that's very exciting, a picture I have constantly at the 2nd/3rd row is now at the 900's

I am not even going to talk about the pictures from the 1st page to the 9th, not talking about the quality but the subject matter and of course those haven't sold as much as mine

Popular is no longer most downloads at least in terms of searches, browsing my own portfolio is still most downloads

Happened this past summer and everyone went nuts except that Anthony told me it was correct and not broken and now there are two threads about it running on SS.

Here is the link, also this link links to the other two threads about the same thing!

There is nothing wrong people get used to it because it appears it will be a reoccurring thing.

http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=127553

IMHO I would prefer if they play with the Relevant search not the Popular

IMHO I would prefer if they play with the Relevant search not the Popular

I'm not sure ("Image Gallery Stats" show Internal Server Error at the moment) but looking at first rows of images in my portfolio (not sure about rest) I would say that relevant search arranged images strictly by "number of downloads". Popular search is based on some algorithm.

edit: Gallery Stats were online for one minute and first page of images arranged by "Total Purchases" is same as "Relevant search" result.

Don't think Relevant has anything to do with Relevancy anyway!
Just searched for 'candle isolated flame close' and got candles (not isolated), matches with no candles at all, unlit candles and soaps!
Go figure!

Still beats me. Cant see any change at all. I think Tab must have been bitten by the hair-of-the doggy.

My best cat picture has moved from position 3 or 4 under keyword "cat" to about 60. It has been at the top for a long long time.

Steve

dude you need to take a chill pill, not good for your health, thanks for sharing!

So what have we got now. A re-shuffle of popular?  or are we back to relevancy?  as the default search I mean.

Our old friend CD123's thoughts on this one via an email that he sent me- I miss this guy on our site...


"Got the SS reshuffle thing figured (I think). The default search result order is by popularity. The heaviest weight factor is either number of sales or revenue earned. It makes sense because you want you best images to display first. This strategy has a down side. Although they get new material constantly, it takes quite long before a new �good seller� surpass an old �good seller�, purely because the old one has been their longer and has built up a very large number of sales. SS�s regular customers ends up seeing the same old top stuff thus 98% of the time with their regular visits.
 
To counter act this problem, SS need to shuffle the box of pictures every now and then, to get some of the newer stuff to the top, else the impression will be that they do not get �good� new material in. Yes, the customer can click on the �newest first� button, but firstly that does not guarantee �new good stuff�. So I think SS has a formula in the reshuffle that has to bring sales over a more recent period into account when they do this. Secondly, people are sheep and does not always press the �newest first� button. So they have to cater for the herd."

Its cobblers, all of it. Cobblers.  Any search change, no matter what and especially when it comes to micros is just a feeble try for short term profit thinking, thats all.

Bit of deja vu this. I seem to remember another massive agency constantly wank#ng around with their search and, well, theyre not doing too good at the moment.

Welcome back Charl. First good piece of news this week.

Thanks a million. Glad to be here (and now I can not even give anyone nice a heart as newbie ) At least I can still smile at everyone 

Yes!  welcome back. Somehow I missed you, ye old fart. Dont worry about neewbie, happend to me about 3 times.

Ditto!  Blowing like the wind we are, but luckily I stayed recognizable with the same name and face 

3?

Liftoff.........! (ye right) 

better than me. gives me hope that increasing my port will still ++ my earnings. and I have 0 on the 12th....

Mantis!  I know its no consolation but I know two guys with 12K images between them, they have been stung now third time in a row by the changes and they are pulling their ports and ciao bella.

Me. no it hasnt effected me as yet.

Quote from: ClaridgeJ on January 13, 2013, 13:08

... but I know two guys with 12K images between them, they have been stung now third time in a row by the changes and they are pulling their ports and ciao bella.

No you don't. You've just made that story up haven't you? Same as most of your other posts. You're probably ahead of Stig Larsson as Sweden's most prolific writer of fiction.

Hahahahahahaha

For me, something has changed for the worse.  Daily income significantly down.  Avg. dL per day prior to this change was 40.  Now around 25.

