Author Topic: Did SS new policity on similar content have any impact?? (Read 2528 times)

Mrblues101 · « **on:** August 17, 2019, 14:25 »

Just wonder if any of you looks less image spam now they implement new "policity" about this...

dpimborough · « **Reply #1 on:** August 18, 2019, 01:12 »

Its too early too say.

Give it a month or two

Thomas from France · « **Reply #2 on:** August 18, 2019, 01:49 »

I thought this policy was already effective since a few years, am i wrong ?

dpimborough · « **Reply #3 on:** August 18, 2019, 04:13 »

Quote from: Thomas from France on August 18, 2019, 01:49

I thought this policy was already effective since a few years, am i wrong ?

Technically yes but actually no as they never enforced it like a lot of their policies.

Pauws99 · « **Reply #4 on:** August 18, 2019, 04:51 »

Until they stop reporting the sheer number of images as a Key Indicator I doubt it.

gnirtS · « **Reply #5 on:** August 18, 2019, 05:33 »

Its causing a meltdown on their forum from people who werent on SS in the days they actually had standards who are now faced with the terrifying thought of having to spend some time and extra effort selecting and editing only their best photos (and who cant grow the library exponentially any more).

I really dont see this is a bad thing at all - i'd love them to reintroduce technical checks for photos and similars. All i ask is they do it with a degree of consistency.

Pauws99 · « **Reply #6 on:** August 18, 2019, 06:23 »

Quote from: gnirtS on August 18, 2019, 05:33

Its causing a meltdown on their forum from people who werent on SS in the days they actually had standards who are now faced with the terrifying thought of having to spend some time and extra effort selecting and editing only their best photos (and who cant grow the library exponentially any more).

I really dont see this is a bad thing at all - i'd love them to reintroduce technical checks for photos and similars. All i ask is they do it with a degree of consistency.

Glad to hear it even if they only removed the most "extreme" examples of similars there would be millions. I've seen people complaining on Shutterstock's Facebook page about being rejected for focus. I submit stuff now that I wouldn't have dreamt of sending a few years back.

ShadySue · « **Reply #7 on:** August 18, 2019, 07:00 »

Quote from: gnirtS on August 18, 2019, 05:33

I really dont see this is a bad thing at all - i'd love them to reintroduce technical checks for photos and similars. All i ask is they do it with a degree of consistency.

From comments I read here on msg back in the day, I don't think consistency was ever their strong suit.

gnirtS · « **Reply #8 on:** August 18, 2019, 11:48 »

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 18, 2019, 06:23

. I submit stuff now that I wouldn't have dreamt of sending a few years back.

Same. Im way less selective than i used to be and am forced to upload more similars/variations than i would before purely so i dont get buried immediately in the search.
Id rather not have to do this for time, effort, storage and bandwidth reasons!

Quote

From comments I read here on msg back in the day, I don't think consistency was ever their strong suit.

There were issues for sure but its a lot better than now where anything and everything is fine. You did get whole batch rejections for random reasons at times etc but nothing a resubmit often wouldnt fix.

OM · « **Reply #9 on:** August 20, 2019, 06:40 »

I wouldn't know whether the new policy is having any impact on spamfolios already accepted but it does seem to have reduced the number of images being added which is now down from the regular 1.6 million/week to 950K this week.

Pauws99 · « **Reply #10 on:** August 20, 2019, 07:21 »

Quote from: ShadySue on August 18, 2019, 07:00

Quote from: gnirtS on August 18, 2019, 05:33

I really dont see this is a bad thing at all - i'd love them to reintroduce technical checks for photos and similars. All i ask is they do it with a degree of consistency.
From comments I read here on msg back in the day, I don't think consistency was ever their strong suit.

Things are relative ;-). We can only dream at that level of "inconsistency" now.

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #11 on:** August 20, 2019, 11:36 »

Quote from: OM on August 20, 2019, 06:40

I wouldn't know whether the new policy is having any impact on spamfolios already accepted but it does seem to have reduced the number of images being added which is now down from the regular 1.6 million/week to 950K this week.

I think that's a sign.

Quote from: Sammy the Cat on August 18, 2019, 04:13

Quote from: Thomas from France on August 18, 2019, 01:49
I thought this policy was already effective since a few years, am i wrong ?

Technically yes but actually no as they never enforced it like a lot of their policies.

My view is, they did enforce the rule, long ago, but along with one and your in, which was at the same time as, almost everything passes unless it's really nasty, they also stopped actually caring about similars. I mean there used to be some of that, but the classic worst recently was a guy with a GoPro, driving down the street in Saigon or someplace similar, shooting time lapse through the windscreen, and uploading each as an individual image. They are fuzzy and terrible, but also hundreds if not thousands of images. I doubt that he will get more sales than if he had taken 2 good shots and uploaded them.

