Quote from: thx9000 on Today at 08:32

He's doing the classic compound keyword spamming which is supposed to be banned. Take his cat photo for example:
black cat,cat look,striped cat,tabby cat = 4 x cat in the algo
Or another photo of a forrest:
big forrest, flying over the forrest, forrest in winter, frozen forrest = again 4 x forrest in the search algo
It's just a matter of time he gets reported and those 37 pages of average stock will vanish along wtih his pay.

I don't think that's what is happening here. I have some photos where I repeat keywords as well - not with the intention of spamming, but just because it makes sense to me (plant, house plant, potted plant, etc... for example) - yet you won't see my images in the first row of serach results for "plant" (or even anywhere on the first pages). I don't think repeating a keyword 4 times is anywhere enough to land on the first page. Also, if you look at some other pictures, for example the search result for "beach" - his image is No. 1 in the search results, yet he only uses "beach" in the keywords one time.

That beach photo is a mystery. He's clearly being pushed in front at the expense of others

He's doing the classic compound keyword spamming which is supposed to be banned. Take his cat photo for example:
black cat,cat look,striped cat,tabby cat = 4 x cat in the algo
Or another photo of a forrest:
big forrest, flying over the forrest, forrest in winter, frozen forrest = again 4 x forrest in the search algo
It's just a matter of time he gets reported and those 37 pages of average stock will vanish along wtih his pay.

I don't think that's what is happening here. I have some photos where I repeat keywords as well - not with the intention of spamming, but just because it makes sense to me (plant, house plant, potted plant, etc... for example) - yet you won't see my images in the first row of serach results for "plant" (or even anywhere on the first pages). I don't think repeating a keyword 4 times is anywhere enough to land on the first page. Also, if you look at some other pictures, for example the search result for "beach" - his image is No. 1 in the search results, yet he only uses "beach" in the keywords one time.

I don't have photos on SS so I don't have a dog in this fight.

A while back there was some discussion about repeated keywords at some site (SS?) influencing the search algorithm. With the link below, check out the first keywords (as presented in German while using the Chrome web browser). Now let Chrome Web Browser do the page translation to English. The first three words are the same English word and that same word is scattered throughout the keyword list. Perhaps this is a case of SS search engine keyword stuffing via language translations.

Quote from: lazy_ella on Today at 04:56

It's amazing! I tried it with random stuff - tree, clouds, woman, man, truck, grass, color, ... He's always there, usually in the very first row.

And you can always tell which photo is going to turn out to be his! 

For example, this stunning shot is the second result if you search for "rabbit": https://www.shutterstock.com/de/image-photo/little-funny-rabbit-running-on-field-1627393333

Yepp, that's what I meant - His photos always stand out as being of noticable poorer quality compared to all other images in the top image results. A photo of a bunny turning its back to the camera is not a "top image". A photo of someone's back in a chair at a beach with gloomy sky doesn't fit into the other pictures of beautiful sunlit beaches and so on.... If you look at all the other images, you can always understand why they have a place in the top results, but not with his.

Quote from: changingsky on Today at 05:59

Many years ago i tried to collaborate with one photographers search utility and stopped after several hours. Any search for any location in the world brought results list with photographers located in India on first positions followed by the photographers from the selected location.

The question is: why. Some contributors claim that the algorithms of agencies favor contributors from certain area's or countries, e.g. India or Eastern Europe. Not saying that's not true, but I never believed that agencies are programming their algorithm in a way that it promotes content from contributors in a certain area in the world. Because... why would they?

Maybe some contributors have better connections to dubious service companies that are involved in internet promotion and black hat SEO techniques. Or less shame to contact those companies. Have a network of Shutterstock subscription plan owners and make them all buy the same image so it rises up in the ranking. Pay them some money, and meanwhile get the earnings of being on the front page. Once you're on the front page, and the image is "useful enough" for buyers, commissions should start rolling in.

So far my theory. All the other ones (having someone on the "inside" for instance) all sound way too complicated or even impossible.

Company as a business doesn't care till the income grows. Fail of the security of the company's workflow and games of the personnel (or contractor providing the software part) is what happened in that company. I don't look for the analogy, this needs the proof, but there is no miracle in the software.

Many years ago i tried to collaborate with one photographers search utility and stopped after several hours. Any search for any location in the world brought results list with photographers located in India on first positions followed by the photographers from the selected location.

The question is: why. Some contributors claim that the algorithms of agencies favor contributors from certain area's or countries, e.g. India or Eastern Europe. Not saying that's not true, but I never believed that agencies are programming their algorithm in a way that it promotes content from contributors in a certain area in the world. Because... why would they?

Maybe some contributors have better connections to dubious service companies that are involved in internet promotion and black hat SEO techniques. Or less shame to contact those companies. Have a network of Shutterstock subscription plan owners and make them all buy the same image so it rises up in the ranking. Pay them some money, and meanwhile get the earnings of being on the front page. Once you're on the front page, and the image is "useful enough" for buyers, commissions should start rolling in.

So far my theory. All the other ones (having someone on the "inside" for instance) all sound way too complicated or even impossible.