My past two weeks on iStock have been really grim. I don't put it down to the Thanksgiving holiday, as in the past three years there wasn't a dip as bad as this in Thanksgiving week, and as the OP suggested, European sales (and Canadian, Australian etc) shouldn't have been affected. On Thursday and Friday I had no sales at all in European business time.
However, some people have reported good weeks. Maybe a best match change, though I haven't noticed (in my regular 'markers') a best match difference so big that it could cause that effect.
What's certain is that overall, things at iStock must have been fine or Big Changes would be made.
Added: This week in '08 and '09 were within a dollar of each other, but this week has netted marginally over half of the amount for the past two years. DLs are just over a quarter of what they were in Nov 08.
Although my Nov may equal, or - with a following wind - surpass, my BMY, it's miles below Nov 09, and many miles below Nov 08, which is still my BME, by miles.

80% of my rejection due to keyword issue!
All the keyword shold reflect in the photo and no association like background,clean,green....
I have to be used to this big change.

It's tough love, but I'm glad you got one of the stricter-for-keywords inspectors. (Some of them are far too lax). It'll start you off with good habits. If you'd ever been embarrassed by showing someone iStock, then when they did a search the results were so bad they called their coworkers over for a laugh, you'd become a keywords fundamentalist in a millisecond.
Like Dr Bouz says, you could post examples here.
iStock has a very helpful keywords forum too.
Happy keywording.

These pics were published in September 2007.
http://www.celebrity-pix.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=138#138

I would be glad to write them a letter in Dutch, but
1 - Only IS seems to ask and EL for a logo. Who says they downloaded it from IS?

No. IS don't allow images to be used for logos (Until/if/when their logo programme goes live).
4. Standard License Prohibitions

(a) Prohibited Uses. You may not do anything with the Content that is not expressly permitted in the preceding section or permitted by an Extended License. For greater certainty, the following are �Prohibited Uses� and you may not:
[snip 1-3]
   4. use any of the Content as part of a trade-mark, design-mark, trade-name, business name, service mark, or logo;

Does a logo need an EL on all sites Maria uploaded it to?

Images purchased from iStock may not be used as logos. Though they seem to be quite loose on what is or isn't a logo.
If their Logo Programme ever gets started, that's a whole different ball game.

It seems that here in the UK, we are pretty open with regards to the fact that we can, when standing in a public place, take a photograph of anyone or anything we want, and use it for any purpose whatsoever without the need to complete

What makes you imagine that?
Yes, we can take photos when we're in a public place. Yes, we can sell them for editorial use.
Sell them for commercial use or use them in any way which distorts truth or subjects a person to riducule and you could find yourself in deep sh*t. (Simple example: you shoot a group of people at a table inside a pub, and it's published with a caption implying that they're all enjoying alchoholic beverages. One of them is a well-known teetotaler and was drinking a soft drink. They're perfectly at liberty to sue, though who would bear the brunt - you or the publication - could depend on several factors.

On DT, the dilemma is solved elegantly by switching from relevancy to downloads in the SE. You get a sort of Darwinian sorting then of the "best", as proven by sales. You won't have rows of similars either then.

Only partially correct. I did a few searches and found what I expected to find. On relevancy, searches were OK. On sales, not so relevant. Easy example: 'apple'. I'd imagine if someone did a search on 'apple', the apple is meant to be the most important feature in the image. With relevancy, that is more or less the case. By downloads, the apple very often isn't dominant in the photo, as it throws up the pics with the most sales which happen to have 'apple' in them as a keyword. In only two, arguably three, of the top 20 by sales is 'apple' the dominant feature. As always, it will behoove the buyer to make a stab at a more 'intelligent' search for what they want.

Quote from: ShadySue on November 23, 2010, 06:23

Quote from: madelaide on November 22, 2010, 17:06

Quote from: Fotonaut on November 22, 2010, 15:42

Congratulations!
I�m only half way to my first. Which I probably will not achieve if I pull out of Istock by January.

I feel your pain.  I wasn't sure this would make it this year.  I don't think I'll delete my images very soon, because I'm still far from my next payout, but I will too.  I won't condone with the 15% commission.

I have it on Lobo's honour that if you pull out of iStock completely, and contact CR, you get your payout due to date, even if you hadn't reached $100.

Honour? Short memories around here.

Even if lobo wanted to do that he's an employee. And if the company changes its mind on this he probably can't do anything about it.

Quite, and that was in mid-September. However, it would be worth raising a ticket with CR to enquire, at least.

I just wonder who liked this image so much that it became Vetta
[snip]

It was uploaded on 1st Nov so can't have been up for more than a couple of weeks and has sold three times. Seems pretty good.
It probably needed a PR, which could be hard to get, so Vetta for rarity value(?)

I had two very good days (for $$$, dls are spiralling downhill) and three truly awful days. Today only one sale so far (I checked, and the corresponding Monday in 09 and 08 were good). Weird, huh?
Anyway, I think I've worked out the obivious solution to all the site problems. All the adverts for jobs in the web development area say, "cutting edge, please". Maybe it's all too far over that edge. Maybe really strong standard skills would be a safer/better bet.
But to be honest, I can't imagine why, having made a mistake, the developers don't fix it. I'd do it as a point of honour, even in my own time, if it were me.
Never mind, they're all really happy at their jobs. They all just love working at iStock (according to Roger Mexico and Yeppers by JJRD), which, as was said on the thread, must mean they who cause the problems aren't going to be penalised by getting pay cuts.

Quote from: ShadySue on November 22, 2010, 05:56

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on November 21, 2010, 18:35

Because if it's outside I can't imagine needing ISO400 unless you're shooting F32.

I can't imagine where you live, but it's clearly not Sunny Scotland.

Right now, it's 8:30 AM, cloudy, raining, and pretty dim where I'm at.

A quick check on a dimly lit subject with my 5DMII with a 50mm shows a shutter speed of 60 at F11 and ISO100. At ISO400 it's at 250.

So like I said, it must be dark or indoors.

Hmmm, I was shooting a local event yesterday outdoors.
Just after midday, overcast. Using ISO800 (as the event was moving), my readings are around 1/[email protected].
c1 p.m. I changed to ISO200 as I was shooting stationary objects and my EXIF says [email protected].
It took me a long time, when I started photography, to realise that the sunny f16 rule doesn't actually work here! For years, I thought I must be doing something very wrong.

I'm using also for video, handhold IS is ok, but on tripod it's a disaster, with IS on, the image starts so shift away in random directions, so for video purposes turn off the IS.

To be fair, the extensive brochure which comes with the lens says that you must switch IS off when using the camera on a tripod. I keep forgetting that it has an IS mode 2 when panning moving subjects.