MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Shutterstock.com => Topic started by: gyllens on November 22, 2016, 11:05
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Anybody experiencing a search-change at SS? because suddenly pictures are selling from my first submission some 12 years back. Its down and out embarrassing they are not even good but terrible!
Surely a change like that and people thats been there for years better prepare themselves for a lousy time indeed.
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What I've been experiencing for the last week is unusual high number of sales. Both, old and not so old....
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Yes, this is a huge change after few months down. In my case, I am making good sales with my newly submitted images as usual. The new image sale was down from last 2-3 months.
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Yup really old stuff that had never sold before suddenly started popping up as sold.
Makes me wonder why I bother adding new stuff :'(
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Yup really old stuff that had never sold before suddenly started popping up as sold.
Makes me wonder why I bother adding new stuff :'(
Because your new stuff will become old and then will sale :P
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Yup really old stuff that had never sold before suddenly started popping up as sold.
Makes me wonder why I bother adding new stuff :'(
Because your new stuff will become old and then will sale :P
Exactly !!!
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Anybody experiencing a search-change at SS? because suddenly pictures are selling from my first submission some 12 years back. Its down and out embarrassing they are not even good but terrible!
Surely a change like that and people thats been there for years better prepare themselves for a lousy time indeed.
gyllens, i am not even thinking what would happen this way...
consider that my best earners have been selling daily since day 1.
each time there is a search change, i see sales of the embarassing oldest , like you say, terrible work.
.. which may excite some , but for me, this also means my daily big earners are out of sight
and yes, you guess it, lower sales.
it's difference with other sites where there is no difference between search priority. with ss, your best sellers stay best sellers as they are on page one and top row.
when a search change occur, i don't know what happens, ...
do they make our best seller page 1 disappear??? do you know???
for me, if it ain't broken, don't f*ck around with the machine.
ss is becoming too much f*cking about, like istock ...
and i really don't understand why they think they have to do that???
go figure!!!
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I can't tell what has changed.
I notice a dip in sales, but I'm not sure if this is related to the possible search engine change or people not working very hard today due to the holidays.
We may not know for sure until next week.
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Personally getting more sales of new stuff.
If you are really embarrassed by your old stuff then withdraw it.
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Offtopic: I don't know if anyone noticed, but images, uploaded before SS implemented preview look better (sharper) than those, uploaded after preview function.
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Etudiante! For people like us whos been there a long time this is just awful. My own stats havent moved for some nine hours and thats with a huge portfolio. Seems to me that their so called search "experiments" is hitting long term contributors only.
Spoke to what we call a "factory" with over 100K portfolio and they were absolutely devastated!
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It's all very odd.... I've been around for about 5 or 6 years now. The last few months have been TERRIBLE with old and some REALLY old and forgotten stuff selling, nothing new, not my usual best sellers.
But whatever they have done has improved my situation. This month is not like how it was, but way better than it has been lately.
I think they just keep tinkering, or else servers keep having issues...
Sometimes you are on the 'up' side and sometimes on the 'down'.....but you never know when things might change again....
Reminds me of the Skinner Box experiments - quote from Wikipedia:
"Skinner's research discovered many fascinating examples of animal behavior. One of the most interesting, perhaps, was Skinner's work on superstition. Instead of giving a reward for a specific action and training a specific behavior, Skinner would take a hungry pigeon and place it in a box that would release a food pellet at random. The pigeons developed all kinds of complex behavioral responses such as bowing, scraping, dancing, and neck turns.[7]
What happened was the pigeon would receive the food pellet while it happened to be performing some action, and rather than attributing the food pellet reward to randomness, it would assume that the appearance of the food pellet had something to do with its behavior. So it started doing whatever that action was, over and over again, and sure enough, it was eventually rewarded with a food pellet again. Since the pigeon is increasing the amount of time spent performing a particular action, it is also increasing the number of times it is "rewarded" for that action, even though the reward is random".
