MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: The Mighty Jungle on August 12, 2013, 19:11
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Just discovered other peoples' photos have been added to all my photo pages.... godalmighty.... !
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It's a feature not a bug. I wrote about it here: http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/sort-by-really/msg337547/#msg337547 (http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/sort-by-really/msg337547/#msg337547) and it's being discussed on iStock here: http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=355588&page=1 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=355588&page=1)
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Wow. Great way to direct sales to their contributors of choice.
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Wow. Great way to direct sales to their contributors of choice.
Hadn't thought of that.....will be interesting to take a closer look and see if that really is what is happening. Would not surprise me one bit.
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Just discovered other peoples' photos have been added to all my photo pages.... godalmighty.... !
But at least they are accepting whatever you submit now right? Up to 999? (Or has that changed).
FFA EVERYONE! :D EVERYBODY SOLO! What fun!
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Hopefully they are good ones and you get to keep the sales! ;)
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Wow. Great way to direct sales to their contributors of choice.
Hadn't thought of that.....will be interesting to take a closer look and see if that really is what is happening. Would not surprise me one bit.
It figures, the first photo of mine that I pull up turns out that all of the photos below are from the Yuri Arcurs collection and none of the others that I have that were from the same shoot and same model showed up.
I agree with what Sean thinks.
Other than that, you all have a great week!
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This move undermines a finely honed marketing system I built up and applied over the years. It rewards others for my work and falsely claims to have similar images when they are linking to just the same handful of images for most of the thousands of files in a search. How does that even make sense? I can see easily now that those special chosen files that link to most of mine will always be at the top because it is a huge promotion to be on the file pages of other contributors. I wouldn't mind it if some of mine were linked. I have a file with 600 Vetta dls that is not getting the special treatment that some non exclusive files are getting in my favorite search. I am screwed now. Game over.
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Has to be one of the worst ideas anyone over there has had. Wonder whose turn it was to 'think of something new' yesterday. Reveals all the keyword spamming and bad best match relevancy (where it exists).
Why they thought that anyone doing a search and picking the image they wanted would want to see the irrelevant images they discarded again is inexplicable.
Interesting that in the iS thread, all the problems have been seen right away. Usually when something new is introduced [1] people generally cheered for a while until the drawbacks became apparent. This time the drawbacks are way too apparent.
[1]Though not as predicatably recently, with the upsurge in bad ideas which have been pushed live.
Get the Best Match sorted. Penalise spamming and poor keywording. Give the crowd a financial incentive to wiki and act on it. When the search is poor, no manner of dressing up will help.
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Has to be one of the worst ideas anyone over there has had. Wonder whose turn it was to 'think of something new' yesterday. Reveals all the keyword spamming and bad best match relevancy (where it exists).
I hate the way that on the internet opinion often tends towards tabloidesque superlatives such that anything is always either the worst or the best.
This looks quite sensible to me on the whole. Coupled with the simplified search options it isn't stupid. Perhaps the implementation needs to be fine tuned over time with respect to the content which gets fed into that channel. But they have to build it before they fine tune the content. It's a different window on the database. Why not ? The 'see also' channel is a potential marketing tool - it's going to sometimes work for us and sure it will probably sometimes go against us.
Some people think that it spoils the look and feel of the pages. Well I know that this is going to be a difficult thing for many people to acknowledge - but the look and feel of the site may be suffering from the mish mash of content in our description fields - lightboxes in all different styles etc. Pushing that lot down beneath the fold might be a good first step. Personally I keep wondering whether we really need a description field.
Why they thought that anyone doing a search and picking the image they wanted would want to see the irrelevant images they discarded again is inexplicable.
It is exactly analogous to a similar feature on the web version of the Kindle bookstore - a feature which I use and which, I expect, many other people also use. There are always multiple ways to find what you are looking for.
Get the Best Match sorted. Penalise spamming and poor keywording. Give the crowd a financial incentive to wiki and act on it. When the search is poor, no manner of dressing up will help.
I might be wrong but I would doubt that they would be planning to sort out the keywords. I doubt that they are going to need to over time. Because with all new non-premium content on sale at the lowest price sales will decide relevancy*. Anyone searching by newest is going to get a mixture of often less relevant content but at much lower pricing. Buyers who choose to search by newest can probably do a better job on relevancy** than a relatively time consuming inspection process. Though my guess would be that exclusive content will get tighter keyword scrutiny for the moment at least.
