MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Shutterstock.com => Topic started by: Shelma1 on August 11, 2016, 15:28
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Suddenly my most popular and most recent images on page 1 in my port have disappeared. Anyone else?
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Yes the same. And sorting by date is a little bit wrong too.
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In my port not disappeared, just been mixed.
Also I notice on any ss search, images with spam titles are not ranked so good anymore :)
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They have changed the design of the search a bit and adjusted the algorithm again.
Here's what I've noticed:
- Photos are place higher than vectors.
- They got rid of the tab system (Popular, relevant, most recent) and placed them under a drop down menu.
- They started penalizing spammers. You know, the guys who spam the same keywords over and over in the title to gain higher placement. I don't seem many of them anymore after this update.
- On hover, they show the title...a good reason to penalize all the spammers.
Some of my images got shuffled around...dropped a few places in some rankings, but we'll see how it affect sales in the upcoming weeks. Today is consistent with the past few days, so I don't know the real effect of it yet.
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Ok, I think I figured how the new algorithm works, if this is indeed a more permanent algorithm change.
- Photos are NOT favored over vectors as I originally though.
- The new rank sorting seem to be determined by how long the image has been on SS and/or how many downloads it has over its lifetime. This new change will definitely benefit veterans and older images. The newer images with less downloads are pushed down the rankings.
Do a search for anything and click on the image. The image ID that are lower are ranked higher.
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Hmmm. My most popular doesn't really make any sort of sense now, and each page of most recent seems to be "upside down"...the true most recent images appear at the bottom of the page, and less recent appear at the top. Weird. Whatever they did squashed my sales again. Today is awful.
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....
- The new rank sorting seem to be determined by how long the image has been on SS and/or how many downloads it has over its lifetime. This new change will definitely benefit veterans and older images. The newer images with less downloads are pushed down the rankings.
......
Not true. I see many of my files uploaded this or last month on page 1 or 2 of the most popular search results. No problem here.
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Hmmm. My most popular doesn't really make any sort of sense now, and each page of most recent seems to be "upside down"...the true most recent images appear at the bottom of the page, and less recent appear at the top. Weird. Whatever they did squashed my sales again. Today is awful.
I'm seeing the same. Popular is a muddle and each page of new runs from 100 down to 1, rather than the other way around. Searches by new give the same page anomaly, with older images above newer ones.
Sales today are awful, at about 25% of my last year average.
I can't decide if they're trying to improve things or are just frantically trying to fix things as they break?
The title spammers are still there - they've just moved to the bottom of the first page rather than the top but, as this appears to be happening for new images, I don't think they are intentionally being penalised. Just search 'sun icon' and scroll down - it's the same old same old......
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Stock Vector Illustration:
Sun Icon / Sun Icon Vector / Sun Icon Picture / Sun Icon Drawing / Sun Icon Image / Sun Icon Graphic / Sun Icon Art / Sun Icon JPG / Sun Icon JPEG / Sun Icon EPS / Sun Icon AI
Image ID:318204746
After seeing this I finally understand what Shutterstock was talking about in the email. Guess I didn't have anything to worry about after all.
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They have changed the design of the search a bit and adjusted the algorithm again.
Here's what I've noticed:
- Photos are place higher than vectors.
- They got rid of the tab system (Popular, relevant, most recent) and placed them under a drop down menu.
- They started penalizing spammers. You know, the guys who spam the same keywords over and over in the title to gain higher placement. I don't seem many of them anymore after this update.
- On hover, they show the title...a good reason to penalize all the spammers.
Some of my images got shuffled around...dropped a few places in some rankings, but we'll see how it affect sales in the upcoming weeks. Today is consistent with the past few days, so I don't know the real effect of it yet.
On hover, also the zoom has disappeared, and this penalizes a lot vertical images (it is very bad!)
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Ok, I think I figured how the new algorithm works, if this is indeed a more permanent algorithm change.
- Photos are NOT favored over vectors as I originally though.
- The new rank sorting seem to be determined by how long the image has been on SS and/or how many downloads it has over its lifetime. This new change will definitely benefit veterans and older images. The newer images with less downloads are pushed down the rankings.
Do a search for anything and click on the image. The image ID that are lower are ranked higher.
I think new ranking system gives more weight to lifetime downloads of an image. Older images with more downloads are ranked higher than new images with less downloads. Apparently, uploaded date really doesn't matter, more the number of downloads, higher the rank. Yep, veterans will be benefited more.