We are the pigeons but one day we will fly away....
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They definitely flipped some kind of switch Monday at around 5 PM EST. My sales were doing great and then suddenly stopped. Yesterday was then down about 40% compared to the same period over the past two or three years. I had a new image that sold 10 times its first day up on Monday, which should have put it on page 1, and then it was instantly buried in the search. I can't even find it today.
Off I go to bow and scrape...gotta practice those neck turns...
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It's all very odd.... I've been around for about 5 or 6 years now. The last few months have been TERRIBLE with old and some REALLY old and forgotten stuff selling, nothing new, not my usual best sellers.
But whatever they have done has improved my situation. This month is not like how it was, but way better than it has been lately.
I think they just keep tinkering, or else servers keep having issues...
Sometimes you are on the 'up' side and sometimes on the 'down'.....but you never know when things might change again....
Reminds me of the Skinner Box experiments - quote from Wikipedia:
"Skinner's research discovered many fascinating examples of animal behavior. One of the most interesting, perhaps, was Skinner's work on superstition. Instead of giving a reward for a specific action and training a specific behavior, Skinner would take a hungry pigeon and place it in a box that would release a food pellet at random. The pigeons developed all kinds of complex behavioral responses such as bowing, scraping, dancing, and neck turns.[7]
What happened was the pigeon would receive the food pellet while it happened to be performing some action, and rather than attributing the food pellet reward to randomness, it would assume that the appearance of the food pellet had something to do with its behavior. So it started doing whatever that action was, over and over again, and sure enough, it was eventually rewarded with a food pellet again. Since the pigeon is increasing the amount of time spent performing a particular action, it is also increasing the number of times it is "rewarded" for that action, even though the reward is random".
We are the pigeons but one day we will fly away....
Yep humans tend to try and impose a pattern on random events to make sense of the world.....you only have to look at the way people try to predict lottery results...
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I noticed that too. Old images that never sold are starting to sell and new images sell too. Unfortunately it's just a shift from a group of images to another since I don't see a change on the total number of images sold. Still it's good to see new stuff being sold. I haven't seen that for a while and it is frustrating to add new images daily that aren't sold.
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There is a major glitch in Shutterstock i've noticed some months ago and it's still there : when you start a search with popular display you can see very crappy pictures in results starting in the middle of the first page, most of the time the full bunch of upload of a member, it's absolutely messy and not professional .
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I just noticed that my new images have all disappeared from my portfolio. Yesterday they sold, today they disappeared. I'm sure they'll re-appear at some point, but the constant changes and bugs are annoying >:(
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for me, if it ain't broken, don't f*ck around with the machine.
ss is becoming too much f*cking about, like istock ...
and i really don't understand why they think they have to do that???
go figure!!!
It may not have been broken for you, if you had images clogging up the start of some popular searches, but perhaps it was broken for people who uploaded later and couldn't get to the start of the searchers because your images were hogging the limelight.
As for my own portfolio, I can't see any discernible difference between sales figures over the last few weeks and what sales are like this week. As usual, my sales are from files spanning the whole of the last 12 years, including from the very limited number of uploads I've made this year.
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getting great sales. Whatever they did with the search seems to work, they are giving a tough competition to fotolia. :)
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I am a contributor since 2007, I upload reguraly.
They did something to the search engine around Monday and, for me, the change is very unfavourable. Hope things get back to normal soon.
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steady decline, erroding my earnings, 25% down and counting, the beast is growing too fast. simply not one new image sells. time to start looking for a job
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something has changes, that's for sure, but this time, atleast for me, is for the better.
My new images finally getting sales! Reason to upload new images are back for me.
Some old ones, few times or never sold, also got some sales, dont care about that so much, but sale is a sale.
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i was wondering why the first image i ever submitted, part of my exam to get in, which never sold before, was sold last week.
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Another reason for a decline since Monday is Thanksgiving holiday. Maybe people from the US are getting the whole week off.
Thanksgiving is not obvious for us Europeans.
