Author Topic: Insane keyword spamming on SS (Read 8847 times)

Slovenian · « **on:** April 19, 2011, 07:56 »

I'd delete all of the files with heavy and obvious keyword spamming, I'm loosing my mind trying to track my newly approved photos on Shutterstock. For instance I made a series in a hair salon, every ppl shot has the keyword hair, although a man with a helmet is standing in front of his house. But there are much worse cases, I just uploaded an athletics series, searching for athletics and I get a series of 30 totally crappy shots of BUGS, that immediately pushed my images to the 2nd page. Looking for shopping and finding cartons of eggs. Ahhh. Keyword spamming and huge series of crappy shots are killing MS. And when will they start looking for qualities such as originality, concept and marketability, just checking for IQ doesn't cut it anymore. It's driving away the buyers.

There's one more thing, really related to DT and deleting of similars. I'd say 95% of the pre 2007 content should be deleted on SS, the best shots from that era are just average now (most of them anyway). 75% of post 2007 should be deleted as well, series of tens of shots (on white background) with no or very little variation is killing the search results. There should be a limit of similar images allowed, something like 5 (like on Alamy). So if you shoot for instance athletics, like I did last week, you can upload up to 5 shots of: athlete leaving starting blocks from: a) the front b) the side d) the back. The same for every running/stretching exercise, shots of sprinting, running...Which already is a LOT. I make 2-3 similar at most, but I know some designer may need an image or two more.

Old contributors, don't flame me, think about your old files that never sold or didn't sell for 2+ years. What good do they do in your ports except for cluttering it up and making it harder for the buyers to find the right image and not getting fed up by substandard shots (because you improved so much during all those years) and leaving your port instead of grabbing a few shots

Tempusfugit · « **Reply #1 on:** April 19, 2011, 08:19 »

Anita Potter · « **Reply #2 on:** April 19, 2011, 08:47 »

I too agree with the keyword spamming on SS it's really annoying. When I search the database for an idea I've come up with I like to look at what others have done just in case what I'm thinking off either 1: has been done to death or 2: if it's too close to what others have done. And I can't look if there are images that don't flipping belong to that particular keyword. I can't remember what I was looking for but ran across some images and saying "What . does that have to do with what I looked for?" It's out of control.

stockastic · « **Reply #3 on:** April 19, 2011, 09:33 »

I'm sure SS realizes they're paying a big price for allowing all that spamming over the years, but cleaning it up would be just too expensive.

Slovenian · « **Reply #4 on:** April 19, 2011, 10:24 »

They could start by notifying all contributors that keyword spamming is over and inspectors will reject all keyword spammed content. Then they could start doing what DT is doing

. I mean if you search for teenager and get a mid aged woman or even older photos like that should be deleted without hesitation (they should put that in the notification as well). They could start with cleaning the library by deleting the most obviously spammed photos. Just going through keywords and deleting images or batches. That really wouldn't be time consuming and they'd get rid of the content that annoys the buyers the most.

stockastic · « **Reply #5 on:** April 19, 2011, 11:04 »

Quote from: Slovenian on April 19, 2011, 10:24

They could start by notifying all contributors that keyword spamming is over and inspectors will reject all keyword spammed content. Then they could start doing what Dreamstime is doing . I mean if you search for teenager and get a mid aged woman or even older photos like that should be deleted without hesitation (they should put that in the notification as well). They could start with cleaning the library by deleting the most obviously spammed photos. Just going through keywords and deleting images or batches. That really wouldn't be time consuming and they'd get rid of the content that annoys the buyers the most.

Yes, Dreamstime tried to get their contributors to do the cleanup for them by offering tiny payments - and the result was chaos as scammers moved in to try and scoop up those payments.

And yes, SS should start holding the line on spamming. But unless they also do the cleanup, they've just given the old, spammed images an advantage over the new ones.

pancaketom · « **Reply #6 on:** April 19, 2011, 12:32 »

The spamming on SS can be pretty bad. It would be nice if they could get the obvious ones out - like the ones of a man where the keyword is woman. I think part (a small part) of the problem on SS is that they split up 2 or more word keywords. The search is a bit better now that they use the subject for the search too.

