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Messages - klsbear
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201
« on: July 21, 2013, 09:34 »
And a PS for klsbear - if you're using Linnean taxonomies (Latin names, in other words), genus is capitalised and species is lowercase. So for instance, your mushroom example should be Amanita rubescens and not Amanita Rubescens.
Thank you for the info Russell. I'll make the correction. I'm not the scientific type so my knowledge was gleaned from other websites and I must have overlooked that nuance.
202
« on: July 21, 2013, 09:30 »
Looks great! I'm anxiously awaiting the release.
203
« on: July 20, 2013, 20:44 »
Well, I've been at this all day and am about to close up shop for the night. Sure did get a lot accomplished since this morning... thanks to the great suggestions on this Forum. You guys are WONDERFUL!!!
I changed the header and colors of my site, moved menu stuff around, condensed my 2 "Bird" categories into one (we'll see how looooong that drop-down menu gets by the time it's done... may have to go back to two), added the first "Beasts" page and a batch of photos there, and managed to get the words "Featured Images" to show up on the bottom of my home page.
And actually, I thought I was getting a few images into that category, but they don't show up on the home page. Not sure why, so I guess that will be the next learning curve.
I also can't figure out why my Category pages (and they ARE pages!) show up like posts... with Comment sections. I didn't intend that and would like to get rid of them but don't know how. Hmmmmm.
Hasta maana!
Re: Comments on Category pages: Go to Dashboard / Pages / All Pages. Hover over the page title and you'll see options for Edit and Quick Edit - select the Quick Edit option and un-check the "allow comments" section. I think that will remove the comments option.
204
« on: July 20, 2013, 16:46 »
I remain appalled and quite frankly astonished that nobody senior to their fool of a "moderator" has bothered to acknowledge or reassure the people who pay their wages that this is of serious concern and is rightly very high on, or at the top of their to do list.
When it comes to working and communicating with their shareholders* I can't decide whether Istockphoto are arrogant, naive or just a bunch of dim bulbs.
* If you consider our portfolios as an asset and contribution to their success.
It's reminiscent of some situations I've been in, particularly with acquisition situations. "Worker bees" are not authorized to make decisions, issue statements or express opinions. New "consultants" and middle & upper management comes in. Meetings increase but action items are few and far between. Lots of discussion without any real activity. No real master plan and those in lower level positions are left wondering what they are allowed to do or say, policy changes are not well communicated internally, lots of confusion and many are just trying to stay under the radar to keep a paycheck coming in.
205
« on: July 20, 2013, 11:54 »
Martha/others, would you know if we can sell the images taken inside national park and/or zoo at royalty free or we need to sell them as editorial?
Asking in this thread because Martha has so many photos of birds
I think many zoos have a policy regarding photography that you agree to when purchasing your entry ticket. I would guess that's not the same for state and national parks regarding wildlife photos since there seem to be a lot out there. It's probably something you can research online for individual parks. I think some do have regulations regarding use of tripods or formal shoots, ie: if you wanted to shoot mountain climbers and set up a team with lighting that would require permits.
206
« on: July 20, 2013, 11:50 »
Your site is shaping up nicely! Here are a few of my thoughts:
A sliders or a banner are a nice option to show some of your images. I did some composite images with text overlay in Photoshop. It took some time and was a little bit of a learning curve, adjusting sizing, getting the slider to work, etc.
A quicker way to get some images on the home page would be to utilize the Latest Images widget and the Featured Images widget. (you can work on adding a slider and playing with home page images later, once you get further along with SEO and adding more images.
Consider adding the Related Posts widget to your image pages. That will show other images with shared keywords when buyers view the image page. You'll need to activate the Related Posts by Taxonomy plugin (I think it shows up as part of the theme under plugins but needs to be activated.
As was previously noted, there is too much going on in the upper left menu. I would leave the "register / log in cart" link, Contact, and the EULA perhaps. There is no need for a Thank you for Registering link (I can't think of any reason someone would want to view that) an the Symbiostock links can go elsewhere. Consider using the footer area with text widgets to include the Symbiostock and other links.