Somewhere they stopped caring and were going for numbers. Some bean counter must have seen that "we have more" isn't working, so now they will change the program to enforcing the rule which has been there from the start. Or maybe they just wanted 300 Million images by the end of 2019, to brag. They will. Then What?

If we look back, SS have changed what they accept every year, most of the time, rejecting more and more areas. The whole similar and duplicates is absurd.

And I might as well add, the amount of people with stolen images, coming to SS, is because they are targeting the place that makes the most money. Why would they bother uploading to Canstock? It's not all because SS doesn't find them or care, and others do. It's also because the same collection of crooks aren't uploading to places with low returns.

Noedelhap · « **Reply #12 on:** August 28, 2019, 13:54 »

I did notice their similar policy is in full effect. More than 2/3 color variations is considered spammy. Which seems a bit overkill to me, especially considering their habit of accepting every piece of identical crap (did anyone say weed pictures?) in the past.

Is there some way to check my approval rate?

steheap · « **Reply #13 on:** August 28, 2019, 15:08 »

I just had 2 out of 3 stitched panoramas of the same scene rejected as similars... They, of course, were from different shooting locations and were different in framing from each other, but it does mean that they are applying their policy to me!

Steve

obj owl · « **Reply #14 on:** August 28, 2019, 18:06 »

Definitely having an impact as far as my uploads are concerned not that I upload much these days. Had my first rejections in years this week, both for Similar Content, both were uploaded at the same time as the presumed similar. One was a black and white version of the other (something I have done many times in the past with both being allowed) and the second was a very different coloured version of the other (likewise allowed in the past, even the distant passed when it was presumed more strict than recent times).

I also uploaded two images that had variations already uploaded many years ago, which on the same basis should have been rejected, but both were allowed. Lesson learned, leave it a while before I upload a similar, definitely not in the same batch.

Small sample, but I think that by today's standard my best selling image with 1,133 downloads would not have been allowed.

Edit to say I did have two similars in the same batch accepted this week, so they are not consistent.

Liorpt · « **Reply #15 on:** September 06, 2019, 09:10 »

I think the big drama is going to hit all the heavily invested production houses that pay for studios and models that until now submitted massive amounts of “similars” hoping that can now upload very few files of each setting.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

jonbull · « **Reply #16 on:** September 06, 2019, 09:17 »

Quote from: Liorpt on September 06, 2019, 09:10

I think the big drama is going to hit all the heavily invested production houses that pay for studios and models that until now submitted massive amounts of “similars” hoping that can now upload very few files of each setting.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

you are spot on ...their tactic most of time is producing similar content and uploading at different times so they can have more chance for a files to sell.

Liorpt · « **Reply #17 on:** September 06, 2019, 09:53 »

Quote from: jonbull on September 06, 2019, 09:17

Quote from: Liorpt on September 06, 2019, 09:10
I think the big drama is going to hit all the heavily invested production houses that pay for studios and models that until now submitted massive amounts of “similars” hoping that can now upload very few files of each setting.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

you are spot on ...their tactic most of time is producing similar content and uploading at different times so they can have more chance for a files to sell.

Don’t get me wrong, if I go and shoot an aerial of a lake, I will shoot north/south/east west motions at zero altitude and at lets say 100 feet high and out of these 8 files I’ll submit 5 or 6.
Until now it worked good and I honestly think that they have a different look. I think I play fair but if SS will make me feel that this is not ok I’ll reduce it till I hit the sweet spot.
But...except for the net time of shooting and editing these ‘similars’ (I honestly think they are not) I’m not taking a big hit.

I also believe in slow release of files, not as a way to push them in but as an actual slow release into the market and give them a chance to pop at different times.

I’m a mega huge supporter of SS, I’ll respect and adjust to the new ‘similar’ guidelines, I think it’s for the benefit of most contributors.

SS sells like crazy and I will serve them as long as they exist.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

gnirtS · « **Reply #18 on:** September 06, 2019, 11:14 »

"Over 293,187,520 royalty-free images with 1,180,191 new stock images added weekly."

Im sure that was roughly 1.5M recently so they maybe 20% or so down. Thats not as big a change as i'd expected.

BalkanskiMacak · « **Reply #19 on:** September 06, 2019, 12:39 »

Quote from: gnirtS on September 06, 2019, 11:14

"Over 293,187,520 royalty-free images with 1,180,191 new stock images added weekly."