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I think new ranking system gives more weight to lifetime downloads of an image. Older images with more downloads are ranked higher than new images with less downloads. Apparently, uploaded date really doesn't matter, more the number of downloads, higher the rank. Yep, veterans will be benefited more.
I understand where they're coming from, but it should also consider sales over a recent time period... let's say the last year. Comparing downloads in the most recent year is more important total lifetime downloads. An image may be popular 10 years ago, but if it's not popular in 2016, then it's not as relevant. If you're searching for a computer and some old tower computer is at the top of search, it doesn't benefit buyers or contributors.
Newcomers will never make it to the top when you rank by total downloads. Not just newcomers, but newly uploaded images as well. I know veterans would love that, but it doesn't make a lot of sense if you're trying to build a smart algorithm.
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double post.
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They probably calculate time online + no. of downloads + maybe number of views. I know, that for example on fotolia, some of my files were on top of the search and had only few downloads, but were also very short time online.
For example: https://eu.fotolia.com/id/117288171 this file is on the first place (popular and releavance) for "deer" keyword (100.000+ results) and has only 3 downloads, but it's also online only for about a week or so.
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With the change my bestsellers were pushed below while my ex-bestsellers revived.
Plus a EL yesterday and 2 giant SOD's today... can't complain, will start uploading more often again.
I'm already better in August than entire July 2016 which was a disastrous month.
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SS admin just said they have identified the problem and they're trying to fix it. Looks like it wasn't a logical change after all. Someone probably screwed up the algorithm and deployed it without testing. For a company who claims to have an amazing algorithm, sorting by most downloads isn't really that amazing at all...even a newbie software engineer can do it.
Hopefully things will get back to 'normal' by Monday.
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its all guesswork, no one knows exactly and trying to figure it out is a waste of time, ss has said its not straight forward, its a mix of downloads, file age, views, and a lot more. better spend time on creating new images
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SS admin just said they have identified the problem and they're trying to fix it. Looks like it wasn't a logical change after all. Someone probably screwed up the algorithm and deployed it without testing. For a company who claims to have an amazing algorithm, sorting by most downloads isn't really that amazing at all...even a newbie software engineer can do it.
Hopefully things will get back to 'normal' by Monday.
Yep but it takes a true pro to really mess things up! Perhaps they should recall their old IT head back from his family!
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its all guesswork, no one knows exactly and trying to figure it out is a waste of time, ss has said its not straight forward, its a mix of downloads, file age, views, and a lot more. better spend time on creating new images
and no doubt it changes all the time anyway.
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I think new ranking system gives more weight to lifetime downloads of an image. Older images with more downloads are ranked higher than new images with less downloads. Apparently, uploaded date really doesn't matter, more the number of downloads, higher the rank. Yep, veterans will be benefited more.
I understand where they're coming from, but it should also consider sales over a recent time period... let's say the last year. Comparing downloads in the most recent year is more important total lifetime downloads. An image may be popular 10 years ago, but if it's not popular in 2016, then it's not as relevant. If you're searching for a computer and some old tower computer is at the top of search, it doesn't benefit buyers or contributors.
Newcomers will never make it to the top when you rank by total downloads. Not just newcomers, but newly uploaded images as well. I know veterans would love that, but it doesn't make a lot of sense if you're trying to build a smart algorithm.
i am not sure i get what you mean. if so, did you check to see where sjlocke's images are placed???
he was not veteran in terms of ss...
he is relatively newcomer ...
so, according to you, sjlocke's images are not supposed to be placed high
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i am not sure i get what you mean. if so, did you check to see where sjlocke's images are placed???
he was not veteran in terms of ss...
he is relatively newcomer ...
so, according to you, sjlocke's images are not supposed to be placed high
I just did a search for "New Year":
https://www.shutterstock.com/search?searchterm=new+year&search_source=base_search_form&language=en&page=1&sort=popular&image_type=all&safe=true (https://www.shutterstock.com/search?searchterm=new+year&search_source=base_search_form&language=en&page=1&sort=popular&image_type=all&safe=true)
Notice that the most popular goes back to only 2013, which makes me think that it's not ranked by total lifetime downloads, but they're ranking the images based on total downloads for the last 4 years. That means his images will still rank high because he started just before then. For anyone who started last year like me, it's an uphill climb.
And of course, this is an example search of the ineffective new algorithm. The most relevant results should be to show images from 2016 (getting ready for 2017) at the top, and not New Years images from 2013, 2014, or even 2015.
