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Author Topic: what is up with the Best Match?!?  (Read 10723 times)

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traveler1116

« on: March 17, 2011, 05:07 »
0
This Best Match is horrible.  My brick wall picture that has sold over 2000 times, 44.3 times per month, is #2 in overall sales for the keyword "brick wall" is now in 1945th place on the best match page 10 with 200 images per page.  The one right before mine in 1944th place by someone else also exclusive has sold over 1200 times.  How can the two most relevant images for "brick wall" be buried so far back.  Our two images are the two best sellers featuring just a brick wall, this is crazy.  I'm sending a sitemail now but since I can't post in the forums there maybe someone else can post some terrible results for them to look at.  Anyone else noticing other crazy results with the Best Match??



traveler1116

« Reply #2 on: March 17, 2011, 05:20 »
0
Now I checked again and it's first on the best match while the other guy's file is somewhere around 120th.  What's going on here.  I'm scared to do another search though.

traveler1116

« Reply #3 on: March 17, 2011, 05:25 »
0
"There is no such thing as ''a bug'' when we discuss Best Match. There never was. Best Match is confidential, never set in stone & evolves all the time. What you may perceive as ''a bug'' may change tomorrow & what you may perceive as ''a bug'' may generate a completely different set of results to your potential client in a week. So please, I am asking you not to worry regarding that aspect of the equation, especially at this very early stage (within the context of the code release that was done today). "

From the above mentioned thread of course it's on page 14 of the thread, I'm not sure how I missed this one.  My question is why would the results be completely different tomorrow?  Doesn't that mean that it wasn't the Best Match in the first place?

lagereek

« Reply #4 on: March 17, 2011, 05:26 »
0
Relax!!!  enjoy the sunshine, the twitter of the birds, have a beer or two............. ( dozens) that is.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #5 on: March 17, 2011, 05:26 »
0
This Best Match is horrible.  My brick wall picture that has sold over 2000 times, 44.3 times per month, is #2 in overall sales for the keyword "brick wall" is now in 1945th place on the best match page 10 with 200 images per page.  The one right before mine in 1944th place by someone else also exclusive has sold over 1200 times.  How can the two most relevant images for "brick wall" be buried so far back.  Our two images are the two best sellers featuring just a brick wall, this is crazy.  I'm sending a sitemail now but since I can't post in the forums there maybe someone else can post some terrible results for them to look at.  Anyone else noticing other crazy results with the Best Match??
Oh yes.
According to RogerMexico, they have moved from 'high keyword relevance' to 'median keyword relevance', though why this was thought to be a good idea, he didn't mention.
Results are quite different, even more than before, if you use the keyword relevancy slider.
Also, on the iStock thread which is discussing this, there seems to be some sort of geographical factor built into your search, so that if other people from your area preferred certain pics, they will show higher, so your results may not be the same as mine. If that worked, it would be good, as all these popular US-style images aren't as popular in the UK. I guess in reality, it'll be like Amazon's 'suggestions' of what "other people who bought this also bought ..." - some relevant, some crazy.
I've noticed that some 'median relevancy' searches are just totally, totally wrong, i.e. some keyword spamming is being rewarded. This makes me furious.
On one search I did on 'young woman' (can't remember where my slider was!), I noticed that Sean had one photo on the first page, about 3/4 down the page of 200 results.
Oddly one of my images seems to be favoured in the best match for at least two of its keywords, but my other 'usual tests' are many pages down.
They seem to have put editorial images in the middle of results, which for me at least is better than right at the end, because until the situation is resolved, I can't opt my editorials into the EL program, which previously automatically dumped them at the end of best match.

traveler1116

« Reply #6 on: March 17, 2011, 05:27 »
0
Relax!!!  enjoy the sunshine, the twitter of the birds, have a beer or two............. ( dozens) that is.

I am in Thailand I guess I should be happy about that, but it's cold and rainy so maybe a beer or twelve is in order.

Where is that slider anyway?
« Last Edit: March 17, 2011, 05:31 by traveler1116 »

traveler1116

« Reply #7 on: March 17, 2011, 05:43 »
0
Ok I figured out where the slider is, obviously the last place you would look if you knew you needed to change that to change your search results.  I'm sure most buyers have no clue about it or where they can find it.  A search on firefox gives my image 1st place while the same search on internet explorer puts in 1945th place all settings are the same.  When I re-search all the settings for the slider with boxes clicked change so I have to reclick and unclick everything every time I do a search. 