*and quality
** ie building the relevancy data
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Though my guess would be that exclusive content will get tighter keyword scrutiny for the moment at least.
There is no evidence to show that happening, or that it has been happening for months.
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I keep wondering whether we really need a description field.
For content which does not 'have' to be 'editorial' (so will be rejected as an editorial submission) but is most likely to be used in an editorial context, it's essential.
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I keep wondering whether we really need a description field.
For content which does not 'have' to be 'editorial' (so will be rejected as an editorial submission) but is most likely to be used in an editorial context, it's essential.
I am not convinced that iStockphoto 2013 is a great outlet for uploading editorial content to other than product shots. By editorial - like you I mean content which is most likely to be used in an editorial context.
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I keep wondering whether we really need a description field.
For content which does not 'have' to be 'editorial' (so will be rejected as an editorial submission) but is most likely to be used in an editorial context, it's essential.
I am not convinced that iStockphoto 2013 is a great outlet for uploading editorial content to other than product shots. By editorial - like you I mean content which is most likely to be used in an editorial context.
iStock for months has not been a good place to upload any new files, especially of subjects in popular genres/main keywords.
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I keep wondering whether we really need a description field.
For content which does not 'have' to be 'editorial' (so will be rejected as an editorial submission) but is most likely to be used in an editorial context, it's essential.
I am not convinced that iStockphoto 2013 is a great outlet for uploading editorial content to other than product shots. By editorial - like you I mean content which is most likely to be used in an editorial context.
iStock for months has not been a good place to upload any new files, especially of subjects in popular genres/main keywords.
Most popolar keywords on iS will fast become: business, businessmen/women, blur, faded blue, background……
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Of course you need description fields. The average designer is not an expert on all things. Not all photos are being marketed to the ignorant masses. It helps the designer sell the image to the client if he knows something about the image and has some words to go with it.
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Of course you need description fields. The average designer is not an expert on all things. Not all photos are being marketed to the ignorant masses. It helps the designer sell the image to the client if he knows something about the image and has some words to go with it.
Both Getty and Shutterstock seem to have done okay without a description field. Alamy does not let us post links or embed content.
I can see why photographs intended for editorial use need good captioning and an additional space for shoot notes etc can also be useful with those sorts of images. A something, somewhere, sometime picture needs a good caption. But I don't see why a generic RF non editorial off-the-peg stock image is ever going to be so specific that it would need anything other than a title and keywords. Surely if a picture needs a description then it should be properly captioned for editorial.
Anyhow - my point was that, if we are honest with ourselves (me included), the mish-mash of lightbox links, images hosted elsewhere, broken links, broken ubb code etc surely, at the very least, presents a case for moving the description field beneath the fold. And ultimately those pages surely need a uniform standard look and feel.
2. The title of this thread is "Someone else's photos are on MY PAGE". I suppose that part of what I am questioning, I hope in way which is polite and respectful, is whether it actually is "MY PAGE".
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Surely if a picture needs a description then it should be properly captioned for editorial.
Not allowed if it doesn't 'have' to be editorial. I've had images thrown back and asked to remove some signs so that they could be submitted to the main collection, even though the pics would almost certainly only have editorial use.
In natural history, a description may be of help to an editorial buyer, even if there is no need for the image to be editorial. Also detailled descriptions of certain landscapes or cityscapes may help the buyer.
Finally, the similar images is above the caption of editorial pics, meaning that at least on my monitor, the caption can't be read without scrolling.
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Anyway, it's buggy. The sort has been switching between the old drop down with all the options and the three boxes all day, and a while ago the strip was gone, then it was back.
Do they never, ever test properly in a sandbox before pushing live? (stupid question)
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Descriptions matter more for images of places (not all of which are editorial) and some of wildlife or plants/trees. Putting them underneath their "similar" images is a disservice to buyers.
I have so few images left there I don't care, but I had spent a bunch of time organizing lightboxes of related (if not similar) images in ways I thought was helpful to buyers and thus to me (in terms of increased sales). No one will ever spend ten seconds doing anything like that any more in the current set up given where it's placed.