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i am not sure i get what you mean. if so, did you check to see where sjlocke's images are placed???
he was not veteran in terms of ss...
he is relatively newcomer ...
so, according to you, sjlocke's images are not supposed to be placed high
I just did a search for "New Year":
https://www.shutterstock.com/search?searchterm=new+year&search_source=base_search_form&language=en&page=1&sort=popular&image_type=all&safe=true (https://www.shutterstock.com/search?searchterm=new+year&search_source=base_search_form&language=en&page=1&sort=popular&image_type=all&safe=true)
Notice that the most popular goes back to only 2013, which makes me think that it's not ranked by total lifetime downloads, but they're ranking the images based on total downloads for the last 4 years. That means his images will still rank high because he started just before then. For anyone who started last year like me, it's an uphill climb.
And of course, this is an example search of the ineffective new algorithm. The most relevant results should be to show images from 2016 (getting ready for 2017) at the top, and not New Years images from 2013, 2014, or even 2015.
You have picked a rather exceptional example its unlikely the algorithm will recognise the specific context of these images.
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You have picked a rather exceptional example its unlikely the algorithm will recognise the specific context of these images.
Anything that is that has a time based element will be affected it. Anything that's related to technology is affected. Anything that has a design trend element like skeuomorphic design from 5 years ago vs flat design today is affected. Any editorial image that is based on a timed event is affected. Yeah, I gave an exceptional case with the 'New Years' search, but there are so much more. We're talking about tens of millions of images.
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They have shuffled everything.. this has affected my entire sale.
>:(
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All I know is salesb finally picked up for a few days. Now they seem back down again.
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The most recent are messed up. It is a big mess.
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whatever there doing It's GREAT! for me. best sales Month in a few years. July was the worst In Years. August is red Hot. Like the Old days. Now...If this could stay and,,, get back the SOD,EL and Footage Im a Very Happy Camper. Almost feel Like saying Im sorry.
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I noticed that my (new) files with id higher than 43000000 not sale anymore. From 1. aug. 2016. my sales decreased for about 70 %. This is my verified data.
This is a fact. In Aug 2016 for the first time my small DT portfolio beat big SS portfolio.
I send ticket to SS, waiting for an answer.
Best regards,
Stockman
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whatever there doing It's GREAT! for me. best sales Month in a few years. July was the worst In Years. August is red Hot. Like the Old days. Now...If this could stay and,,, get back the SOD,EL and Footage Im a Very Happy Camper. Almost feel Like saying Im sorry.
Maybe Aug is a month for typical fluctuation. Who knows?!
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All I know is salesb finally picked up for a few days. Now they seem back down again.
Same here, sold last week and now slow sales this week again.
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whatever there doing It's GREAT! for me. best sales Month in a few years. July was the worst In Years. August is red Hot. Like the Old days. Now...If this could stay and,,, get back the SOD,EL and Footage Im a Very Happy Camper. Almost feel Like saying Im sorry.
lol rinderart post a couple days before -post found :
rinderart: "now, wait for a new bunch to come in here to say, "what problem??? i just had my bme!!!
EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!+1000
What a mess this whole business is. really sad. And I totally Believe they have no Idea."
Funny
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Yes they are a great company when they are selling MY FILES.......human nature of course but hardly an objective measure
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still in the first week in this, I can see that popular images are getting downloads as usual, while some old files are getting dl's too, after a long time. However the overall impression is that downloads are somewhat the same but you can't really tell, because it could be attributed to normal monthly fluctuations.
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whatever there doing It's GREAT! for me. best sales Month in a few years. July was the worst In Years. August is red Hot. Like the Old days. Now...If this could stay and,,, get back the SOD,EL and Footage Im a Very Happy Camper. Almost feel Like saying Im sorry.
before 2012 search was activated by accidental, you'll be back to recent in no time.
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Looks like the "Most Recent" is back to the way it should be.
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Looks like the "Most Recent" is back to the way it should be.
"Popular" is still broken..
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I still find many broken link while browsing the website..
Maybe they are still working on it.
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Suddenly my most popular and most recent images on page 1 in my port have disappeared. Anyone else?
which agency are you guys talking about, at all...?
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which agency are you guys talking about, at all...?
Shutterstock
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Suddenly my most popular and most recent images on page 1 in my port have disappeared. Anyone else?
which agency are you guys talking about, at all...?
Seriously!? It's the Shutterstock forum. Take a wild guess. ::)
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Anyone else noticed, that some of the sales don't show on a map? I had 1 sale yesterday and 1 today, and neither of them showed up on a world map.
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... yes randomly - and now my last 3 sales does not show on map
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Anyone else noticed, that some of the sales don't show on a map? I had 1 sale yesterday and 1 today, and neither of them showed up on a world map.