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Yes, probably starting later today as people leave to travel for the holiday. Then for many a four-day weekend. So the next few days should be very slow for U.S. sales.
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A couple of people here can not see any difference and thats explainable because its always been the same. Ports containing lots of travel, landscapes and sort of general content will not ever notice too much difference.
A change of algorithm will most certainly hit specialized portfolio ten times more. Thats where you find most of the high commercial content and probably most of the best sellers.
I do agree with that large Tech-firm Mullenengines or whatever they were called who sorted the Adobe before they became tangled up with FT. They stipulated that its always a very bad sign indeed when tweaking any search to the point where top sellers fall outside first 4-5 pages and since there is no undo or reverse button chances are they could be gone forever in a downslope.
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They're probably testing a regional algorithm test, like they also do. My new images are selling well, but I'm not sure if that's a good thing. They could be changing the algorithm to favor new images, which could hurt sales in the long run for everyone.
I've seen this kind of change on another site and it benefited more people, where newly uploaded images get higher rankings, but gets replaced by the next wave of newly upload images, and so on.
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What I see is at least that new images are selling again. An image uploaded today already has four sales. Haven't seen that in ages. And other images uploaded this week sell today as well.
How much that impacts total sales numbers is yet to be seen...
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An image uploaded today already has four sales.
... five...
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Something seem to have changed since monday. I have a small Travel port online since July. Up till now got about 8-10 Sales per week, and this week i'm over 20 in two days. Surprisingly, almost Sales come from images uploaded last week, and most of them were resubmitted After a rejection
Sent from my Lenovo Z90a40 using Tapatalk
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It's all very odd.... I've been around for about 5 or 6 years now. The last few months have been TERRIBLE with old and some REALLY old and forgotten stuff selling, nothing new, not my usual best sellers.
But whatever they have done has improved my situation. This month is not like how it was, but way better than it has been lately.
I think they just keep tinkering, or else servers keep having issues...
Sometimes you are on the 'up' side and sometimes on the 'down'.....but you never know when things might change again....
Reminds me of the Skinner Box experiments - quote from Wikipedia:
"Skinner's research discovered many fascinating examples of animal behavior. One of the most interesting, perhaps, was Skinner's work on superstition. Instead of giving a reward for a specific action and training a specific behavior, Skinner would take a hungry pigeon and place it in a box that would release a food pellet at random. The pigeons developed all kinds of complex behavioral responses such as bowing, scraping, dancing, and neck turns.[7]
What happened was the pigeon would receive the food pellet while it happened to be performing some action, and rather than attributing the food pellet reward to randomness, it would assume that the appearance of the food pellet had something to do with its behavior. So it started doing whatever that action was, over and over again, and sure enough, it was eventually rewarded with a food pellet again. Since the pigeon is increasing the amount of time spent performing a particular action, it is also increasing the number of times it is "rewarded" for that action, even though the reward is random".
We are the pigeons but one day we will fly away....
Yep humans tend to try and impose a pattern on random events to make sense of the world.....you only have to look at the way people try to predict lottery results...
or sales patterns and the SS search?
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A couple of people here can not see any difference and thats explainable because its always been the same. Ports containing lots of travel, landscapes and sort of general content will not ever notice too much difference.
That's a reasonable description of my portfolio. I've always reckoned that it's good to have a lot of generic stuff that isn't liable to suffer from going out of fashion or technological obsolesence, and also where there is less intense competition from others (who might be better photographers than me!).
It's also true that I've rarely noticed an impact when people complain about changes to the search.
However, I don't see why portfolios like mine should be immune from changes in, say, the weighting given to age in the search, or some randomising of the ranking, or unsold images getting a push. A landscape photo or a pic of a plate of food ages at the same speed as a "high commercial value" people-picture and there is no shortage of competition unless something is very specific and unusual (and those sell very slowly, anyway, and might do better elsewhere).