It is surprising how often some ancient image that hasn't had sales for years or ever does sell - sometimes an EL too. That is one point in favor of cleaning up the keywords and the search rather than just deleting non or slow sellers.

basti · « **Reply #7 on:** April 20, 2011, 01:37 »

90% of pictures could be properly described with less then 15 keywords. Just Cutting keywords from 50 to 20 could solve most of the problem. There will be simply too tight space for serious spamming and everyone will be forced to think about keywords instead of blindly copying from other images.

Second, inspectors should check for keyword spam and use temporary bans, search penalisations etc. without hesitation. This could also help alot. On the other hand using "controlled vocabulary" and other crap like IS is the way to hell for sure.

All images with resultion under 4Mpix should be deleted from any agency ASAP, selling or not. And why? Because most search algorithms prefer selling pictures but especially on IS there are TONS of old crap uploaded in 2005-2006 with horrible quality but with good selling history from early years of MS. Such pictures are killing much better new pictures. Thats why I have 300 pics online on IS and 200 sales in 3 years and there are 100 pictures portfolios from 2005-2006 with thousands or even tenths of thousands of sales.

jm · « **Reply #8 on:** April 20, 2011, 02:20 »

Another problem is that deleting images on SS is very time-consuming. I wanted to delete my old crap but it is so slooow that I gave it up soon. No wonder that contributors won't do it even if they would like to.
(But maybe there is some faster way that I do not know)
I'm Dreamstime's dream I had cleaned my portfolio there myself and it is ten times faster than on SS.

Slovenian · « **Reply #9 on:** April 20, 2011, 02:28 »

Quote from: basti on April 20, 2011, 01:37

90% of pictures could be properly described with less then 15 keywords. Just Cutting keywords from 50 to 20 could solve most of the problem. There will be simply too tight space for serious spamming and everyone will be forced to think about keywords instead of blindly copying from other images.

Second, inspectors should check for keyword spam and use temporary bans, search penalisations etc. without hesitation. This could also help alot. On the other hand using "controlled vocabulary" and other crap like IS is the way to hell for sure.

All images with resultion under 4Mpix should be deleted from any agency ASAP, selling or not. And why? Because most search algorithms prefer selling pictures but especially on IS there are TONS of old crap uploaded in 2005-2006 with horrible quality but with good selling history from early years of MS. Such pictures are killing much better new pictures. Thats why I have 300 pics online on IS and 200 sales in 3 years and there are 100 pictures portfolios from 2005-2006 with thousands or even tenths of thousands of sales.

I was thinking the same about keywords, how someone could open a site called simple-stock or something. With 15 keywords max, 10 letter title/description box and that's it. You just can't incorporate that on an existing site at the moment.

However I don't agree with deleting all photos below 4 mpix. I have a few, that were to bad in terms of IQ, because I had a new lens with slight backfocus at distances longer than 1,5m, which I didn't notice while testing before the shoot, because I was taking photos at distances closer than that (it was a 50 mm lens). Images had a good concept, one or two were fairly original and I'm getting some sells from them. So it would really be a shame that a photo with good concept and composition would be deleted, just because it had to be downsized due to IQ issues (noise, missed focus etc). I think it's better having good, fresh and original photos at 2 mpix, than boring, generic shots with bad composition at 40. Besides that, the trends are moving towards smaller image sizes, I'm mostly getting just XS and S DLs lately on IS. It would be better for them to focus on just bad, boring photos which were uploaded in large batches of almost identical angle, crop, model positioning, posing and with the same face expressions (mostly really dumb, unnatural cheesy smiles)

fotografer · « **Reply #10 on:** April 20, 2011, 03:04 »

Quote from: Slovenian on April 20, 2011, 02:28

(mostly really dumb, unnatural cheesy smiles)

This is exactly what most buyers want and sell much more than 'some sales'

Slovenian · « **Reply #11 on:** April 20, 2011, 03:49 »

Quote from: fotografer on April 20, 2011, 03:04

Quote from: Slovenian on April 20, 2011, 02:28
(mostly really dumb, unnatural cheesy smiles)
This is exactly what most buyers want and sell much more than 'some sales'

Indeed, but what you quoted is totally out of context

Phil · « **Reply #12 on:** April 20, 2011, 08:00 »