They would say map is for just fun...
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My map (last 8 files) frozen yesterday too. I have 30 new sales but not shown on map.
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Map stopped working yesterday, my most popular now seem to be what they were a year ago, my top-selling images have suddenly been pushed down the page in the most popular results by random images that have nothing to do with the relevant keywords, killing sales. And now even fewer "new" images are selling...the newest selling now go back 6 months.
It's very sad to see SS going this direction...they were the stock site I could count on for years. If I uploaded decent images with good keywords in current niches, I could pretty much count on sales rising. No more.
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The map is working fine for me.......however sales are a disaster...I know which I'd prefer to be working well.
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Decent August so far but SS is still one giant screwup and I really fear they are on a dwindling slope to nowhere.
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The map is working fine for me.......however sales are a disaster...I know which I'd prefer to be working well.
Well.. here sales are normal again but map don't work.
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I have found answer in a comment at SS Facebook page about "popular" issue.
Hi Vladimir! You're right, it does look odd. We're working on perfecting our new search page and will get your feedback to the team right away. Thanks for your message!
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I have found answer in a comment at SS Facebook page about "popular" issue.
Hi Vladimir! You're right, it does look odd. We're working on perfecting our new search page and will get your feedback to the team right away. Thanks for your message!
Its something great to hear. I hope their new search engine is for contributors benifits too.
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Popular search finally got screwed up for me. A search term in which I had the #1 spot and 2 in the top 3 for years now I'm suddenly half way down the page. Fortunately buyers are scrolling past the crap and continuing to buy my images in approximately the same rate. Interestingly, several images that were always right beside mine on the top row are still there, so the 'algorithm' seems to be subjective.
I'll try to find the thread above and see what they are saying.
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I don't understand. Do people check position of their files 24/7 or what?
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No, I check once every month or two. If your image is #1 most popular every month for 3 years and suddenly it's #30 what changed? It's not the popularity of the image and 29 others didn't suddenly vault to the top. Some of the ones that shared the top row with me are still on the top row.
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Darryl! you wont notice. Contributors dont see the same search as the buyers. Whenever you search you can bet on that one or two of your files will be on page 1 or 2 but when a buyer comes along thats not where he will find them.
The blessed Internet will unfortunately lend itself to all sorts of tricks some good some bad.
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Popular search finally got screwed up for me. A search term in which I had the #1 spot and 2 in the top 3 for years now I'm suddenly half way down the page. Fortunately buyers are scrolling past the crap and continuing to buy my images in approximately the same rate. Interestingly, several images that were always right beside mine on the top row are still there, so the 'algorithm' seems to be subjective.
I'll try to find the thread above and see what they are saying.
Here's what they are saying whatever there doing It's GREAT! for me. best sales Month in a few years. July was the worst In Years. August is red Hot. Like the Old days. Now...If this could stay and,,, get back the SOD,EL and Footage Im a Very Happy Camper. Almost feel Like saying Im sorry.
I say wait 3 weeks and look again you might be back on top. New files go up. Files that have downloads and views, move up. There's no way yours have magnetic glue for the top of the page no matter how good they are. None of us do. Why should we? You mean everything new should get sent to the back of 100 pages and die there? Do you want you new files to be sent back to be buried? Can't have it both ways.
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Darryl! you wont notice. Contributors dont see the same search as the buyers. Whenever you search you can bet on that one or two of your files will be on page 1 or 2 but when a buyer comes along thats not where he will find them.
The blessed Internet will unfortunately lend itself to all sorts of tricks some good some bad.
I actually discovered it this morning when the site was down. I went to the contributor site to see if it was working and did my search. It comes up the same on both. OTH, I have sold as many of the images today as any other, so....
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Popular search finally got screwed up for me. A search term in which I had the #1 spot and 2 in the top 3 for years now I'm suddenly half way down the page. Fortunately buyers are scrolling past the crap and continuing to buy my images in approximately the same rate. Interestingly, several images that were always right beside mine on the top row are still there, so the 'algorithm' seems to be subjective.
I'll try to find the thread above and see what they are saying.
Here's what they are saying whatever there doing It's GREAT! for me. best sales Month in a few years. July was the worst In Years. August is red Hot. Like the Old days. Now...If this could stay and,,, get back the SOD,EL and Footage Im a Very Happy Camper. Almost feel Like saying Im sorry.
I say wait 3 weeks and look again you might be back on top. New files go up. Files that have downloads and views, move up. There's no way yours have magnetic glue for the top of the page no matter how good they are. None of us do. Why should we? You mean everything new should get sent to the back of 100 pages and die there? Do you want you new files to be sent back to be buried? Can't have it both ways.