Mine have gone down roughly 40% since the change, quite literally an overnight change and its still declining.  Look the screenshot above im expecting my first zero day in well over a year shortly its been that drastic!

One more worrying thing ive seen since the change is new images.   Usually new images i could expect usually 90% of them to sell within the first 2-3 days (even if its only 1 or 2 sales), gain a "life" and then stay around.  Since the change not a single new image i've uploaded (30 or so) has sold even once.  Every single sale i am getting is over 2 months old.

Quote from: gostwyck on January 13, 2013, 15:22

Quote from: ClaridgeJ on January 13, 2013, 13:08

... but I know two guys with 12K images between them, they have been stung now third time in a row by the changes and they are pulling their ports and ciao bella.

No you don't. You've just made that story up haven't you? Same as most of your other posts. You're probably ahead of Stig Larsson as Sweden's most prolific writer of fiction.

Old news as it happens but Sure! that would be your reaction, since SS, is all youve got and its scarry, isnt it to even think the very thought of that something is going wrong here. Dangerous for you but not for me.
No, youre all mouth my friend, nothing else.

Well I tell you what. If they do decide to leave youll find out, over there actually and maybe then we will see who " made it up"
BTW, dont you follow other forums?  in that case this shouldnt be any news? ppl leave all the time, happens with all agencies.

Go back to your dark hole at Catherines wharf and do some writing, photography isnt your game, is it.   Oh! and Ed, in the other thread is 100% right and YOU are in the wrong.
Even as a groundling you should know they DONT SELL intellectual property.

seriously, is that hard to respect other? you are talking about the person who has more hearts in this forum and a contributor that have almost twice your sales at iStock

please don't start again with the RM talk, you have made your choices, other made theirs!

12 hours without sales on SS ... never happened in the last 6 months.   

 

wipe out here as well- I will not make payout this month which I did monthly for the seven month - sometimes reach payout amount ($100 usd) in 16 days. Now I cannot even reach in 45 days at this rate

Mantis!  I know its no consolation but I know two guys with 12K images between them, they have been stung now third time in a row by the changes and they are pulling their ports and ciao bella.

Me. no it hasnt effected me as yet.

You have been affected. You said so on the SS forum when it happened first time around

As unpopular the statement might be on this site, what is good for the buyer will not always be popular with the contributor. I am as effected as most, but can grasp that shaking the box a bit from time to time might be beneficial for sales and the buyer from time to time.
It might cause a thinner spread of income all over the contributor base, till the top contributor's higher level of quality product resurface (as it should) again. During that time the buyer is offered a new look content list, which revives the interest in the site and its content.
I am not happy about it, but if the move prolongs the life span of this top site and keep it in the top position it is now, I am prepared to (suffer) wait it out.

Silly me!  and I thought certain people here were applauding the new SS search?  or..............   well its funny but just about everything seem to go weird after going public.

Actually my earnings have been good since the IPO.  Whatever changes they make to the search, earnings seem to be quite stable.  I've not uploaded much either.  You seem to be fixated with the IPO changing things but that doesn't surprise me.  If you said black was white, I'm sure you would never be able to accept you got it wrong   You would rather insult people and then come back with a different name, so we don't recognise you for a few days.  Then you can say you're not anonymous here, even though you've tried to be and you can attack people that are anonymous, even though anyone with a brain can usually work out who they are quite easily.  It took me 2 minutes to work out who gostwyck was a few years ago.  I don't agree with everything he says about SS either but at least he doesn't keep disappearing and coming back with a new name.

Quote from: sharpshot on January 15, 2013, 05:34

Quote from: ClaridgeJ on January 14, 2013, 15:12

Silly me!  and I thought certain people here were applauding the new SS search?  or..............   well its funny but just about everything seem to go weird after going public.