On top of which the new page design is butt ugly.
Fail, IMO
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Has to be one of the worst ideas anyone over there has had. Wonder whose turn it was to 'think of something new' yesterday. Reveals all the keyword spamming and bad best match relevancy (where it exists).
I hate the way that on the internet opinion often tends towards tabloidesque superlatives such that anything is always either the worst or the best.
Fair enough, you're entitled to your opinion, though I said it was "one of the worst". IMO, the worst idea was RCs and probably the second worst was the latest Collections fiasco.
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so long as you upload links of your own similars it shouldn't be too disastrous. think of it like this:
you've got 6 of the series and the buyer can see all six on one page, plus another 6 similar images (which hopefully includes a few of yours too), they may just decide that's as good as it gets and just pick one.
Maybe.
Sure the location, above my own list of similars, is annoying. but I did a few checks and on a few the list of similars was hilarious, surely convincing the buyer that mine was the best. the people ones are worse of course, so having your own links or lightboxes is going to be crucial. they weren't all links to exclusive files either. (not yet :-\)
As a buyer I would like this. (I'd probably be unaware how limited the best match search is.) I'm not going to hate it just cos it's iS.
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^ ha! I was worried that you'd want to be my friend now. :P
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Hey, where are all the SS fans? You've been missing a trick.
SS does this so much better.
I'm not sure when last I went onto an individual file page on SS, but being astonished to discover that they didn't have a description, I hit on a random image there and saw that there are two horizontal strips, one being similars from the same contributor, which is ABOVE another strip of similars from the site as a whole.
So if someone is a clean keyworder, there's a better chance that their own similars are in fact 'similar', so the results are more relevant.
Downside is that the page layout is even more cluttered and ugly. (IMO)
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DT does the same thing - strip of 5 small images underneath the chosen image's thumbnail "more stock photos from contributor's portfolio" and another strip of 5, "more similar images of xxxxx (title of image)." Clean and unobtrusive with title, description and keywords,which all factor into search. Yes, if they are all keyworded the same chances are that the series will appear in the 5 "more stock photos from contributor's portfolio." When uploading you only need to add or change a word here and there to keep the same keywords in each of the series. They seem to be accepting more similars. Actually, they seem to accepting almost everything submitted these days.
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Has to be one of the worst ideas anyone over there has had.
So everyone else does it and it's ok, but IS does it and it's the worst idea ever? :)
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Has to be one of the worst ideas anyone over there has had.
So everyone else does it and it's ok, but IS does it and it's the worst idea ever? :)
I didn't know everyone else did it until I looked on SS. It's still ugly, but they implement it better.
NB, I didn't say it was THE worst, and I didn't say 'ever'. Selling full frame, full size images for cents is IMO worse, e.g. SS, TS etc.
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Has to be one of the worst ideas anyone over there has had.
So everyone else does it and it's ok, but IS does it and it's the worst idea ever? :)
It's not the worst idea ever, but it may be the worst implementation of this idea, ever.
- The similars are sometimes not even remotely related to the original file.
- Many IS contributors use the description field to show a link to a relevant lightbox or thumbs of their own similars. By placing the similars where IS did, it pushes the description information way down the page, usually below where most buyers would see it without scrolling. And why would they scroll if they don't know there's anything down there to see?
- I've checked several of my better selling files to see what thumbs appear. Despite having relevant similars, mine never seem to appear in the thumbs. And when I click through the files that do appear in the thumbs, it's almost like it's a daisy chain, with almost all the same files appearing in each file's similars.
I'm sure there are more reasons why this implementation sucks wind, but that's all I could come up with off the top of my head.
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Both Getty and Shutterstock seem to have done okay without a description field.
Getty does have a description field, called 'Caption'.
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Both Getty and Shutterstock seem to have done okay without a description field.
Getty does have a description field, called 'Caption'.
So no 'Title' field.
And it's limited to 255 characters, making it almost impossible to say anything meaningful in editorial files, since their required format often takes up easily 1/3 to 1/2 of the available space.
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DT does the same thing - strip of 5 small images underneath the chosen image's thumbnail "more stock photos from contributor's portfolio" and another strip of 5, "more similar images of xxxxx (title of image)." Clean and unobtrusive with title, description and keywords,which all factor into search.
