...

I guess i need to respond since your quoting my earlier statements. Its in my opinion that historically, the talent on istock is superior to that of Shutterstock until fairly recently. I have been studying the quality of the images (mainly vectors) on both sites since 2007 or so when i started paying more attention to it. From around 2-3 years ago, i really started noticing the quality drastically improve on shutterstock.

If your job is to get the best image for your clients/buyers as quick as possible with no bias to a files past performance, wouldnt you showcase these images where the clients can see them? Lets say you get an massive influx of new quality proven images (ex istock exclusive images whose files have been proven sellers among a tougher competition) It would make sense to tweak your search to favor these new files so they have a chance to be seen and bought instead of getting buried. The search would seem to favor newer files, but i believe it affects all newer files and not certain contributors.

I have some files that have sold well on istock that havent even been bought on SS so i think it is a fairly non biased search on SS. I am pretty objective in comparing my competition to my  own works and can clearly see that the competition made much better files than mine which prevents me from making more of those same type of files.
If there is a tweaking where the newer files get a boost, and these newer files aren't as good as whats available in the library, i believe they will sink further back in searches eventually.

I believe it only takes 25-50 established portfolios to take a significant amount of real estate space in the first couple of page search results. These 25 portfolios probably replaces over 100 older established contributor base because in my opinion is that their skill sets (producing sellable content) might be slightly higher. It also makes sense to think that the higher skilled portfolios most likely has more images that are in the first couple of pages than the average contributor.

If your experiencing severe drops in your downloads and your newer files aren't selling, the most plausible explaining that comes to me is that the quality of the current library is superior what you have experienced in the past. You and others probably enjoyed the weighting of the search algorithm to favor the amount of past downloads as this current search doesn't rely heavily take that into account anymore. That's what i think is happening but who knows?

...
You can not use EITHER ~ OR thinking when talking about search "ranking" algorithms.  Are they steering all sales to new submitters? I would say no.  Are they steering more sales to new submitters?  Based on the collective feedback I have been getting from many long term submitters, I would say it is very likely.

Do you think its a possibility that these newer contributors have better/commercial images than the library that they are replacing?

As a former istock exclusive, I have a pretty good idea about image quality on both sites. I can safely say that a lot more of my images are appearing on the first pages of search on shutterstock than it did on istock because the quality of the library on most instances is still better on istock IMO.

I think its just increased competition.

Posted this earlier in the thread there are detailed numbers from Thilo Semmelbauer for contributor royalties of nearly $16 million in the 2nd quarter.

Page 2 or 3 depending on how large your font is. http://seekingalpha.com/article/1616602-shutterstocks-ceo-discusses-q2-2013-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=2

Shutterstock's CEO Discusses Q2 2013 Results - Earnings Call Transcript


In total, we added 2.2 million images and 150,000 video clips in Q2 more than in any prior quarter. And the quality and diversity of our collection is now better than ever. As we�ve mentioned, we screen every image before it enters the collection and we reject between a third and a half of the images that are submitted in order to enforce a very high quality standard. We�re also focused on improving the diversity of our collection so we can meet more of our customers� needs along the dimensions of subject matter, style, culture, geography. In total, our library contains more than 28 million images and more than a million video clips and continues to be one of the fastest growing and largest collections in our space.

I found this part very interesting. Come on SS, you now have content that should be priced higher. Your library is full of luxury items instead of the all you can eat buffet menu.

This is the only reason i submit simple vector items that sell over and over again. I would like to invest some time creating higher quality vector art if the prices made sense to me.

Quote from: Ron on July 06, 2013, 03:40

Quote from: tab62 on July 05, 2013, 22:58

1,000 images on Shutter =$200 per month give or take...

I have 825 images making me $300 dollar per month. I think your prediction is on the low side as my images are quite average.

I have just over 300 images and make +300USD a month... 90% on SS... Quality vs. Quantity? or both? That's not to say that if I rapidly expand my portfolio with thousands of images I will see the same RPI but id does show that it is possible to make a semi decent RPI on SS.   

Good luck with whatever you decide!

I have less than 200 images... vectors that are pretty good sellers imo. Last month i made over $400 on SS. The amount of images you have in your portfolio isn't as important as the quality/commercial value of your images imo. I have about 10 files that are shown in the first page of a given search with all media checked. 3 of the files are on the top row.

I think if you can be objective about your own portfolio, do some image searches on SS on some of your good sellers and ask yourself whether or not your images will be shown on near the first few pages of the searches compared with the current library there.

That being said, i think an average portfolio these days won't generate enough income for you to be happy you left exclusivity.

I'm still on CS4 and it's fine with me for what I need. I'll upgrade to CS6 in a couple of years when it's nice and cheap and then I'll just use the heck out of that version for the next 10 years. After that, well, I'll figure that out when I get there.

I won't be subscribing to software usage. Just doesn't feel right to me.

I just tried to install an old cs2 on a new Mac laptop and it wouldn't install saying the new osx won't install programs for power pc for macs which I found ridiculous.
Who knows, in a couple of years, when apple creates another osx, they might make it so that you can't install cs6 on it or some other crap.

Here is a quote on their testing on live portfolios

http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=130239&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=anthony&start=135

Quote

Posted: Sun May 12, 2013 2:33 pm       

Hello all,

At Shutterstock, we perform regular tests of small modifications to search. Those tests are typically released to limited segments of the overall customer population. If a test wins over time � which typically means that the changes have demonstrably increased the total number of customer downloads � then the resulting improvements are accepted and deployed.

Search testing and analysis is a continuous process of small improvements that generally won�t result in dramatic swings in search. Changes are carefully tested and evaluated to make sure that the overall effect on customer downloads and/or purchases is a positive one.