Actually my earnings have been good since the IPO.  Whatever changes they make to the search, earnings seem to be quite stable.  I've not uploaded much either.  You seem to be fixated with the IPO changing things but that doesn't surprise me.  If you said black was white, I'm sure you would never be able to accept you got it wrong   You would rather insult people and then come back with a different name, so we don't recognise you for a few days.  Then you can say you're not anonymous here, even though you've tried to be and you can attack people that are anonymous, even though anyone with a brain can usually work out who they are quite easily.  It took me 2 minutes to work out who gostwyck was a few years ago.  I don't agree with everything he says about SS either but at least he doesn't keep disappearing and coming back with a new name.

Are you Ok today?  I dont seem to remember I said anything wrong in the above post? since you replied you must have read it.

Oh neer mind, time of the month isnt it. Or maybe you just wanted to score a few +++. Be my guest.

have a good day.

Funny how when you lose an arguement you resort to insults.  I was just pointing out your hypocrisy.  Hope you have a great day too

   After a (very) good start of the year, with 2.01 beeing BDE in terms of no of sales(14) and then an EL in 04.02, now it is going down like mad. Today I have only 1 sale 
   Maybe my port is too little to judge, and maybe things will go better in the next days.
   Weird thing, everyone here is complaining about low sales, when a shift in searches only means if I'm not selling, someone else will. Maybe the lucky ones do not write here.

I think the sales are now just spread over a larger base. So no individual has a substantial growth. Small growths for small contributors, medium loss/growth for middle sized ones and large losses for big ones.

Quote from: tavi on January 15, 2013, 12:29

   After a (very) good start of the year, with 2.01 beeing BDE in terms of no of sales(14) and then an EL in 04.02, now it is going down like mad. Today I have only 1 sale 
   Maybe my port is too little to judge, and maybe things will go better in the next days.
   Weird thing, everyone here is complaining about low sales, when a shift in searches only means if I'm not selling, someone else will. Maybe the lucky ones do not write here.

I think most of us are tired of saying the same thing over and over. As far as I'm concerned it's business as usual at SS. No dramatic changes to the way things work, just steadily improving sales. SS don't do dramatic changes. That's why the place works so well.

If you have a tiny portfolio then yes, your earnings are bound to be sporadic. You probably need 3K+ images to achieve reasonable stability but even then you'll still be subject to seasonal variations.

Smith and RInder wrote a book on stock and there initial number was 800, now on the forums they say 1500. You say its more like 3000. Ooof, I need to get another 2300 images online to make a dent. Wow, trying to get to 1000 in the next 3 months. And then I need to take it from there.

   The problem is that I don't see a big shift on my images. The good ones were gone a little bit down in popular due to low sales I think, the niche subjects are in their places without dlds. I checked some of my images, not all port.

I had a tennis photo that was ranked #27 out of 47,000 plus images and it doesn't even show up on the first 10 pages! Wipe out on the photos which used to sell on daily basis...

Quote from: ClaridgeJ on January 15, 2013, 06:02

Quote from: sharpshot on January 15, 2013, 05:34

Quote from: ClaridgeJ on January 14, 2013, 15:12

Silly me!  and I thought certain people here were applauding the new SS search?  or..............   well its funny but just about everything seem to go weird after going public.

Actually my earnings have been good since the IPO.  Whatever changes they make to the search, earnings seem to be quite stable.  I've not uploaded much either.  You seem to be fixated with the IPO changing things but that doesn't surprise me.  If you said black was white, I'm sure you would never be able to accept you got it wrong   You would rather insult people and then come back with a different name, so we don't recognise you for a few days.  Then you can say you're not anonymous here, even though you've tried to be and you can attack people that are anonymous, even though anyone with a brain can usually work out who they are quite easily.  It took me 2 minutes to work out who gostwyck was a few years ago.  I don't agree with everything he says about SS either but at least he doesn't keep disappearing and coming back with a new name.

Are you Ok today?  I dont seem to remember I said anything wrong in the above post? since you replied you must have read it.

Oh neer mind, time of the month isnt it. Or maybe you just wanted to score a few +++. Be my guest.

have a good day.