I absolutely agree. DT does this much better than Istock. They first list similars from my own portfolio and then show some from a general search of the title. This presents the buyer with a nice range of options.
But of course the reason Istock doesn't do that is because it isn't so much about serving buyers as it is serving up images Istock makes more profit on.
Fortunately, the images I checked, the ones linked at the bottom are mostly terrible and often completely irrelevant.
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I do think the layout should use the whole screen though, doesn't everyone have a widescreen monitor now?
I don't; but maybe most buyers have.
Actually, even without a widescreen the thums don't fill the width.
Added: just checked on my phone: the thumbs seem to fit perfectly into the horizontal and vertical width.
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I see other frog photos from the photog when I click on the DT link listed. And it fills up my entire screen. I'm in Firefox 23, Mac OS X 10.8. Perhaps difference in browsers? Hope it's ok to show this, if not I will delete it as I don't want to publish something that any contributor doesn't want displayed. Aha, I signed out and a buyer sees something different when the link is clicked. If you are logged in you will see what I show, below. If you are not signed in you can click on the photog's name and it will take you to what is shown, below too. If you log in or if you click on the photogs name when not logged in you will find what I show. Looking around without signing in doesn't give the same results up front, just a general overview with buyer text for the casual browser. Lots of pages to click thru but you eventually get there. Confused yet?
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8767897/Screen%20Shot%202013-08-14%20at%2010.58.48%20PM.png)
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Hey, where are all the SS fans? You've been missing a trick.
SS does this so much better.
I'm not sure when last I went onto an individual file page on SS, but being astonished to discover that they didn't have a description, I hit on a random image there and saw that there are two horizontal strips, one being similars from the same contributor, which is ABOVE another strip of similars from the site as a whole.
So if someone is a clean keyworder, there's a better chance that their own similars are in fact 'similar', so the results are more relevant.
Downside is that the page layout is even more cluttered and ugly. (IMO)
Interesting, just checked out SS, they have "same model" strip of images. Do they key on the same model release? How would they know otherwise?
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1. Of course you need description fields. The average designer is not an expert on all things. Not all photos are being marketed to the ignorant masses. It helps the designer sell the image to the client if he knows something about the image and has some words to go with it.
Both Getty and Shutterstock seem to have done okay without a description field. Alamy does not let us post links or embed content.
SS has a description field, its the only field they have.
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Hey, where are all the SS fans? You've been missing a trick.
SS does this so much better.
I'm not sure when last I went onto an individual file page on SS, but being astonished to discover that they didn't have a description, I hit on a random image there and saw that there are two horizontal strips, one being similars from the same contributor, which is ABOVE another strip of similars from the site as a whole.
So if someone is a clean keyworder, there's a better chance that their own similars are in fact 'similar', so the results are more relevant.
Downside is that the page layout is even more cluttered and ugly. (IMO)
Interesting, just checked out SS, they have "same model" strip of images. Do they key on the same model release? How would they know otherwise?
Yes, there is no other way.
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I see other frog photos from the photog when I click on the DT link listed. And it fills up my entire screen.
Yep. Seeing exactly the same thing here. They do show frogs from other sellers, but they also have a whole row of similars from that photographer's port.
Thanks for proving my point Cuppa :)
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Tickstock, I am not a bit surprised that you are so satisfied with the way Istock does everything. You are nothing if not consistent.
Glad to know all is right for you in your world :)
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I'm not going to hate it just cos it's iS.
Careful, with that kind of talk you won't make any friends around here.
You have to admit that we're seeing daft idea followed by even dafter idea and a complete inability to implement anything without a total balls up almost like they want the whole thing to cave in.
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At least with Istock I can select the images I want to show, that's got to better than having Dreamstime do it for you right?
this is true. I can even add in images that aren't similar but complement my image. at least that amount of customisation still exists.
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What a horrible feature. Not the 'similar images' thing per se, but the placement is horrendous. At least place it at the bottom, below my description, name and lightboxes!
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What a horrible feature. Not the 'similar images' thing per se, but the placement is horrendous. At least place it at the bottom, below my description, name and lightboxes!
Yes. Exactly.
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Yes, for anyone who put a lot of time into links to lightboxes in the description this is bad news as the user has to scroll down to see the links.