My solution for the watermark was to go with a desaturated white with a light grey bevel that gives some two-tone coloring to the mark so portions of it show on light or dark images. The smaller text is also a desaturated white with a grey outline. It's a bit distracting on some shots but it does seem to show on both dark and light images. I figure that is something I can improve upon in the future. SEO and adding images are my focus right now.
One a side note, I have a few mushrooms, chives, etc. on my site and I researched and added the botanical name, ie: Amanita Rubscens on a Blusher mushroom and Allium Schoenoprasum on the chive blossoms. I have seen on other sites (those that list search terms) that these terms were used in searching. I've seen that on my own site here too. Adding scientific names and any other detail about the bird in your descriptions may help.
Good luck with your site!
207
« on: July 20, 2013, 10:52 »
This info may be obvious to any of the SEO gurus and those that work with web pages a lot but as a newbie to the SEO and analysis end I found this a useful read to start understanding what to look for. Bluehost Blog - Google Analytics tipsAny other tips or advice on how to read Google Analytics data and actions to take would be helpful so please add to this thread if you have info.
208
« on: July 20, 2013, 10:43 »
Click on the views bar image in he menu bar at the top of your site
Yes, that is what I do, but that just brings me to JetPack and shows me summary info. How would you get detailed info, like " the search terms that led someone to the site" mentioned above?
Are you seeing a page that looks like a calendar? If that's the page you get, click on the link at the top (under the date and time) that says Return To Stats. Below the bar graph you can see the source of incoming links, which search engines, other Symbiostock sites, or places where you've posted your site link. Below the links you will often see specific search terms (sometimes it just returns unknown data references). I can tell from the terms that some users are searching google for information and end up on my site but they probably are not image buyers, such as the one that searched "allergic reaction to shrimp cocktail sauce" and ended up on one of my shrimp cocktail images. But it's fun to search the same term and see your placement. I seem to get a lot of searched for variations on "grungy cream background, a fairly generic search phrase, and when I search that I see one of my images from my Symbiostock site side by side with the same one on DP, and another of my images in the next row, so I have two from my site in the top 20.
209
« on: July 19, 2013, 06:44 »
I have on on the first and one on the 17th. Over 100 last month so either it's a serious drop in sales, lost data, or perhaps they really are not half way through the processing and more still to come.
210
« on: July 15, 2013, 18:02 »
I've been using Feedily because I have other blogs I follow so it was easy to add the Symbiostock blogs but I'll check out the WP option too. It might be easier to have them all in one place.
211
« on: July 15, 2013, 18:00 »
Since Symbiostock is a Wordpress theme I should think that much of the security protecting your images has to do with how much security you put into your web hosting and theme in terms of secure passwords and protecting your passwords. If you're logging on in a public cafe where your passwords might get highjacked and you give yourself a common user name like Admin, or using your site name (those two show up regularly on Wordfence hack attempts) then your site will not be nearly as secure as if you follow commonly advised internet security protocol with secure passwords and similar measures.
212
« on: July 15, 2013, 13:58 »
Getty Images contributor hotline: 206-925-6577.
Nobody answers the phone, but you can leave a voicemail.
This post will self-destruct in 15 minutes.
Hahaha. iStock have forbidden contributors from phoning their support number. According to Lobo, even if they are also a buyer, asking with their buying hat, but I'd never be able to find that post. He said never, ever, but Brenda, who is either on an extended vacation or has changed jobs, said we can phone them if we have a serious and genuine suspicion of fraudulent activity on our ports.
Would failure to post sales to our accounts so we could request payment count as fraudulent activity?
213
« on: July 14, 2013, 11:01 »
I made a folder to drag weblocs of all your blogs into, so that every week I can go through and post a comment. I noticed that some people are requiring login in order to leave a comment on a blog post. I can tell you that for me personally, I will not want to create that many logins just to leave a comment. Right now, there are only 7 posts in this thread. If everyone in the SY network posted a link to their blog, it will already be a large amount. And growing fast.
You, of course, can do whatever you like for your blog page. But I did want to mention that the SY theme allows for moderation of all comments, if you like. This way, you can weed out any irrelevant posts. I understand why you would want to capture login data. Are there other advantages to requiring login that I might be missing?