Funny how when you lose an arguement you resort to insults.  I was just pointing out your hypocrisy.  Hope you have a great day too

Youre sure you are Ok? I cant recall an argument with YOU?  if you refer to somebody else I suggest you let them speak up for themselves. I.E:  dont poke your nose where it dont belong.

Quote from: sharpshot on January 15, 2013, 06:16

Quote from: ClaridgeJ on January 15, 2013, 06:02

Quote from: sharpshot on January 15, 2013, 05:34

Quote from: ClaridgeJ on January 14, 2013, 15:12

Silly me!  and I thought certain people here were applauding the new SS search?  or..............   well its funny but just about everything seem to go weird after going public.

Actually my earnings have been good since the IPO.  Whatever changes they make to the search, earnings seem to be quite stable.  I've not uploaded much either.  You seem to be fixated with the IPO changing things but that doesn't surprise me.  If you said black was white, I'm sure you would never be able to accept you got it wrong   You would rather insult people and then come back with a different name, so we don't recognise you for a few days.  Then you can say you're not anonymous here, even though you've tried to be and you can attack people that are anonymous, even though anyone with a brain can usually work out who they are quite easily.  It took me 2 minutes to work out who gostwyck was a few years ago.  I don't agree with everything he says about SS either but at least he doesn't keep disappearing and coming back with a new name.

Are you Ok today?  I dont seem to remember I said anything wrong in the above post? since you replied you must have read it.

Oh neer mind, time of the month isnt it. Or maybe you just wanted to score a few +++. Be my guest.

have a good day.

Funny how when you lose an arguement you resort to insults.  I was just pointing out your hypocrisy.  Hope you have a great day too

Youre sure you are Ok? I cant recall an argument with YOU?  if you refer to somebody else I suggest you let them speak up for themselves. I.E:  dont poke your nose where it dont belong.

What a sad state of affairs at MSG that an unnecessary mud slinging contest can be more important than the topic relevant, income influencing and rare feedback directly from our no. 1 agency. 

Quote from: gostwyck on January 15, 2013, 13:31

Quote from: tavi on January 15, 2013, 12:29

   After a (very) good start of the year, with 2.01 beeing BDE in terms of no of sales(14) and then an EL in 04.02, now it is going down like mad. Today I have only 1 sale 
   Maybe my port is too little to judge, and maybe things will go better in the next days.
   Weird thing, everyone here is complaining about low sales, when a shift in searches only means if I'm not selling, someone else will. Maybe the lucky ones do not write here.

I think most of us are tired of saying the same thing over and over. As far as I'm concerned it's business as usual at SS. No dramatic changes to the way things work, just steadily improving sales. SS don't do dramatic changes. That's why the place works so well.

If you have a tiny portfolio then yes, your earnings are bound to be sporadic. You probably need 3K+ images to achieve reasonable stability but even then you'll still be subject to seasonal variations.

Smith and RInder wrote a book on stock and there initial number was 800, now on the forums they say 1500. You say its more like 3000. Ooof, I need to get another 2300 images online to make a dent. Wow, trying to get to 1000 in the next 3 months. And then I need to take it from there.

You have to consider how big the collection was when these guys came up with that number. When the SS collection was, say, 5,000'000 then 800 images may have worked to generate a more or less consistent income. With something like 20,000,000 images today you need to have a much higher number. I'd agree with gostwyk that 3k is a good number, but also you must consider what you shoot. Some peeps are very specialized and do well with only 800 images or illustrations in a 20mil collection, so it's not all volume based, it's content based as well.

Yes thanks for the heads up update.

Hello Everyone,

Thanks for your detailed feedback...it has been very helpful.

We've been looking into this and we found an issue that started a few days ago with a normal refresh of our search records. The effect of the issue is that some older popular images are ranking higher than they should be. This was an issue with the normal refresh and not a change made to our search algorithms. The team has already identified and implemented a solution.  Only a portion of the collection was affected and you should see the impact of the solution as early as today, though it may take a few days for everything to be 100% back to normal.

Thanks again for your help and patience as we resolve this.