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Search changes algorithms should be made mostly to promote new material saving buyers to see the same old pictures over and over again. To give files exposure and a chance of selling which should be a positive thing
Changes in micro-stock and especially by agencies like SS and even Adobe are made purely for one reason in the hope of increasing profits and in the case of SS trying to satisfy shareholders.
Thats a vast difference from a sort order change trying to benefit both agency and contributors.
Seems to be that the longer it goes the more SS is falling into the trap of the Getty way to never give their contributors an even and fair break.
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Why would the agency change search engines OTHER than to maximize profit??? Promoting new work or disadvantaging certain contributors is merely a by product.
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ss now changes search every two weeks - its a little to much
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Why would the agency change search engines OTHER than to maximize profit??? Promoting new work or disadvantaging certain contributors is merely a by product.
Maximize profit is not achieved by search-changes. Maximizing profits in any business from a market stall vendor up to a multi billion corp is done by creating a healthy environment around your "workers" and they will work better , harder and in a much more productive manner. Thats the formula in any business have always been and will always be.
Having said that micro-stock is probably one of the few business models that don't care since they have us, who constantly comes back for more and more punishment no matter what. I am sure that even if they lowered our commission to 0.5c we would still come back still uploading. ;D well you know what I mean.
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Why would the agency change search engines OTHER than to maximize profit??? Promoting new work or disadvantaging certain contributors is merely a by product.
Maximize profit is not achieved by search-changes. Maximizing profits in any business from a market stall vendor up to a multi billion corp is done by creating a healthy environment around your "workers" and they will work better , harder and in a much more productive manner. Thats the formula in any business have always been and will always be.
Having said that micro-stock is probably one of the few business models that don't care since they have us, who constantly comes back for more and more punishment no matter what. I am sure that even if they lowered our commission to 0.5c we would still come back still uploading. ;D well you know what I mean.
if only that were true and we are suppliers not workers......but you are right in that they will only start to "care" about us if their supply starts to dry up.
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Thats a vast difference from a sort order change trying to benefit both agency and contributors.
Seems to be that the longer it goes the more SS is falling into the trap of the Getty way to never give their contributors an even and fair break.
To start with, how can a sort order change benefit the agency without benefitting contributors? Shutterstock don't have a pile of old rubbish that they own that they can push into top position in searches, the way another agency tried to do, do they? So changing the search is a zero-sum game - some contributors gain, some lose - but Shutterstock's slice remains the same size. Therefore the only reason for making changes will be to keep customers happy and ensure continued long-term success.
You have decided, for some reason, that the main reason to change the search results is to promote new material. What have you got against old material that happened to be unlucky and didn't get the quick initial sale or two that do a lot to bump a file up the search rankings? Don't new pictures start life near the top, anyway, without shuffling the search?
I suspect that search shuffles are designed to give buyers a chance to see some buried files that maybe didn't get the attention they deserve first time round. But when I do a search on "crete, greece" the first few pages have images (not mine, unfortunately) that are clearly superior for general tourism use than those on later pages, so I don't see how the pack can have had much of a shuffle. The pictures designers are likely to want are still on the early pages.
Just because you've done well in the past doesn't mean SS now has some sort of obligation to protect your income, regardless of the interests of others - whether contributors, designers or shareholders. Life ain't like that. We're all at the mercy of shifting search criteria and as long as changes are made with the best of intentions - and I've yet to see any sign of anything else - we've just got to accept it. If the shift makes it uneconomic to continue supplying images, then you have your own calculations to make.
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Thats a vast difference from a sort order change trying to benefit both agency and contributors.
Seems to be that the longer it goes the more SS is falling into the trap of the Getty way to never give their contributors an even and fair break.
To start with, how can a sort order change benefit the agency without benefitting contributors? Shutterstock don't have a pile of old rubbish that they own that they can push into top position in searches, the way another agency tried to do, do they? So changing the search is a zero-sum game - some contributors gain, some lose - but Shutterstock's slice remains the same size. Therefore the only reason for making changes will be to keep customers happy and ensure continued long-term success.
