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Poll

How has the 4/3/11 Best Match change affected your sales?

Sales are up a lot
0 (0%)
Sales are up a little
10 (11.1%)
No change
18 (20%)
Sales are down a little
12 (13.3%)
Sales are down a lot
50 (55.6%)

Total Members Voted: 78

Author Topic: The 4/3/11 Istockphoto Best Match Change  (Read 54419 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

PaulieWalnuts

  • We Have Exciting News For You
« on: April 03, 2011, 09:13 »
0
I realize this change just happened but l'll keep this poll open for a few weeks or until the next shakeup happens so you can vote and also change the response.

This change was a big one giving huge preference to Vetta and Agency. I'm guessing most people here don't have much, or any, V/A stuff so I think we're going to see a lot of "down a lot" responses over the next couple weeks.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2011, 09:20 by PaulieWalnuts »


« Reply #1 on: April 03, 2011, 09:23 »
0
The price difference between these files is so huge that I would be very surprised if IS will be able to just sell them by pushing them up the search results. That's silly idea.

Hack, it is 700% more for Vetta and 1000% more for Agency than for standard non exclusive file (L size).

lagereek

« Reply #2 on: April 03, 2011, 09:28 »
0
Oh! this time I think its a bit worse then that. I have already had 4 friends on my mail, all Diamond independants and this time around they are prepared to throw in the towel.
Im a bit surprised, we were all promised this new elusive best match, should be better then anything else, more fair, etc so eagerly we waited, as if we didnt guess, yet again it would be a total mess and screw-up.

Never thought I would say this but right now at this hour, the site simply aint worth the trouble anymore and instead of sitting worrying about their internal/external politics problems, one could just as well build on other sites.

« Reply #3 on: April 03, 2011, 09:31 »
0
The search I did wasn't as stacked with Vetta and Agency as the old search was. I searched "horse" with 200 results per page and most of the top photos were flames with a smattering of Vetta throughout. Wasn't that supposed to be one of the perks of Vetta though? Preference in the search?

ETA: I guess in order to get the Vetta stacked search I needed to move the slider to the middle. It was set all the way to the right, though I've never touched it. What a bizarre system. The slider is really stupid. If you didn't hear people talking about it in the forums, you'd never know it was there. Maybe they should make it a price sensitive slider than a keyword 'relevancy' slider.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2011, 09:35 by caspixel »

PaulieWalnuts

  • We Have Exciting News For You
« Reply #4 on: April 03, 2011, 09:36 »
0
The search I did wasn't as stacked with Vetta and Agency as the old search was. I searched "horse" with 200 results per page and most of the top photos were flames with a smattering of Vetta throughout. Wasn't that supposed to be one of the perks of Vetta though? Preference in the search?

Your slider must be set to the right. I just checked left and middle and it's mostly Vetta and Agency.

« Reply #5 on: April 03, 2011, 09:37 »
0
I agree on the sliderthing caspixel; i just did a search for "dog" and the first 6 pages were Vetta and Agency ONLY (apart from vectors). No trace at all from the other collections. The dogs i had on the first page and 2nd page of the best match are gone... didnt bother to look for them anymore after page 10.
No surprise, of course the favorite istock darlings are well represented (no, OVER represented) in this best match again. Bah, the shamelessness  >:(

lagereek

« Reply #6 on: April 03, 2011, 09:52 »
0
Trouble is they are doing away with the slider next week, leaving its default in the middle and right now, the middle is a down out killer.

« Reply #7 on: April 03, 2011, 10:00 »
0
Trouble is they are doing away with the slider next week, leaving its default in the middle and right now, the middle is a down out killer.

With the continuing drop in sales they must feel like they need to push the more expensive content (again) in order to boost revenue.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #8 on: April 03, 2011, 10:03 »
0
I won't vote for a few days, had no sales yesterday and none so far today, but sales at weekends for me are random and I had 6 1 sale weekend days in March. I guess we'll know more during the week. I can't go much further down.
I have noticed that my second best selling file is below 200 in pics only for its top keyword!

« Reply #9 on: April 03, 2011, 10:17 »
0
Ok, did few searches and as far as I can tell, all Vetta and Agency files simply go first in the Best Match and only after that the rest. I would say this is a bug or something that will get sorted another way in up to few days at max.

Because it does not make much sense. I can't imagine IS would think business works this way.

lagereek

« Reply #10 on: April 03, 2011, 10:36 »
0
Ok, did few searches and as far as I can tell, all Vetta and Agency files simply go first in the Best Match and only after that the rest. I would say this is a bug or something that will get sorted another way in up to few days at max.

Because it does not make much sense. I can't imagine IS would think business works this way.


Yeah, well unfortunately this is exactly the way IS, think business nowdays. Not the slightest bit of logic anywhere. I spoke to a friend whom I have known for years, high up on the Getty ladder and he was as baffled as anybody else.

« Reply #11 on: April 03, 2011, 10:37 »
0
I know iStock have made some awful decisions of late, but I don't think even they are stupid enough to have done this one on purpose.

