Greetings!

CanStockPhoto shows great popularity and sales increase these days. For example, this is my sales graph (and I'm not uploading lots of images atm):



But there is one little problem with the CanStockPhoto - categories.
You can fill them only after your image will be approved and get into portfolio. Many people just ignore it and leave it as is.
That's why I developed an app to automatize that work.

CanstockCategorizer - Download

Fast and easy

It is very easy to start using the app: just enter your authorization data for CanStockPhoto and press "Start" button. App will scan portfolio for the uncategorized images and fill the categories automatically.

Category selection
Algorythm of category selection is based on the keywords and achieves very good quality of category matching. There are required keywords for each category, without them image will never get such category.
For example, "Architecture > Blueprints" category won't be chosen if there is no "blueprint" or "drawing" keyword in the image keyword list.
Even if the other images related to architecture have such keywords, it won't prevent app from selecting right categories, because on the second step app will count rating of keywords matching this category.
I did analysis and selected most seen keywords for each category, it allows app to select right categories.

Security
You are entering authorization data into the app on your computer. After that the app will work directly with canstockphoto.com and will not send that information to any other sites.

Author
I am developer of StockSubmitter program, which is being used by many stockers for more than year. Also I'm stocker myself and that is my main job.
I hope you can trust me because of that.

Demo version
Just run the app and you will be able to see the result of processing first 10 files for free.

Prices
Processing more files is not free, it is required to provide support, bugfixes and improvement.
The price depends on the count of files you need to process.
1000 files - 10$
3000 files - 20$
unlimited version - 50$

Installation
Just download the archive and unpack to any folder you like. Run the CanStockCategorizer.exe file, enter authorization data for CanStockPhoto and press Start button.



Payment methods
WebMoney, MoneyBookers, VISA/MasterCard, PayPal.
Contact me by PM or by skype (landofrain) if you want to purchase the app.

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Thanks Duncan - that helps a lot. In my review of the various sites on my blog, I always praise CanStock for the easy uploading and very fair and fast reviewing - with no categories.

I'm glad that you have reinforced that opinion.

So the motto for any business is: Find out if there is a need to be met, then develop the solution...

Steve

Our search engine does not use categories. So as a result, having categories associated with your images has little buyer impact.

We kept the option in place for people who like that added level of control. Adding the categories may also help your images be found better by Google. However, we do not think the benefits outweigh the potential time burden associated with them, which is why we make them optional.

I should note that the above-mentioned tool is not officially supported or endorsed by us.

Good to hear you are not forcing contributors to fill out categories
I developed this tool for my own needs firstly, cuz I thought what it affects sales.

I think moderators can close/delete this topic then

I believe that a sizeble proprtion of buyers do search for images from categories.

Even after the guy that owns the site tells us they don't.

Quote from: RT on June 30, 2011, 11:17

Quote from: Microstock Posts on June 29, 2011, 21:58

I believe that a sizeble proprtion of buyers do search for images from categories.

Even after the guy that owns the site tells us they don't.

Carmen from Dreamstime estimates that around 20-25% of people use the categories as they are searching. She's not the owner of dt, but I'm sure she has a few insights, as she's worked for them for a few years and I've heard that Dreamstime are pretty big. So I believe that a sizable proportion of buyers do search images from categories, if that was not the case the agencies would have abandoned them a long time back.

Here's the link to her interview, the stat she gives is at about 5 minutes. http://blog.microstockgroup.com/keywording-secrets-from-dreamstime/

I thought that all sold images at DT that have "n/a" in "Buyer searched after" column were searched in categories without any keywords. In my case it could be more than 1/3 of images.

Quote from: Microstock Posts on June 30, 2011, 12:08

Carmen from Dreamstime estimates that around 20-25% of people use the categories as they are searching.

This is a post about Canstock not Dreamstime and Duncan has said buyers don't search the site using categories and in my experience he's a pretty genuine guy, can't believe he'd make that up. Having said that if a lot of buyers do use categories at Dreamstime as she stated you'd think they'd sort out some decent ones instead of the bizarre sets they've got right now.

Yes you make a good point, I was talking about the subject of categories as a whole and not specifically for CanStockPhoto. However, Duncan's views on the importance of categories seems to be a minority one, I'm not talking about contributors, I'm talking about agencies. Most agencies have categories and most make it obligatory for contributors to choose at least one category, they seem to think it's worth it, they could all make categories optional or scrap them all together. But agencies usually make decisions resulting in benefit to them as any business would, so I can assume that their is no benefit to them by scrapping or making categories optional and there is no loss by keeping them, if anything probably some gain.

And as Carmen says she estimates 20-25% of people use the categories as they are searching. I have as much reason to believe her as I have to believe Duncan. Maybe the estimate for Dreamstime is far greater than for CanStockPhoto. If her estimated figure was 5%, I'm sure dt and the others would say well what's the point, lets just use that space where we list categories for something else. Optional categories is probably the right option, as there will still be contributors who fill them (although may be not so many) and there will be buyers who search through them. If I was a smaller agency, I would never make filling categories mandatory, as I would would want the speediest submission process there is to help attract more contributors, which would increase the database, which in turn is likely to help increase the customer base. However, if there was a service like the OP has offered which categorizes for you, well that's a nice option and entirely the choice of the contributor. BS has something similar, but it's not always too accurate.

Duncan doesn't discredit categories entirely, as they are still there for the buyers and he says he thinks that the addition of categories may also help images be found better in Google.