I'm entering all the blog addresses into a Symbiostock folder in my Feedily Reader so it automatically updates when new blog entries are posted. I'm not a guru when it comes to SEO but it seems like site traffic plays a role so I figure having subscribers that cause Feedily to reach out regularly to link in and out should be a good thing. I've added my own site to my reader too just for that reason but if someone has a good argument against using a reader like Feedily I'd be open to changing things.
214
« on: July 14, 2013, 10:57 »
I'm just diving into the blogging aspect of the theme. Here's the link to my blog and my first real post.
http://www.karensarragaphotography.com/blog/
I don't think you have comments turned on. Go to Settings>Discussion and go through the settings there. Also Settings>Reading, there are a few settings there at the top. Be sure to define your Blog page as your posts page.
Thanks for the notice Cathy. That was a tricky one to track down. I had the settings and discussion info correct and in editing the post itself it seemed like Comments were on. I finally found in the view Posts/Quick Edits view the "allow comments" box was not checked to allow comments. I probably missed the check box when writing the original post and the Quick Edits view seemed to be the only place to correct that.
216
« on: July 13, 2013, 14:30 »
217
« on: July 13, 2013, 10:25 »
2012 average RPD - $1.25 2013 average RPD - $0.56 YTD
Volume of sales is up so if it continues the overall dollar return will be higher if the pace continues but it needs to be a lot better to have any hope of moving to higher commission levels.
218
« on: July 12, 2013, 22:13 »
There must have been a search engine change then. My sales are noticeably slow at SS this month. I was assuming it was summer slump, but if others are having a good month then it's more likely a search change.
I'd agree with that - after a strong month in June with lots of OD's this month has been slogging along at a much slower pace.
219
« on: July 11, 2013, 22:14 »
I've added a list of the alexa ratings for all symbiosites at http://symbiostock.cascoly.com
also a list of average prices charged across all sites
Thank, this is interesting stuff! I just wonder why my alexa-rating is that bad. Just because my domain was registered some weeks ago and other domains were registered earlier? Any ideas what I might do wrong?
I was wondering the same about my site, sitting right at the bottom of the list. I submitted Yoast site maps several weeks ago and just submitted Leo's site maps generated by the plug in tonight. Time to get busy working on some more SEO and adding more images so I start getting better results.
220
« on: July 11, 2013, 21:44 »
They are going to do May and June together starting on the weekend. http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=354958&page=1
That's a relief. Fingers crossed it goes smoothly.
Interesting to see that they actually have June stats to run them "early" - makes me wonder if they really have the stats well in advance every month and just hold onto them to delay payout.
221
« on: July 10, 2013, 21:36 »
I will be cashing out this week too. With the pitiful earnings I've had over the last few months and now the whopping $0.16 to $0.24 sales I've been seeing I'll be lucky to be able to cash out again before the end of the year.
222
« on: July 10, 2013, 21:16 »
Thank you all for the news. Just opted out of all Partner Programs there...
Where did you find the option to opt out? I've been searching but can't seem to find it.
223
« on: July 09, 2013, 21:13 »
I tried to duplicate what you're seeing and I found that when I clicked on a category then a specific image, or did a word search and selected an image I got the "messy" URL but if I clicked on one of the images in the "similar images" section it remained a "clean" URL. Since I'm not a programmer I have no idea what would cause the difference though I guess it has something to do with returned search results.
224
« on: July 08, 2013, 22:36 »
A DG transaction is never eligible for seller protection. There is no physical product, hence no tracking number. When there is a spoof case or unauthorized transaction or chargeback, you will always lose the case, if its SNAD or NR case you will get to keep the money.
Ron - what does SNAD and NR stand for? Trying to figure out what you're referring to here.
225
« on: July 08, 2013, 18:18 »
I'm amazed at where some of my images show up in searches. I love looking at the Jetpack stats to see the search terms that led someone to the site. Over the weekend someone searched "Chocolate+Pudding+Toppings" so I tried the same search. I had two Symbiostock images show up - one in the #1 position and another in the #5 position. A third image from the series was in the #7 position and that was from 123RF. No sales yet for me but I'm starting to see registrations that don't appear to be spam registrations so I'm getting very hopeful that my first sale will come soon.
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