Probably another example of a person/some people in Calgary making changes to a complex system, which they don't understand.  And yet again, it's obvious that basic change management procedures which would include documented testing evidence - standard practise elsewhere - are not bothered with at iStock.  They're probably not fun enough.

So I reckon it's yet another pathetically preventable SNAFU.

Either that, or it was some some bright spark responding to a need to quickly increase company profits.  "Hay duder, I know what we should do to get extra dough - we've got those collections where the pictures are really really expensive, but the royalties we pay out are really really low, right?... lets just put them at the very top of all the searches, then sit back and watch the money roll in!  Sweet!  What could possibly go wrong!"

lagereek

« Reply #12 on: April 03, 2011, 11:11 »
0
Lobo, the poor guy has just shut down a slider thread, saying its just turning into another best match complaints thread. Well what . did they expect?

breakfast in bed?
« Last Edit: April 03, 2011, 11:26 by lagereek »

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #13 on: April 03, 2011, 11:13 »
0
Lobo, the poor guy has just shut down a slider thread, saying its just turning into another best match complaints thread. Well what . did they expect????????????
breakfast in bed?
Nonono,
He has ordered you to 'have a nice Sunday', though how he's expecting that with the best match the way it is beats me.

« Reply #14 on: April 03, 2011, 11:49 »
0
Looks like this will just push more buyers to the other sites and that's good for me because I don't upload to istock any more.  The buyers can get cheaper prices and I get paid a higher commission and don't have the tedious istock upload procedure.

It's a real shame what's happening to istock and I still hope they get some new owners that realize they can increase profits by keeping their best contributors motivated to stay with them.

« Reply #15 on: April 03, 2011, 11:51 »
0
I'm not sure why everyone is so surprised. The search is back to where it was just a month or so ago, with all the high priced stuff at the top.

nruboc

« Reply #16 on: April 03, 2011, 12:07 »
0
I'm not sure why everyone is so surprised. The search is back to where it was just a month or so ago, with all the high priced stuff at the top.

Exactly, they did their little test and I'm sure their profit went way down so they reverted back.

« Reply #17 on: April 03, 2011, 12:13 »
0
I'm not sure why everyone is so surprised. The search is back to where it was just a month or so ago, with all the high priced stuff at the top.

Exactly, they did their little test and I'm sure their profit went way down so they reverted back.

-----------------------------------------

Its never been like this before, pure V&A. 

« Reply #18 on: April 03, 2011, 12:18 »
0
Hope it was like one month ago, but sadly my port doesnt look the same nor the searches where I could find my files do it either.
If this is intentional human stupidity definitely has no limits.

« Reply #19 on: April 03, 2011, 12:19 »
0
I'm not sure why everyone is so surprised. The search is back to where it was just a month or so ago, with all the high priced stuff at the top.

Exactly, they did their little test and I'm sure their profit went way down so they reverted back.

What they don't realize, though, is that is WHY their profit went down. They are driving people away having the high priced stuff at the top, so even if they change it back, the customers are already gone.

traveler1116

« Reply #20 on: April 03, 2011, 12:23 »
0
I'm not seeing the vetta agency images at the beginning, a search for "business" gets the first vetta/agency image at #26 while out of the first 200 results I only see 3 (2 agency and 1 vetta).  Seems pretty good for me since I have 0 agency and only 3 vetta.

« Reply #21 on: April 03, 2011, 12:24 »
0
I'm not sure why everyone is so surprised. The search is back to where it was just a month or so ago, with all the high priced stuff at the top.

Exactly, they did their little test and I'm sure their profit went way down so they reverted back.

What they don't realize, though, is that is WHY their profit went down. They are driving people away having the high priced stuff at the top, so even if they change it back, the customers are already gone.

Exactly, and most likely they wont  come back ever.

« Reply #22 on: April 03, 2011, 12:29 »
0
Lobo, the poor guy has just shut down a slider thread, saying its just turning into another best match complaints thread. Well what . did they expect????????????
breakfast in bed?
Nonono,
He has ordered you to 'have a nice Sunday', though how he's expecting that with the best match the way it is beats me.
Yeah, urging patience until early next week when we can't even get a photo in the results?!?! He needs to wake up. There's really no excuse for this.

« Reply #23 on: April 03, 2011, 12:30 »
0
My standard best match reference search returns about 40,000 results of which I typically have 3 on the first page of 200, and 20 or more in the first 5 pages.  Today I had to get to page 40 before I found my first image.  Checking out the last page, its almost entirely my images.  Slider in the middle

« Reply #24 on: April 03, 2011, 12:32 »
0
I'm not seeing the vetta agency images at the beginning, a search for "business" gets the first vetta/agency image at #26 while out of the first 200 results I only see 3 (2 agency and 1 vetta).  Seems pretty good for me since I have 0 agency and only 3 vetta.

-----------------------------------------------------
I think your slider is to the right.  Set it to the middle and check again.  Amazingly with slider to the middle I see a Yuri image on the second page.  Given the V&A bias this shows just how much demand that image has.  (or he's getting a personal best match boost).


 

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