Customer demand, content differentiation, keyword quantity and quality, global holidays, seasonality and other factors can affect an individual contributor's day-to-day earnings. We recommend allowing a little time before evaluating the effect on your personal portfolio.

Sincerely,
Anthony Correia
Director, Contributor Success
Shutterstock|Bigstock

And here is the quote on tweaking the new search favoring date of upload
http://www.shutterstock.com/buzz/what-our-improved-search-system-means-for-contributors-part-2

Quote

Announcements
What Our Improved Search System Means for Contributors, Part 2
Posted by kayla / 6.1.12 05:08 pm

Share

Hello,

We recently announced some improvements to our search algorithm and infrastructure. We fixed a glitch that caused some images to temporarily not appear in search results. We also improved the reliability of the �New� sort order. We tested these improvements with customers and the results have been very positive.

We�ll be testing an additional improvement next week. Our �New� sort order will display more accurate and relevant results. In some instances, a more accurate search result will take slight precedence over upload date, but the search experience for customers will be greatly improved. As a result, it will be less likely to find irrelevant images under the �New� sort order, but applying accurate metadata to your images remains critical.

It is important to note that the core principles driving our algorithms are not changing. These optimizations will create an improved balance of accuracy and freshness and we want to keep you informed as we conduct testing and make updates.

Best Regards,

The Shutterstock Team

I cant find the quote on giving new portfolios a chance in the search order. It was said at some point, but I cant find it. Maybe Barry (ruxpriencdam) can find it.

I have noticed a significant boost in the amount of downloads i have been getting since starting last week. I would say anywhere from 10-25%. So this explains why as they have tweaked the search for newer files to have a slightly better exposure. Since im fairly new on SS, all my files are new I guess. Im sorry for the older portfolios that is taking a hit from this but this is probably going to be an on going thing where they will be tweaking the search constantly.

Quote from: VB inc on May 23, 2013, 00:02

Quote from: davidgoh on May 22, 2013, 23:59

Quote from: VB inc on May 22, 2013, 23:54

I think that 24 hour sale is more like 24+ sale because all my vector dls today came at half of what they usually get. incompetence or careful planning? i think the latter, with Gettty guessing that a certain percentage of of contributors wont bother to notice which is more money for their bottom line. Am i the only one who is seeing this?

I've got a few sales coming in in the last hour or so that are back at full priced. Might be an error specific to yours or a few contributors accounts... perhaps contact the CS about it?

I did contact them about it... all my downloads today came in around 1.80- 2.10... =( i used to get $8 for those as exclusive...

Im curious, how many did you get for your distressed banners. You know the one that keeps showing up front of the searches? 
(%of your downloads) nice by the way.

Thanks! Which file are you referring to though? And when you're asking about % of downloads, do you mean percentage of downloads from that file alone over my all-time downloads?

I forget the one file.. i think it was the retro banners with "sale" and other items that had some really good sales... I was curious from that one file, how much of a % was it to the rest of your files cus it seems like a hot seller.

Quote from: VB inc on May 22, 2013, 23:54

I think that 24 hour sale is more like 24+ sale because all my vector dls today came at half of what they usually get. incompetence or careful planning? i think the latter, with Gettty guessing that a certain percentage of of contributors wont bother to notice which is more money for their bottom line. Am i the only one who is seeing this?

I've got a few sales coming in in the last hour or so that are back at full priced. Might be an error specific to yours or a few contributors accounts... perhaps contact the CS about it?

I did contact them about it... all my downloads today came in around 1.80- 2.10... =( i used to get $8 for those as exclusive...

Im curious, how many did you get for your distressed banners. You know the one that keeps showing up front of the searches? 
(%of your downloads) nice by the way.

i also agree that your prices are really low for these nice images.

Quote from: VB inc on May 11, 2013, 10:26

Quote from: tickstock on May 10, 2013, 11:34

Quote from: VB inc on May 10, 2013, 11:25

How much of it is due to ex istock exclusive content? They might be trying to show more of the newer content

Maybe 1 or 2%.

i think its probably closer to 5-10% of all recent content.  80% of the rest of the content doesn't contribute too much on the downloads side. What really matters is where these images end up weeks after upload. If they are good solid sellers, they will take up valuable space at the front pages where the majority of the downloads occur. Also, these new image content will be proven sellers. The first images i uploaded to SS were my best sellers from istock. Why waste time uploading an image that never performed halfway decent. Even if there are only 50 that dropped the crown, you can easily have 50,000 solid proven images now competing with the rest of the library within a very short period of time. Increased competition is most likely the reason some long time SS contributors are seeing less downloads.

I think the idea of a change comes from seeing "different" downloads rather than "fewer" downloads.

True. I was just including the "fewer" downloads from another forum post with long time SS contributors complaining and wondering why they were getting fewer dls. IMO, lots of recent actions from SS is to accomodate the exclusives who dropped their crowns and this might be one of the actions to boost "new image best sellers". Other examples are model/property release changes recently.  These actions are to make it less time consuming for contributors with hundreds and thousands of images to upload their work. I almost forgot to add the longer wait for approvals especially in vectors.

How much of it is due to ex istock exclusive content? They might be trying to show more of the newer content

I'd define a bestseller as "an image that stays consistently on the top of the front page for an extended period of time". I only have one but it's more than a year old, sells every day, and has sat on Shutterstock's front search page since day one. Over the course of a year its' sold about 300 times. There are all kinds of "bestseller" categories: All time best seller, personal best seller, best seller in its' category, etc.

That's good to know that files that sell well have longevity. Could it be possible that a file can stay at the top of the search for a really long time or does age play a factor.