Best Regards,

Scott
VP Content
Shutterstock

Well, I prefer the 'issue' then because I was positively affected. Today its back to low sales again. Whatever that issue was, it was for sure getting me sales on older files.

this change is very prejudicial for me, my most popular file that was very stable between the 10th and 15th result during almost 2 years jumped to 400th, then 900th, 1400th, 2400th and NOW at 2700th

Scott said here that they are fixing it and I am happy about that but I have some questions that I would to make and would love to understand once for all

- Popular are the files that have the most downloads?
- Relevant is a mix between new uploads and files with some downloads?

I think popular is also mixed with views and how fast it first sells after coming online

Okay, enough! Time out for both you 

I dont think thats banter

Noun
The playful and friendly exchange of teasing remarks.
 

Quote from: luissantos84 on January 15, 2013, 17:40

this change is very prejudicial for me, my most popular file that was very stable between the 10th and 15th result during almost 2 years jumped to 400th, then 900th, 1400th, 2400th and NOW at 2700th

Scott said here that they are fixing it and I am happy about that but I have some questions that I would to make and would love to understand once for all

- Popular are the files that have the most downloads?
- Relevant is a mix between new uploads and files with some downloads?

I think popular is also mixed with views and how fast it first sells after coming online

that would suit a lot better the Relevant IMO, so what does that mean? a file well ranked having a drop its because of less views? its very weird after such a long time up and well, will see how things go in the next days...

Pleaded guilty has charged of having a glitch, fixed it, requested a bit of patience for a bit to normalize and there we all go again. 

Thread should be all but finished now (unless it does not come right) and rants should probably go to the rant area. 

Hello Everyone,

Thanks for your detailed feedback...it has been very helpful.

We've been looking into this and we found an issue that started a few days ago with a normal refresh of our search records. The effect of the issue is that some older popular images are ranking higher than they should be. This was an issue with the normal refresh and not a change made to our search algorithms. The team has already identified and implemented a solution.  Only a portion of the collection was affected and you should see the impact of the solution as early as today, though it may take a few days for everything to be 100% back to normal.

Thanks again for your help and patience as we resolve this.

Best Regards,

Scott
VP Content
Shutterstock

I had an EL on Sunday and an EL on Tuesday, both on old images. Any chance of breaking it again? 

Quote from: luissantos84 on January 15, 2013, 17:40

this change is very prejudicial for me, my most popular file that was very stable between the 10th and 15th result during almost 2 years jumped to 400th, then 900th, 1400th, 2400th and NOW at 2700th

Scott said here that they are fixing it and I am happy about that but I have some questions that I would to make and would love to understand once for all

- Popular are the files that have the most downloads?
- Relevant is a mix between new uploads and files with some downloads?

I think popular is also mixed with views and how fast it first sells after coming online

Seems right - if one looks at one's own port, the popular takes sales, time online into account for sure.  It must also take something else, most likely views (even though not displayed I'd bet they are recorded) as this is the only way to account for massive popularity difference on files with the same sales submitted around the same time.  I don't think relevant works that well because of keyword spamming - results certainly seem less relevant than what the popular search produces. 

Quote from: ClaridgeJ on January 16, 2013, 02:03

Things are already looking LOTS! better. Old files mixed with newish have sold like crazy overnight. Looking at it this morning I couldnt believe the positive differance.

anybody else noticing.

Yes, first back to back, zero download days since about 2010. I noticed.

But if it will stop the constant static, crying and complaining about the search engine being broken, I'm all for it!

May I quote from the SS forums, 2011?

"The reason that newer results may not be selling as quickly now is that, as we have explained in our prior posts in this thread, the Most Popular alg now considers a variety of factors beyond just the ratio of total downloads vs total time-available for that image. These new factors we are considering are all image or keyword level factors, and have nothing to do with submitter level data."

Hi!  I dont get it?  you mean first day since 2010 with zip dls? in that case I put it down to just bad luck, a one off.

Anyways if we dont scream and complain we would probably give the wrong message, that everything is great, even when it isnt.

best.

Searched for my highest ranking image just to find it gone again. Any one else experiencing same again?