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The lightbox option and ability to add your own similar images was one of the few things that iStock got right and differentiated it from other sites. Too bad they had to destroy that too. On top of it they also buried the contributor identity too by pushing contributor info way down the page, as if they wanted everyone to become anonymous.
I also noticed that if you use the price slider the Similars selection tosses that all out the window. Tried some searches on the lower price range and half to all Similars were in higher price points. Tried searching on just the highest price range and about half the Similars were in the lowest price range. Frustrating for the buyer either way if they are filtering with a specific goal in mind.
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(http://www.houseofshane.com/test/bestmatch.jpg)
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Just for fun I looked up the keywords used by some of the "similars" I found in my portfolio, just to see what was similar about them. One had keyword "bird of paradise" (a tropical flower), but I could not find any bird of paradise in that image, however following up on the next similars to his/hers all three had prominently displayed birds of paradise. Curiously enough mine didn't have a bird of paradise in it, (nor the keyword"bird of paradise"). That particular image was of a hummingbird perched on a wall surrounded by flowering verbena plants yet the keywords included "flight" (where nothing was flying), "single flower" (where there were dozens of flowers), "Caribbean sea" (no sea in sight Caribbean or otherwise) and three names of tropical countries. I realized it wasn't fun anymore so I packed it in.
My point is that the similars being imposed will never work unless they tighten up the keywording system - it is a joke right now. Why not spend a little money and hire a few people who can spell and look up words and phrases in a dictionary or encyclopedia, inspectors will not do as there isn't any evidence that they can do any of those things. Ah, istock, I don't think you'l do any of that
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I don't think inspectors are looking at keywords on new uploads, other than keywordzilla, and the wiki system is either dropped or moribund.
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Today's observation:
They are telling us to put our most relevant keywords first when we upload. Easy for me, as I keyword directly into iStock, not in meta or DM.
So my photo of New Street Station, Birmingham got in overnight, and isn't in the database yet.
I was very suprised to see the 'similars'.
Then I looked and saw that my first keyword, "New Street Station", which possibly significantly isn't in the CV, had been moved down to position 6 in iS's rearranged keywords, so my top four were now Birmingham, Midlands, England, UK.
Eventually, I worked out that "New Street Station" was never going to get into the top four, so I compromised and my keyword order is now:
New Street Station, Birmingham, Railway Station, Station, Midlands, England, UK, Sign, Entrance Sign, Stephenson Street, Modern, Architecture, 2013, 21st Century Style, Colour, Photography, Editorial, Horizontal, Nobody
in which only the first wseven have been switched around since the original upload
But, as it is not currently findable, it can't have any buyer action, the iStock order is now:
Birmingham, Railroad Station, Station, Midlands, Editorial, Horizontal, England, UK, Sign, 2013, New Street Station, Architecture, Contemporary, 21st Century Style, Photography, Nobody, Entrance Sign, Color Image
Which is quite a switch, though I know that only the first four 'count' in best match.
All I can deduce from this is that the system breaks down if our most important keyword isn't in the CV, and the system rearranges words without any buyer input, contrary to what we have been told, even recently.
On the up side, I got rid of all the pseudo-similars, which is a result. 8)
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I think you can use the new DM to rearrange keyword order, I read something about that but I haven't looked deeper. Also if your most important word isn't in the CV then there probably aren't a lot of competing files so search order doesn't matter. There aren't too many non-CV words that have thousands of results.
True on the non-CV point.
But it does point out the misinformation that our order of keywords gets changed by buyer behaviour, as has been stated for a while, and the importance of 'putting our most important keyhwords first' on new uploads, as recommended by both Lobo and CR:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=353233&messageid=6936486 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=353233&messageid=6936486)
Whether this is deliberate lying or total cluelessness about how the system works, I would not assume to guess. The old iStock 'malice or incompetence?' debate.
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I think you can use the new DM to rearrange keyword order, I read something about that but I haven't looked deeper. Also if your most important word isn't in the CV then there probably aren't a lot of competing files so search order doesn't matter. There aren't too many non-CV words that have thousands of results.
True on the non-CV point.