Im sure that was roughly 1.5M recently so they maybe 20% or so down. Thats not as big a change as i'd expected.

Maybe because similars are not representing such a huge amount in terms of percentage... Maybe because there are way bigger reasons than similars to blame for the market...

jonbull · « **Reply #20 on:** September 06, 2019, 13:48 »

Quote from: Liorpt on September 06, 2019, 09:53

Quote from: jonbull on September 06, 2019, 09:17
Quote from: Liorpt on September 06, 2019, 09:10
I think the big drama is going to hit all the heavily invested production houses that pay for studios and models that until now submitted massive amounts of “similars” hoping that can now upload very few files of each setting.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

you are spot on ...their tactic most of time is producing similar content and uploading at different times so they can have more chance for a files to sell.

Don’t get me wrong, if I go and shoot an aerial of a lake, I will shoot north/south/east west motions at zero altitude and at lets say 100 feet high and out of these 8 files I’ll submit 5 or 6.
Until now it worked good and I honestly think that they have a different look. I think I play fair but if SS will make me feel that this is not ok I’ll reduce it till I hit the sweet spot.
But...except for the net time of shooting and editing these ‘similars’ (I honestly think they are not) I’m not taking a big hit.

I also believe in slow release of files, not as a way to push them in but as an actual slow release into the market and give them a chance to pop at different times.

I’m a mega huge supporter of SS, I’ll respect and adjust to the new ‘similar’ guidelines, I think it’s for the benefit of most contributors.

SS sells like crazy and I will serve them as long as they exist.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

i use also but there ae limits...i shoot food and offer different setup of a recipe, not 2000 like some contributor did in past shooting the same setup 2000 times and uploading it in 3 years month after month. is not a case that i have practically zero refusal for similar continent, despite some fotos own to the same setup.
ss sold like crazy till julep than plain dead.

charged · « **Reply #21 on:** September 06, 2019, 14:35 »

I want to point out that as far as I know, the search engines on the stock sites have a bias towards newer files. How much bias, I don't know? At some point, your current images will get demoted in ranking by the search engine. That pretty much means there is an incentive to reshoot similar things that have sold well in the past but don't sell anymore. Obviously old images still sell, I still sell old images, and I also sell new images but I do have a lot of best sellers from past years that no longer sell at all. Those images haven't changed, they are not dated. They don't sell because the search engine no longer ranks them well. One of my best sellers ever was on the the first page of a popular search result for at least a year, maybe two, it no longer sells.

gnirtS · « **Reply #22 on:** September 06, 2019, 19:44 »

Not sure i believe that. My older stuff generally sells more than newer. Its fairly common as well for an older image thats never previously sold to suddenly come to life.

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #23 on:** September 11, 2019, 12:22 »

Quote from: gnirtS on September 06, 2019, 19:44

Not sure i believe that. My older stuff generally sells more than newer. Its fairly common as well for an older image that's never previously sold to suddenly come to life.

But you'll admit the new images do get a big position boost right? That gives them a chance against established images. Otherwise we'd be uploading new images into a black hole.

Yes some of my older images sell over and over and keep selling. Some that used to sell, have dropped off and are now not one sale a year. A couple of new images have caught on and sell often.

I think it's wrong to make a general conclusion about age, when the probable answer is, good images, the ones that buyers want, sell best.

Old or new.

An older image coming to life is good news. Maybe something topical or a couple sales will boost the placement. We can all hope for more of that.

Back to similar. I'm happy that they woke up, I think they have over reacted when it's obvious that some people are getting rejections based on similar description or shoot date, when the image is clearly, visually, a variation. I still don't know how some of those hundreds of minute by minute, sometimes seconds, were passed. If they had been reviewing right in the first place, we wouldn't be getting punished for what others have done wrong.

gnirtS · « **Reply #24 on:** September 11, 2019, 13:02 »

Quote

But you'll admit the new images do get a big position boost right?

I see the opposite of that. Although i dont subscribe to the "images need to age" theory but i get far more selling and starting to be consistent months after upload rather than days or weeks.

Previously (ie 5+ years ago) new images got a short term massive boost but if they failed to sell in that short, few day period they rapidly lost position and disappeared. That isn't the case now (at least not what i see).

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Author Topic: Did SS new policity on similar content have any impact?? (Read 2528 times)

Mrblues101

dpimborough

Thomas from France

dpimborough

Pauws99

gnirtS

Pauws99

ShadySue

gnirtS

OM

Pauws99

Uncle Pete

Noedelhap

steheap

obj owl

Liorpt

jonbull

Liorpt

gnirtS

BalkanskiMacak

jonbull

charged

gnirtS

Uncle Pete

gnirtS

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