So - we read a lot about how iStock's system rearranges keywords according to viewer and buyer use so that the most relevant keywords come to the front.
In the past, this has generally seemed to me to be 'probably' the case, though I do have a huge anomaly in a particular file, right from its upload.

Last week, I discovered that a file which I uploaded earlier this year and has 4 recorded views and one sale (whoopee!) had 'photography' as its top keyword, though it was near the bottom as I keyworded it. A few days later, I see it still has 'photography' as its top keyword.

But the mystery deepens. I had notification that a file had been accepted, and remembered that I'd forgotten to put a banner in, so I hopped over to the file and discovered a strange order to my keywords. (I have a pattern of keywording so this strangeness jumped out).

Sure enough, my keyword order was: Bluetit, Winter, Bird, Tit, One Bird, Frost, Bird Feeder, Perching, Cold, Ice, Sunflower Seed, Sunflower Hearts, Seed, Seed Feeder, Feeding, Animals Feeding, One Animal, Animals In The Wild, Wildlife, Nature, Scotland, UK, Europe, Beauty In Nature, Colors, Photography, Horizontal, No People, Differential Focus
and the new order, less than five minutes after I got the notification, and with 0 views, is:
Bluetit, Winter, Bird, Animals Feeding, Scotland, UK, Europe, Seed, Perching, Animals In The Wild, Ice, Frost, One Bird, Sunflower Hearts, Horizontal, Selective Focus, Nature, Photography, No People, Beauty In Nature, One Animal, Bird Feeder, Sunflower Seed, Tit, Feeding, Cold, Colors, Wildlife

(BTW, 'colors' is wrong, it should be colour (image type), don't know why it's changed, but I see it has changed in several other recent uploads too. I'll deal with that.)

Please don't focus on the particulars of this image. I can see similar apparently-random changes in several other recently-accepted images.

What I'm concerned about is not that one file, or even the group of recent files, but the principle of how it happens that inside 5 minutes of acceptance, the keyword order can have changed so much, and so randomly, at a time when the contributor information manager (or whatever the title is) says that they are focusing on 'razor-sharp relevancy' in Search.

Theoretically, my files should stay as I ordered them until there's some relevant buyer action on them.

Question, are you using DM to upload files and is it the latest version?

No.

That's interesting. It looks quite intelligent. My guess would be - only because it seems sensible - that there are categories of word types. In which case I guess you would think about building an order something like this:

Eg: the first 3 proper full CV terms (probably ignoring non CV terms at this point - and possibly even being slightly thrown by them). So it starts with the most important words. Then it builds an order based on the type of words. Therefore some location words. Some action words. Possibly some descriptive words. Maybe some technical words. Then everything else [ETA: and perhaps everything else initially added according to how often those words have ever been used]. Something like that.

We know from what we have been advised that location is now considered more relevant than it used to be and I was reading a trends report recently about how important local information is in general. It's definitely smart if they are doing it like this.

I certainly wouldn't expect our own order to stick even from the beginning. Unless one actually studied it carefully and, just for fun, tried to come up with an order which cracked it. I am going to give it a go with my next upload - to see if I can put the keywords in the same order as they end up. Well as close as possible.

ETA: So I took the liberty of looking at your bluetit picture uploaded on 10-13-13. Clicking on 'wrong keywords' I think we see the original order for comparison and it looks something like I am guessing. Seems sensible enough.

ORIGINAL:
Blue Tit, bird, Tit, sunflower hearts! [NOT CV], One Bird! [NOT CV], Perching (Animal Behavoiur), Gripping (Holding), Animal Behaviour (Animal Attribute), one animal (Animal), wild, wildlife, nature, selective focus, Feeding, Animals Feeding, eating, [Did you mean � ! food in beak is unknown �], bird feeder, seed feeder! [NOT CV], bird food! [NOT CV], sunflower seeds, Differential Focus, Colour, Photography, No People, Scotland, UK, Europe

CURRENT:
Bluetit, Bird, Tit, Animals Feeding, Selective Focus, Scotland, UK, Europe, Perching, Animal Behavior, Animals In The Wild, bird food, One Bird, Sunflower Hearts, Nature, Wildlife, Photography, No People, One Animal, Bird Feeder, Gripping, Sunflower Seed, Color Image, Feeding, Eating

We know from what we have been advised that location is now considered more relevant than it used to be and I was reading a trends report recently about how important local information is in general. It's definitely smart if they are doing it like this.

I certainly wouldn't expect our own order to stick even from the beginning.
[snip]

OK, I see your analysis makes a vague sort of sense. I would have expected our own order to stick until it had had some 'action' from what we've been told, but they don't tell us everyrthing.

I hope that promoting locations wouldn't lead to a lot of stupidity of the sort of 'an orange isolated on white' clogging up searches of e.g. 'Scotland', because the photographer took the picture in Scotland and tagged it as such (poor keywording, even if not technically 'wrong').

Quote from: ShadySue on November 25, 2013, 11:41

I hope that promoting locations wouldn't lead to a lot of stupidity of the sort of 'an orange isolated on white' clogging up searches of e.g. 'Scotland', because the photographer took the picture in Scotland and tagged it as such (poor keywording, even if not technically 'wrong').

Well I have no more knowledge about this than you. But I would expect that Scotland as an important first word would tend on the whole towards having a different sort of relevance vs Scotland as an additional (location) description.

Good luck to the auto-system for differentiating between these.

Quote from: ShadySue on November 25, 2013, 12:02

Good luck to the auto-system for differentiating between these.

Best Match results for Scotland look good.

I was only giving a hypothetical (based on things I've seen in the past) not a real current example.

On second attempt I get 31170!

Still got 24 in the first 200, phew!

All old images though.

Quote from: fotoVoyager on November 25, 2013, 13:11

Still got 24 in the first 200, phew!

I see 6 of yours on the front page.

I guess that Scotland is going to be 'trending' over the next couple of years as the vote draws closer and whichever way it goes.

I've got none in the top 200. 
Imagine all the work taking UK out of all those files if it goes that way, and no idea how they'll cope with editorial, which we can't change ourselves.
But who knows which way it will go?

^^ I don't see any of yours in the top 200. Even if I only select photos. Tried refreshing a few times. I guess that shows that we all see something different. If it's any consolation I don't think mine are showing up much lately if my sales are anything to go by. Then again my iStock stuff isn't as good as yours and there is much less of it. I think I was lucky it ever sold even as much as it did.