelaide

Also, I agree I spam all my heart images with "Valentine".  But if I don't, and people search for "valentine", mine won't show.  So if everyone uses this stretch, I have to use it too, not to be left behind. 

Now, I have seen spammed keywords that are just absolute pure spam, like "blue" in a red image, or "tropical" for a snowed mountain scene.

Regards,
Adelaide

Also totally agree with this.  Why should we sacrifice sales on our newer images?

For instance, for ages I was adding to the keyword problem with my London photos.  When you searched for "London" the default was London, Ontario (wherever . that is), but most of the photos that displayed for that tag were pictures of London in the UK (as you would expect - a capital city to come before a town) so I bet no one ever bothered to refine that they wanted London, UK, since most of the results were already there.  So for ages, people just kept adding "London, Ontario" to their tags to keep in the game.  Fortunately now the "proper" default is checked (i.e. the most popular) although I think there should be nothing checked at all.  The problem now is the irrelevent stuff - eg, the map of europe and the patch of grass in the top results...