You have decided, for some reason, that the main reason to change the search results is to promote new material. What have you got against old material that happened to be unlucky and didn't get the quick initial sale or two that do a lot to bump a file up the search rankings? Don't new pictures start life near the top, anyway, without shuffling the search?
I suspect that search shuffles are designed to give buyers a chance to see some buried files that maybe didn't get the attention they deserve first time round. But when I do a search on "crete, greece" the first few pages have images (not mine, unfortunately) that are clearly superior for general tourism use than those on later pages, so I don't see how the pack can have had much of a shuffle. The pictures designers are likely to want are still on the early pages.
Just because you've done well in the past doesn't mean SS now has some sort of obligation to protect your income, regardless of the interests of others - whether contributors, designers or shareholders. Life ain't like that. We're all at the mercy of shifting search criteria and as long as changes are made with the best of intentions - and I've yet to see any sign of anything else - we've just got to accept it. If the shift makes it uneconomic to continue supplying images, then you have your own calculations to make.
I believe this was discussed a while back and SS stated they tested a new algorithm against the old and if sales went up they adopted the new. So not quite zero sum but it seems a totally rational explanation. Also one has to take into account that even Shutterstock can't force buyers to buy something they don't want which often seems to be forgotten.
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I believe this was discussed a while back and SS stated they tested a new algorithm against the old and if sales went up they adopted the new. So not quite zero sum but it seems a totally rational explanation. Also one has to take into account that even Shutterstock can't force buyers to buy something they don't want which often seems to be forgotten.
I agree. I would say the immediate impact in the first week (while people complain) is zero-sum but the aim is to make buyers happy which has long-term benefits for the company and for contributors as a whole, though not for every individual contributor.
Certain agencies have tried to push buyers into taking inferior stuff but I suspect the medium term consequence is simply to see buyers migrating to sites where the search results seem to make better sense.
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Here is an example about the "most popular" glitch i was talking before in this topic, searching for "vine facade", 1900 results, as you can see in the middle of the first page and at the end, it's displaying full uploaded batch, for sure it can't be the most popular and most of them are crappy .
It's even worst on the second page !
https://www.shutterstock.com/search/facade+vine?autocomplete_id=&language=en&search_source=&version=llv1&image_type=images&safe=true (https://www.shutterstock.com/search/facade+vine?autocomplete_id=&language=en&search_source=&version=llv1&image_type=images&safe=true)
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:(
Maybe we just have to join them. One photo through a dozen slightly different colour filters and submit them all with a title and keywords full of spam.....
:(((((((
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Without mentioning any names but there is in particular one agency that via sub-pckages this and that "forced" buyers for years to buy what they wanted them to buy. There was a mile long thread here at the MSG about that and we were all crying and complaining. People have short memories here perhaps we have got too used to it?
However I dont know if it worked or not?
So whats to say a sort-change will always render an increased profit? can the agencies see into the future? hardly so its done for profit or loss isnt it but my main concern isnt the actual earnings up or down but the fact that in the case of SS they are dreadful in promoting new content its given a day or so and if it doesnt sell its pushed way back.
There are other and private forums highlighting this problem much much more then here so its obviously a big problem and among some extremely big contributors and conglomerates.
Youre right of course debating this leads as usual to nowhere except some are doing good others not. The usual. On the whole however we should be more concerned about new content rather then a couple of days bad earnings.
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Search changes algorithms should be made mostly to promote new material saving buyers to see the same old pictures over and over again. To give files exposure and a chance of selling which should be a positive thing
Changes in micro-stock and especially by agencies like SS and even Adobe are made purely for one reason in the hope of increasing profits and in the case of SS trying to satisfy shareholders.
Thats a vast difference from a sort order change trying to benefit both agency and contributors.
Seems to be that the longer it goes the more SS is falling into the trap of the Getty way to never give their contributors an even and fair break.