But it does point out the misinformation that our order of keywords gets changed by buyer behaviour, as has been stated for a while, and the importance of 'putting our most important keyhwords first' on new uploads, as recommended by both Lobo and CR:
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=353233&messageid=6936486[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=353233&messageid=6936486[/url])
Whether this is deliberate lying or total cluelessness about how the system works, I would not assume to guess. The old iStock 'malice or incompetence?' debate.
I don't understand your point? I think they are saying that now because things have changed. The system doesn't work the same now as it did years ago.
They've said for years that it didn't matter at first what order you put things in, but that the best match would sort out our keyword relevance based on 'buyer behaviour' on our files. So that, for instance, one of my files, which has sold 30 times as a Vetta is on the second last page for "African Elephant" (above several of my files, and many others, with 0 dls) because "African Elephant" has become low in its keywords, although it was my top keyword on upload. Apparently the buyers 'behaved' on Africa, Elephant.
They have said for years that best match depends only on the top four keywords, as determined by buyer behaviour.
And now they're saying that the allegedly 'similar' files shown on our pages is also determined by the first four kyewords, as determined by buyer behaviour.
But my simple example demonstrates this not to be true - the system is changing the order of the keywords before any buyer ever gets to see the file.
So which is it - don't they understand how their own sytem is working, or do they know, but are deliberately misinforming us? Neither of these possiblities inspires confidence.
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I think you can use the new DM to rearrange keyword order, I read something about that but I haven't looked deeper. Also if your most important word isn't in the CV then there probably aren't a lot of competing files so search order doesn't matter. There aren't too many non-CV words that have thousands of results.
True on the non-CV point.
But it does point out the misinformation that our order of keywords gets changed by buyer behaviour, as has been stated for a while, and the importance of 'putting our most important keyhwords first' on new uploads, as recommended by both Lobo and CR:
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=353233&messageid=6936486[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=353233&messageid=6936486[/url])
Whether this is deliberate lying or total cluelessness about how the system works, I would not assume to guess. The old iStock 'malice or incompetence?' debate.
I don't understand your point? I think they are saying that now because things have changed. The system doesn't work the same now as it did years ago.
They've said for years that it didn't matter at first what order you put things in, but that the best match would sort out our keyword relevance based on 'buyer behaviour' on our files. So that, for instance, one of my files, which has sold 30 times as a Vetta is on the second last page for "African Elephant" (above several of my files, and many others, with 0 dls) because "African Elephant" has become low in its keywords, although it was my top keyword on upload. Apparently the buyers 'behaved' on Africa, Elephant.
They have said for years that best match depends only on the top four keywords, as determined by buyer behaviour.
And now they're saying that the allegedly 'similar' files shown on our pages is also determined by the first four kyewords, as determined by buyer behaviour.
But my simple example demonstrates this not to be true - the system is changing the order of the keywords before any buyer ever gets to see the file.
So which is it - don't they understand how their own sytem is working, or do they know, but are deliberately misinforming us? Neither of these possiblities inspires confidence.
I still don't get what you're saying? You put "african elephant" in as your first keyword years ago, buyers bought your image using the keywords "africa" and "elephant" (they are the top keywords) and didn't buy it using "african elephant". "african elephant" became low on the list because buyers didn't use that keyword. That is how the search is supposed to work, you can fault buyers for not using your best keyword but I don't see what Istock did wrong here? Since "elephant" is your top keyword I would expect it to be relatively much higher up the search for that keyword.
My top keyword on that file, as I entered it, is "African Elephant", but I'm expected to believe that (almost) no buyers searched on "African Elephant", but chose instead Elephant, Africa.
But my faith in that story is eroded by the fact that this newly uploaded file has had its keywords significantly rearranged with absolutely no possibility of buyer interaction.
I'd have thought that was clear enough from my previous two posts.
I note that Lobo recently has made quite a few "I don't understand what you mean" posts in reply to perfectly clear questions and points, particularly in the exclusive forum. Does iStock have a Disingenuity 101 course I should know about?
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They have said for years that best match depends only on the top four keywords, as determined by buyer behaviour.
I have never heard that before. Are you sure they have been saying this for years? It was only recently that I read somewhere (maybe here) that following recent changes there might be some short term advantage to ensuring that the first 4 keywords at upload were the most important.