« Reply #8 on: March 17, 2011, 05:48 »
0
Try searching for baby foot. You get 400 images of table soccer, presumably some weird CV translation of foosball as none appear to have baby foot as a keyword. To get what you want you have to search for baby and foot, explicitly putting in the "and"

« Reply #9 on: March 17, 2011, 05:59 »
0
Ok I figured out where the slider is, obviously the last place you would look if you knew you needed to change that to change your search results.  I'm sure most buyers have no clue about it or where they can find it.  A search on firefox gives my image 1st place while the same search on internet explorer puts in 1945th place all settings are the same.  When I re-search all the settings for the slider with boxes clicked change so I have to reclick and unclick everything every time I do a search. 

Your best match lottery winning wall is safe at #2 here in KL, and not doing too bad irrespective of the slider ;) It drops to #7 though if you add "banging your head against a brick wall" into the CV options.

Try not to look at IS for a few days and hope for the best, its probably safer then reading up on what's happening.

traveler1116

« Reply #10 on: March 17, 2011, 06:03 »
0
Thanks for checking, on Internet explorer it still comes up as 1945th but playing with the Display settings is showing strange results as well.  For "brick wall" the search comes up with A, B, C for the first 3 results with show adult content clicked but if you unclick it the first three results are A, C, B the second and third place images switch place.  There is no reason for that to be happening is there?

That's strange I don't have "banging your head against a brick wall" as a keyword, it's unchecked.  Ha I get it.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2011, 06:10 by traveler1116 »

PaulieWalnuts

  • We Have Exciting News For You
« Reply #11 on: March 17, 2011, 06:04 »
0
Try searching for baby foot. You get 400 images of table soccer, presumably some weird CV translation of foosball as none appear to have baby foot as a keyword. To get what you want you have to search for baby and foot, explicitly putting in the "and"

Wikipedia - Among French-style players it is known as baby-foot. Foosball is also known as "fuball"

« Reply #12 on: March 17, 2011, 06:06 »
0
Phew, my current best seller that yesterday I couldn't find at all after going through pages and pages of images has now appeared back on the first page.

PaulieWalnuts

  • We Have Exciting News For You
« Reply #13 on: March 17, 2011, 06:16 »
0
After looking at this a bit more I'd say it seems to be more heavily weighing overall contributor performance. Not sure what it's measuring though.

I've noticed in the search that contributor images seem to be bunched together. Some contributors are favored toward the front. And some contributors seem to have been banished to the back of the search. One search I did had the entire last page mostly from two contributors, one exclusive and one independent.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #14 on: March 17, 2011, 06:40 »
0
Try searching for baby foot. You get 400 images of table soccer, presumably some weird CV translation of foosball as none appear to have baby foot as a keyword. To get what you want you have to search for baby and foot, explicitly putting in the "and"

Wikipedia - Among French-style players it is known as baby-foot. Foosball is also known as "fuball"
And of course, it is really 'table football'. :-)

PaulieWalnuts

  • We Have Exciting News For You
« Reply #15 on: March 17, 2011, 06:51 »
0
Illustrators seem to have gotten a big bump up. Before photos seemed favored and now it looks like an even mix.

« Reply #16 on: March 17, 2011, 06:56 »
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Hopefully, the clusters of complete series will gradually break up and drift apart. On a search for curry I see nine images from one person in a row, four images from one series, three from another and two from a third.

« Reply #17 on: March 17, 2011, 06:58 »
0
After looking at this a bit more I'd say it seems to be more heavily weighing overall contributor performance. Not sure what it's measuring though.

I've noticed in the search that contributor images seem to be bunched together. Some contributors are favored toward the front. And some contributors seem to have been banished to the back of the search. One search I did had the entire last page mostly from two contributors, one exclusive and one independent.

I don't think that's universally true - I checked a search where both Graham (Traveler1116) and I have images: Cartagena. If you search for Cartagena (Colombia), Grahams images are heavily favoured towards the top. The images from my portfolio that come up first are the older ones. On a more general search: "Cartagena" (which gives you both Spanish and Colombian towns) my images that are at the bottom of the more specific search make up the top row - these images are uploaded mainly this year, whereas my older images are further back. Neither set of images has the Spanish town selected in the terms.

