I did a test here, searching for a fairly recent shot of mine that is doing well on Istock as well as others. Had to go through many pages of flickr garbage (which people can download any size for free) before I got to any microstock. Interestingly, on my search Fotolia showed up just ahead of Istock. Gave up finding mine after page 22 or so. Any exposure is better than none, but I can't imagine a serous designer using this site in its current state.
I tried a few searches, for example "Group Business" (my favourite!) and had some of my images from Fotolia appear on first page - then lots of crap and no useful photos from iStock unless you consider swans as a business group. I can't see how this will really help sales unless it gets support from the agencies to ensure great (and appropriate) photos appear in the searches. Otherwise people are just going to get confused/annoyed.
I wonder how this works considering the search engine at iStock isn't necessarily giving the best results at the moment. SInce istock uses phrases, and I assume this search engine uses a normal good search, is iStock going to get many hits?
I just tried it and found a couple of my bird photos on the first page of results. Both from Fotolia. They are both on iStock as well, but found no results from them. Maybe in time...
iStock is making a mockery of their search system. I did one search and of all the photos on the front page, only the results from iStock didn't actual match the search.
Are any sites other than fotolia and istock on it? There is Flickr and Fotothing??
I did a search on 'genesis' 'bible' 'beginning' not because I'm religious or anything (I'm not) but because my best-seller on iStock (with a flame) is a close-up shot of the first page of a Victorian bible.
The first image was an iStock one and was quite relevant. Not mine though and one that has sold less than mine
After that, nothing but crap for several pages, including an astonishing number of verticals lying on their sides. The photographer hadn't even bothered to rotate the image.
I never did find mine. Got bored with the rubbish and gave up.
Logged
and one that has sold less than mine 