I understand that you are frustrated with iStock but agree with what Tickstock is saying about how people probably search for elephants in Africa at iStockphoto. It's not a science and wildlife agency. You are dealing with PR people and graphic designers for the most part. Not science bods :)
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They have said for years that best match depends only on the top four keywords, as determined by buyer behaviour.
I have never heard that before. Are you sure they have been saying this for years?
Yes, at least since BM2.
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I don't know what new file you are talking about either, but keywords get rearranged when you check boxes. Those move up to the top of the list I think. You should probably use deep meta and optimize your keywords if you want them in the correct order.
Of course you don't. The file is not yet searchable. Is what I'm writing being rendered invisible or incomprehensible?
So you're saying that if a word doesn't need to be checked, as it has only one meaning, it automatically sinks underneath those which need to be DAd? In what universe would that make any sense?
Why should DM 'hold' a keyword order better than iStock's own keywording system?
That is insane, and adds more 'clicks' and another program to a workflow because iStock can't or won't sort out their own system.
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They have said for years that best match depends only on the top four keywords, as determined by buyer behaviour.
I have never heard that before. Are you sure they have been saying this for years?
Yes, at least since BM2.
No, there was never any restriction to the top four keywords. best match did depend on the relevancy factor of the term vs. the terms on the image, and yes, the top four were used in the "see more" link. But best match was not restricted to four.
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They have said for years that best match depends only on the top four keywords, as determined by buyer behaviour.
I have never heard that before. Are you sure they have been saying this for years?
Yes, at least since BM2.
No, there was never any restriction to the top four keywords. best match did depend on the relevancy factor of the term vs. the terms on the image, and yes, the top four were used in the "see more" link. But best match was not restricted to four.
Four was definitely stated, but the forum search is impossible and I can't be bothered wasting an hour trying to find it.
TBH, I must concede that I can't remember how 'official' the "four words" thing was or whether it was contributor observation.
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I don't know what new file you are talking about either, but keywords get rearranged when you check boxes. Those move up to the top of the list I think. You should probably use deep meta and optimize your keywords if you want them in the correct order.
Of course you don't. The file is not yet searchable. Is what I'm writing being rendered invisible or incomprehensible?
So you're saying that if a word doesn't need to be checked, as it has only one meaning, it automatically sinks underneath those which need to be DAd? In what universe would that make any sense?
Why should DM 'hold' a keyword order better than iStock's own keywording system?
That is insane, and adds more 'clicks' and another program to a workflow because iStock can't or won't sort out their own system.
What I'm saying is that if you put all your keywords in, they'll show up in that order but when you click on the subcategories it may move those up to the top of the list. I know when you check all the boxes and then hit the "add" button it moves the checked ones to the top so it probably does the same when you submit the file. That's just my guess as to how it works. I've said it 3 times now, you can use Deep Meta (the new beta version) to sort your keywords and put the ones you want into the first 4 slots. DM has added functionality to rearrange keywords, that's just how it is. If you want the order to be correct then use DM, that's just the way it is.
Yup, I noticed that only today, when I removed 'West Midlands' because it had gone to the top. I didn't realise that was the reason, though.
Well, if I have to use DM to play their stupid game, that's just one more reason to avoid uploading to iS as much as possible.
However, the ticky box thing doesn't explain all, or even most of the changes between the order I keyworded and the order they appear on the photo's page (affecting best match placement and alleged 'similars') before anyone, other than the inspector and me, has seen the file.
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Apparently there is no point in trying to change them once 'buyer activity' has changed their order. Did you check to see if the order had changed after you made the changes? I and others have found that it does not hold your changes.
Lobo has also said as much:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=355588&messageid=6931914 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=355588&messageid=6931914)
Anyway, while the above discussion was raging, I had another photo accepted, so went straight to look at the keywords, and although they are 'almost' in the order I uploaded them, the two 'not in CV' location names aren't to be found in the keywords on the page (which I've noticed on some earlier, random, files, but it's certainly not consistent).
I'll need to wait until it's in the searchable database to see if it can somehow still be searched on under these names.
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Oh, when you said hundreds of files, I thought you meant older ones too.