I think at the moment the results are all over the place and we're seeing some odd search results, but maybe timing of uploads has more to do with this than contributor ranking.

On my own portfolio if I push the slider to the right, I get a heavy weighting to old files, but on any position, there are some older files that get a big boost. The files worse off seem to be 2009-2010 files.

« Reply #18 on: March 17, 2011, 06:59 »
0
"There is no such thing as ''a bug'' when we discuss Best Match. There never was. Best Match is confidential, never set in stone & evolves all the time. What you may perceive as ''a bug'' may change tomorrow & what you may perceive as ''a bug'' may generate a completely different set of results to your potential client in a week. So please, I am asking you not to worry regarding that aspect of the equation, especially at this very early stage (within the context of the code release that was done today). "

From the above mentioned thread of course it's on page 14 of the thread, I'm not sure how I missed this one.  My question is why would the results be completely different tomorrow?  Doesn't that mean that it wasn't the Best Match in the first place?

I don't get that at all -- there was the "there is no such thing as a bug in best match" in the beginning -- and later on in the same post, "Now, let me be crystal clear: if you are seeing some of your recent uploads showing up in strange places at this very moment... it is simply and absolutely unacceptable. Never was this project intended to produce that result. "

So an unintended result doesn't make a bug??   If it walks like a duck, . . .

« Reply #19 on: March 17, 2011, 07:16 »
0
I wonder if it is arranged so known purchasers of higher-priced files get those up front while buyers who stick to lower prices see those. That would be a clever step and would explain why Vetta seems to be missing from the front.

lagereek

« Reply #20 on: March 17, 2011, 07:26 »
0
This new best match or whatever it is, is actually weighing towards every contributor, favors all and none and in my books thats the way its supposed to be.

PaulieWalnuts

  • We Have Exciting News For You
« Reply #21 on: March 17, 2011, 07:27 »
0
After looking at this a bit more I'd say it seems to be more heavily weighing overall contributor performance. Not sure what it's measuring though.

I've noticed in the search that contributor images seem to be bunched together. Some contributors are favored toward the front. And some contributors seem to have been banished to the back of the search. One search I did had the entire last page mostly from two contributors, one exclusive and one independent.

I don't think that's universally true - I checked a search where both Graham (Traveler1116) and I have images: Cartagena. If you search for Cartagena (Colombia), Grahams images are heavily favoured towards the top. The images from my portfolio that come up first are the older ones. On a more general search: "Cartagena" (which gives you both Spanish and Colombian towns) my images that are at the bottom of the more specific search make up the top row - these images are uploaded mainly this year, whereas my older images are further back. Neither set of images has the Spanish town selected in the terms.

I think at the moment the results are all over the place and we're seeing some odd search results, but maybe timing of uploads has more to do with this than contributor ranking.

On my own portfolio if I push the slider to the right, I get a heavy weighting to old files, but on any position, there are some older files that get a big boost. The files worse off seem to be 2009-2010 files.

When I search for Cartagena your images pretty much own the top of that search. Looking at the last page there are a couple of contributors that round out the bottom. All contributors images seemed to be grouped fairly tightly as if ranked by contributor.

traveler1116

« Reply #22 on: March 17, 2011, 07:44 »
0
^My images are ahead in the search I do too, I'm in Thailand and Holgs is in Malaysia I think so that might be why it looks different.  I have very different results on internet explorer though mostly the same files in the top 20 or so but in a different order.

« Reply #23 on: March 17, 2011, 07:46 »
0

When I search for Cartagena your images pretty much own the top of that search. Looking at the last page there are a couple of contributors that round out the bottom. All contributors images seemed to be grouped fairly tightly as if ranked by contributor.

I see that if I search for Cartagena, but if I unclick the "Cartagena (Murcia)" option its a completely different result. In that search I have 2 lots of images - a handful from when I was there and non-exclusive, and more recent ones including some editorial as I've been going through many images that never made it to IS. I think the grouping can be explained by upload times, but like everyone I'm speculating.

« Reply #24 on: March 17, 2011, 07:52 »
0
^My images are ahead in the search I do too, I'm in Thailand and Holgs is in Malaysia I think so that might be why it looks different.  I have very different results on internet explorer though mostly the same files in the top 20 or so but in a different order.

Are you logged in on both browsers?


 

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