Except it has been in the #1 spot for years. Clawed its way to that spot for years before that. Another has been in #2 or #3 for the same time. Either it is most popular or it is not. I understand the newer images get weight, but if my image is more popular despite that weighted formula, it should stay there. Whatever changed, 30 images didn't suddenly get more popular. 3 other images from another photog has shared the top tier with me for years. Those images are still there, but still not in first place.
It would be much easier if newer meant newer and most popular meant most popular, but whatever, it's not affecting my sales. yet
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w.t.f. shutterstock!? Map still broken. :oSeems like sales slowley coming back.
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double post
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Popular search finally got screwed up for me. A search term in which I had the #1 spot and 2 in the top 3 for years now I'm suddenly half way down the page. Fortunately buyers are scrolling past the crap and continuing to buy my images in approximately the same rate. Interestingly, several images that were always right beside mine on the top row are still there, so the 'algorithm' seems to be subjective.
I'll try to find the thread above and see what they are saying.
Here's what they are saying whatever there doing It's GREAT! for me. best sales Month in a few years. July was the worst In Years. August is red Hot. Like the Old days. Now...If this could stay and,,, get back the SOD,EL and Footage Im a Very Happy Camper. Almost feel Like saying Im sorry.
I say wait 3 weeks and look again you might be back on top. New files go up. Files that have downloads and views, move up. There's no way yours have magnetic glue for the top of the page no matter how good they are. None of us do. Why should we? You mean everything new should get sent to the back of 100 pages and die there? Do you want you new files to be sent back to be buried? Can't have it both ways.
Except it has been in the #1 spot for years. Clawed its way to that spot for years before that. Another has been in #2 or #3 for the same time. Either it is most popular or it is not. I understand the newer images get weight, but if my image is more popular despite that weighted formula, it should stay there. Whatever changed, 30 images didn't suddenly get more popular. 3 other images from another photog has shared the top tier with me for years. Those images are still there, but still not in first place.
It would be much easier if newer meant newer and most popular meant most popular, but whatever, it's not affecting my sales. yet
Agree old friend. same here. My Football Image was #1 the day I uploaded it and stayed #1 in that category from July 2005 to March 12th 2012 then disappeared. Im still Bummed out and welcome to the club. I had a bunch that worked there way up. Then some smart guy decided to change it.
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Check now. My images are back almost the same. #1 shot is back in #1 - the rest are close.
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Check now. My images are back almost the same. #1 shot is back in #1 - the rest are close.
Yep, mine are back in previous order as well.
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Check now. My images are back almost the same. #1 shot is back in #1 - the rest are close.
What did I say? Just wait and it will come back.
About the map, oh the hunatity, what can we do, the beta map crashed and burned. But my sales earnings summary is working.
Do people just watch all day long finding things to complain about? Must be terrible living in a dark negative cloudy world. We all need to have deep sympathy for Laurin because he's been dropped for four years. Poor guy, who claims to have record and TV royalty music deals, runs a teaching photo business, is wanted by Hollywood for his famous photo mad skills, but microstock is his life complaint? Get Real! Does Mr. Beverly Hills need these 25c downloads? Doesn't anybody else see the contradiction?
"im currently working with about 16 people who really show they have what it takes for a career and I don't mean 25 cents at a time. It is so much better for me to do it by e-mail. they can send huge files, No threat of theft as on the forums and I can fix things and share so Much better. For the Ones that Really want a Life in Image making. And I can do it for free because it doesn't require Models,studios Upkeep and 10 Hours a day.
My biggest regret is Missing thousands of great friendly People I've met from every corner of the world, we could discuss,get mad at,kid around with, be sad with.....A real Online community. I don't feel that at all anymore.
I will be reading, just not Posting in the general forum or critique forum which has been My home base since day one. I am here and will always be here for any Photo/Camera/Lighting related question you have and so will My Cousin, Best friend and Pardner Dave."
Go play your guitar and enjoy life. I'm tired of wading through you piles of BS.
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amazing.. its back.. relaxed now :D
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Woke up to the nice surprise this morning.
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Some days ago discovered that ss does not allow anymore to change (make lower) payout sum, and demand to contact support. Contacted. Still no answer. Probably they wait for end of month.
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When will the map work again, danm it! I miss it.
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Check now. My images are back almost the same. #1 shot is back in #1 - the rest are close.
Yeah it's normal now.
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:)GOOD NEWSSSSS