I would think? an old image with 0 sales would be in the search

most downloaded = near bottom
newest = near bottom
most popular = near bottom

and hence never seen, so not affecting most searches

plenty of my 2007ish files still sell, including some daily, often surprised at ones that pop up every 2-3 months. However if those with 0 sales in 3-4 years were deleted (like DT do) I wouldnt care, but I dont think they would be cluttering up the search (I also am not about to put the work in to go and delete them).

stockastic · « **Reply #13 on:** April 20, 2011, 08:59 »

Imagine you have an archive of 10 million images that's full of junk. How do you begin to clean it up? It's a huge problem. And this problem should be creating opportunities for new companies that start fresh and don't let spam in the door. Eventually their searches should yield better results than SS, and buyers should find out about them. Why isn't this happening yet?

gostwyck · « **Reply #14 on:** April 20, 2011, 10:10 »

The most overt spamming is from a relatively few contributors, usually with very low-selling portfolios and, it has to be said, often with Eastern European or Russian sounding names. Take this one for example __ I can't even tell what the subject of the image is supposed to be but I reckon only about 4 out of the 50 keywords used can possibly apply;

http://tinyurl.com/3u2mwaf

That didn't happen by accident. It is idiots like that who give all microstockers and agencies a bad name and make us appear a bunch of amateurs trying to make money from our hard drives. I wish SS would just delete such portfolios as they add nothing of value and simply clog up the search results with nonsense.

WarrenPrice · « **Reply #15 on:** April 20, 2011, 10:44 »

Quote from: pancaketom on April 19, 2011, 12:32

The spamming on Shutterstock can be pretty bad. It would be nice if they could get the obvious ones out - like the ones of a man where the keyword is woman. I think part (a small part) of the problem on Shutterstock is that they split up 2 or more word keywords. The search is a bit better now that they use the subject for the search too.

It is surprising how often some ancient image that hasn't had sales for years or ever does sell - sometimes an EL too. That is one point in favor of cleaning up the keywords and the search rather than just deleting non or slow sellers.

I didn't know they did that? When did it start?

Anita Potter · « **Reply #16 on:** April 20, 2011, 11:07 »

It started sometime late last year Warren when they started indexing the image description. I forget when it started but it's been around for like less than 6 months now.

WarrenPrice · « **Reply #17 on:** April 20, 2011, 11:49 »

Thanks, Anita. I must have missed that. I'll start doing more with titles.

Slovenian · « **Reply #18 on:** April 20, 2011, 13:16 »

Quote from: gostwyck on April 20, 2011, 10:10

The most overt spamming is from a relatively few contributors, usually with very low-selling portfolios and, it has to be said, often with Eastern European or Russian sounding names. Take this one for example __ I can't even tell what the subject of the image is supposed to be but I reckon only about 4 out of the 50 keywords used can possibly apply;

http://tinyurl.com/3u2mwaf

That didn't happen by accident. It is idiots like that who give all microstockers and agencies a bad name and make us appear a bunch of amateurs trying to make money from our hard drives. I wish Shutterstock would just delete such portfolios as they add nothing of value and simply clog up the search results with nonsense.

I couldn't agree more, they should delete such ports immediately and lifetime ban them. Besides that, his photos are pathetic!

lthn · « **Reply #19 on:** April 21, 2011, 05:53 »

Thats all very nice, and subjective, but according to buyers I know personally SS is one of the easiest sites to use, 'it works like magic'. How 'bout that? : )) Of course they are not trying to find one particular shot among the 40000 newly uploaded, which is gonna hard, what a surprise...

heywoody · « **Reply #20 on:** April 21, 2011, 10:01 »

Quote from: basti on April 20, 2011, 01:37

90% of pictures could be properly described with less then 15 keywords. Just Cutting keywords from 50 to 20 could solve most of the problem. There will be simply too tight space for serious spamming and everyone will be forced to think about keywords instead of blindly copying from other images.

The simplest solution is usually the best!!

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Author Topic: Insane keyword spamming on SS (Read 8847 times)

Slovenian

Tempusfugit

Anita Potter

stockastic

Slovenian

stockastic

pancaketom

basti

jm

Slovenian

fotografer

Slovenian

Phil

stockastic

gostwyck

WarrenPrice

Anita Potter

WarrenPrice

Slovenian

lthn

heywoody

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