iStockphoto are my only declining site so far this month. A bit of quick & dirty research shows some interesting results:

Alexa compare of IS, SS & DT shows IS declining slowly over the last six months while SS & DT are steady. Much lower, but steady.

Google Trends analysis of searches on the names of IS, SS & DT shows them all rising and again, IS well in front.

But the most interesting metric, which is in line with the trend IS photographers are experiencing is the comparative chart of IS, SS & DT at compare.com  It shows a marked drop in traffic at IS since March.

Note, these links are permalinks, so the charts you see following the links will change over time and may not be relevant to this topic after a month or two.

Big picture, I think the others are catching up to iStockphoto. IS are continuing their innovation and in my opinion have the most advanced system. But economics have a greater impact, so ShutterStock's subscription model has more influence on how much photographers receive and how many photos buyers get for their money. You can have the most functional and pretty website, but if your competition have more photos availabler for lower prices, it's not going to keep you in the top position for very long.

Small picture, these trends go up and down all the time. What we're experiencing here is - so far - a short term trend. I expect it'll be a forgotten trough in the charts before long.

I log on to everything on unknown computers, but I advise people I care about not to do so. I've worked with computers all my career and I keep up with the scams and security technology. The best defence you have is understanding. So here's some simple background so you know a little more about what to watch out for.

Keyboard loggers. There are tools readily available that record the keys pressed on the keyboard and put them in a file. These can be later retrieved and used to see what you typed. "www.mybank.com"...."myuseraccount"...."mypassword".  You cannot tell if these loggers are running on the computer.

Screen captures. These tools capture the screen, just like sitting a video camera up in front of the monitor. They're usually used in combination with keyboard loggers in case your bank has the half-way-measure of requiring you to click moving buttons with the mouse instead of typing your pin number on the keyboard.

Traffic sniffers. These log the traffic going back and forth between your computer and the Internet. These tools don't even have to be running on your computer - they can be between your computer and the Internet if you're using an Internet cafe's connection on your own laptop. These can be used to see your logon credentials in plain text if you're not using a secure connection.

One of my online banking facilities requests a random combination of characters from my pin number AND password each time I log on. For example, "Please enter the sixth, fourth and tenth characters from your password".  This ensures that even if someone is logging your keyboard strokes, capturing your screen and sniffing your traffic, they don't get your full password. This bank has had this technology in place for three years now and it's the only foolproof way to securely access private information on a public computer. I can't understand why it hasn't caught on yet.

And sharply_done is right. This stuff is all too easy. All of these tools are available from download.com !  But you're not right about the microstock websites having secure login. iStockphoto, Shutterstock and 123rf have stealth encryptioni. If you look at the code of the pages with a login form you'll see the credentials are sent to a page with the https prefix. It's not foolproof, but it helps. LuckyOliver actually has a fully secure and dedicated login page. Not so glamorous, but better.

So what to do?
- You can manually put the 's' after the 'http' on most sites to switch to encrypted traffic, assuming they have an SSL certificate. All the microstock websites do.
- Switch to a bank that uses partial passwords like the process described above
- Change your passwords regularly. If you know you're going to be using a public computer, change to a temporary password first and then change it back once you're on your own computer. If you beat them to it this will be effective.
- Educate yourself and those around you. The more people understand the scams and protect each other the less money there will be in it for the perpetrators.

Be safe out there!
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I'm at 81 views per sale, which surprises me. My portfolio is all over a year old and my photography skills were in their infancy back then.

epixx, payout is at $50 if you have PayPal, so you could only have to wait six months! 

Awesome! I'm really happy to see I'm not alone charting & analysing the trends. I hadn't seen anyone else post their charts before. In fact, it seems you're way ahead. I don't track daily statistics and I had to Google 'polynomials'!

You're right - if you're living from this then it's not overkill to chart & analyse and you need to stay informed. The question that arises is what decisions do you make from your charts?  I saw it as overkill because it doesn't empower me to do anything. I can see which websites perform well against others, but that's obvious just looking at the numbers. How do you use these charts?

Also, what application do you use to make these charts?