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I'm a contributor, but I also buy a lot of images. When I'm searching for images, I like this feature. Often I'll preview an image but find it is not quite what I need, so having some other suggestions is really helpful. Unfortunately, many of the ones they suggest are too unrelated to be useful. If they can resolve this issue and suggest more closely related images it will be good for everyone.
Anything that makes it easier to find the perfect image is good for buyers and therefore good for the whole industry.
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Before any views or downloads may have locked in the keyword order, you can "Edit File Information" and put the keywords in any order you want by reentering them in the desired order.
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Before any views or downloads may have locked in the keyword order, you can "Edit File Information" and put the keywords in any order you want by reentering them in the desired order.
In theory. In practice I've found that they don't always 'stick'.
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Lobo announbced here that the similars feature was being disabled pro tem:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=356544&messageid=6942114 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=356544&messageid=6942114)
Feedback is that it has helped alleviate some of the chronic slowness of site searches (why would that not have been obvious to them before they introduced it?), and no-one wants it back.
However, a contributor has just noticed a (hopefully) unintended consquence:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=356544&messageid=6942444 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=356544&messageid=6942444)
whereby when you do a Google Search (images) on site:istockphoto.com "Username" you get underneath tiny images which represent your own files followed by much larger images which represent mostly other peoples'.
There must be some sort of misrepresentation involved here, between iS and Google:
You enter 'my' username, and a lot of other peoples' files appear.
Other people won't like showing up under 'my' username.
I really hope they don't reintroduce this stupid feature.
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whereby when you do a Google Search (images) on site:istockphoto.com "Username" you get underneath tiny images which represent your own files followed by much larger images which represent mostly other peoples'.
The results looked ok for me, until I changed the time span to "one week" as shown in the original forum post. Then only 3 thumbs come up, none of them mine.
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whereby when you do a Google Search (images) on site:istockphoto.com "Username" you get underneath tiny images which represent your own files followed by much larger images which represent mostly other peoples'.
The results looked ok for me, until I changed the time span to "one week" as shown in the original forum post. Then only 3 thumbs come up, none of them mine.
You're seeing something different from me.
When I look at your port, like my own, I see a lot of little thumbs at the top of the search results page, most of which are yours and many of which don't link to the actual file.
Underneath these are much bigger thums. I'd agree that the proportion of your thums showing there is higher than mine, though with a main genre of yours, I'd have to click on all of them to be sure they're yours and not a rival's. Outside that genre, many are not yours.
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whereby when you do a Google Search (images) on site:istockphoto.com "Username" you get underneath tiny images which represent your own files followed by much larger images which represent mostly other peoples'.
The results looked ok for me, until I changed the time span to "one week" as shown in the original forum post. Then only 3 thumbs come up, none of them mine.
You're seeing something different from me.
When I look at your port, like my own, I see a lot of little thumbs at the top of the search results page, most of which are yours and many of which don't link to the actual file.
Underneath these are much bigger thums. I'd agree that the proportion of your thums showing there is higher than mine, though with a main genre of yours, I'd have to click on all of them to be sure they're yours and not a rival's. Outside that genre, many are not yours.
I may be seeing what you're seeing.
The little thumbs are ALL my files, but some are photos and some are videos. The photo thumbs all seem to link to my port, not to the file. The video thumbs just give an error. >:(
When we get to the bigger thumbs, they are mostly mine, but there are a few others intermixed. But that's just standard google image search results. I see that all the time when I do searches completely unrelated to stock.
So I'm fine with the results as shown, but don't like the fact that the video file links are erroneous.
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Tickstock, I am not a bit surprised that you are so satisfied with the way Istock does everything. You are nothing if not consistent.
Glad to know all is right for you in your world :)
I didn't say it was alright, I think it could be done much better. I'm just saying Dreamstime's set up doesn't really look any better, they both have the problems of putting other peoples images first, having to scroll down to see your similars, and a description field which you have to scroll down to see. At least with Istock I can select the images I want to show, that's got to better than having Dreamstime do it for you right?
At least I don't have to wait five minutes on DT for an image to pull up.
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The similars feature has just come back. :(
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I was noticing the appalling keywording on this file, and when I went back to it later, forgetting the original tab was still open, they had arrived:
(http://www.lizworld.com/RR.jpg)
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^^^ Oh, it's off that file now. Must have been testing.
Sorry they're determined to bring it back. >:(
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