Firstly, sadly it seems this is a taboo subject for discussion on iStock.  This thread http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=322302&page=1 - "Is it new Best Match or my wrong Keywording?" in the help forum was locked, and a follow-up thread was not only locked, but also deleted from the site.

The concern is that files with a larger number of keywords are getting unusually poor placing in best match searches.  If this is true it would mean that official iStock guidance on keywords is no longer relevant (no pun intended  ).  We've been actively encouraged to provide lots of of useful information in our keywords, since terms like 'photography', 'horizontal', 'nobody', 'indoors' or whatever can improve search terms for buyers.  And the official position was that best match placing was not disadvantaged by having a high number of relevant keywords.

I'm not saying that I'm sure that lots of keywords = poor best match position (if an image picks up some early downloads it's often not the case), but it is looking like maybe it's a factor, whether on purpose or by mistake.

Certainly I've found that a lot of my own uploads over the past 6 months or so can be found right at the back of searches.  I usually invest a fair bit of time in tagging files with as many relevant, potentially useful keywords as possible.

These results below could have moved around for other reasons - another best match shift or whatever.  Also, these aren't brand new files, so it's not possible to know how things would have gone if they'd only had a few keywords from the start.

Anyway, for a couple of recent-ish files of mine that were at the back of tens of thousands of results, this is what happened...


Macro raspberry photo - uploaded 3rd February 2011

Best match position searching for 'raspberry' yesterday was approx #12980 (page 65 of 67, 200 results per page)

Removed keywords:
berry fruit, colour, food, macro, photography, ripe, selective focus, simple, sweet food, small, healthy eating, local produce, many, nobody, vibrant colour, saturated colour, ...

Keywords now:
raspberry, close-up, freshness, red, fruit, berry

Best match position now is approx #9705 (page 49 of 67)


Cherry photo - in the exclusive+ collection - uploaded 22nd November 2010

Best match position searching for 'cherry' yesterday was roughly #18035 (near the bottom of page 92 of 92, 200 results per page)

Removed keywords:
berry fruit, close-up, colour, directly above, food, fruit, gingham, group of objects, nobody, photography, raw, red, ripe, saturated colour, bunch, clean, healthy eating, indoors, local produce, macro, pattern, simple, stalk, summer, sweet food, three objects, white, wet, droplet, fabric, cotton, seasonal food, ...

Keywords now:
cherry, traditional, freshness, fruit, tablecloth

Best match position now is approx #11070 (page 55 of 91)

And an example with fewer results:

Fern koru uploaded 17th March 2011

Best match postion searching for 'Koru' was #65 out of 67 files

Removed keywords:
flora, beginnings, brown, close-up, fragile, green, growth, life cycle, origins, photography, small, spiral, vertical, bracken, circle, curled up, foliage, forest, frond, nobody, outdoors, shape, softness, tree fern, detail, radial symmetry, countryside, pure, selective focus, spring

Keywords now:
fern, freshness, new zealand, nature, koru

Best match position searching for 'Koru' is now #11 out of 67.

Please note, this is not an attempt to figure out how to 'game' the best match.  I'm trying to work out if - by doing what iStock officially advise on keywords - I'm spending time and effort on sending my work to the far back of search results.

Any suggestions?  And thanks if you managed to read all the way down to here 

I spent hours the other day looking for an image and it was incredibly frustrating because most people didn't keyword their files thoroughly.  I was looking for businessmen at night, and I tried a variety of combinations of keywords.  Some files showed up for some searches but not others, some people keyworded "businessman" but not "man", some people used "man" but not "businessman" or "business".  Some people didn't use "night" or anything relevant to the scene.  I ended up finding the perfect file about 2 seconds before I was about to give up.  The file only had 7 keywords and was missing a huge number of relevant KWs that would have really helped when I was trying to narrow down my search. 

Sooo in my opinion, it's better to leave ALL relevant KWs rather than trying to game the system (which, as ShadySue pointed out, could change tomorrow anyway).  You might have improved your best match ranking for raspberry, but there are still 9704 files before yours and you might have ruined your best match standing for "berry fruit" or something else. 

A lot of those keywords were rightly removed anyways.  You don't need 'healthy eating' on every food image.  That just annoys buyers.