This is excellent analysis since it is festival season so SS is offering all new wave of images to buyers but strangely all sales are .25 cents
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:(
Maybe we just have to join them. One photo through a dozen slightly different colour filters and submit them all with a title and keywords full of spam.....
:(((((((
My assumption has always been that uploading a horde of similars ends up with you competing for sales against yourself. Maybe you get one sale each on half-a-dozen similar pics and then the search gives a better placing to someone else who started off with a couple of sales on the one image they uploaded.
I must say, though, that in a search by age of file on Doha Skyline I was shocked to see a heap of near identical "bokeh" pictures of the skyline completely out of focus with all the lights on the buildings forming large round blobs against the smear of the buildings. Artistic, I suppose, but I could see absolutely nothing to distinguish between them all.
I'm also surprised to see they have been accepting simple "art" filters - such as oil-painting overlay textures - which must enormously reduce the chances of an image selling. But I suppose that bumps up the numbers on the site, which does seem to be a deliberate strategy.
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Search changes algorithms should be made mostly to promote new material saving buyers to see the same old pictures over and over again. To give files exposure and a chance of selling which should be a positive thing
Changes in micro-stock and especially by agencies like SS and even Adobe are made purely for one reason in the hope of increasing profits and in the case of SS trying to satisfy shareholders.
Thats a vast difference from a sort order change trying to benefit both agency and contributors.
Seems to be that the longer it goes the more SS is falling into the trap of the Getty way to never give their contributors an even and fair break.
This is excellent analysis since it is festival season so SS is offering all new wave of images to buyers but strangle all sales are .25 cents
How do you know?.....actually it happens not be be true
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Ever since the days of the celebrated Image-Bank in 75 the search believe it or not have been a computer orientated affair and internally as well. They have built up tons of experience and there is little doubt that this is one area where micro-stock can clearly learn something from the traditional agencies. Not Getty because their search is probably among the worlds worst taking into account who you are, collections and distributorsl.
Most of the traditional agencies housing RM content will give new images some two weeks exposure and not only in search but also bloggs, newsletters this and that. This will give buyers time to absorb new content and to actually look at it not just flicking through.
This new SS search is now being debated in a couple of private forums with dozens of fulltime stock-photographers and none is happy! why? well because its the usual rubbish and short term profit chasing the same old " we are sort of experimenting " lark and when you finally look at it youre hard pushed to find any new content at all.
besing close to X-mas shouldnt they at least be flaunting som X-mas stuff?
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I had 9 sales so far today of my last batch submitted yesterday.
Before, for the last months, I usually didn't sold anything new.
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It's all very odd.... I've been around for about 5 or 6 years now. The last few months have been TERRIBLE with old and some REALLY old and forgotten stuff selling, nothing new, not my usual best sellers.
But whatever they have done has improved my situation. This month is not like how it was, but way better than it has been lately.
I think they just keep tinkering, or else servers keep having issues...
Sometimes you are on the 'up' side and sometimes on the 'down'.....but you never know when things might change again....
Reminds me of the Skinner Box experiments - quote from Wikipedia:
"Skinner's research discovered many fascinating examples of animal behavior. One of the most interesting, perhaps, was Skinner's work on superstition. Instead of giving a reward for a specific action and training a specific behavior, Skinner would take a hungry pigeon and place it in a box that would release a food pellet at random. The pigeons developed all kinds of complex behavioral responses such as bowing, scraping, dancing, and neck turns.[7]
What happened was the pigeon would receive the food pellet while it happened to be performing some action, and rather than attributing the food pellet reward to randomness, it would assume that the appearance of the food pellet had something to do with its behavior. So it started doing whatever that action was, over and over again, and sure enough, it was eventually rewarded with a food pellet again. Since the pigeon is increasing the amount of time spent performing a particular action, it is also increasing the number of times it is "rewarded" for that action, even though the reward is random".
We are the pigeons but one day we will fly away....
no , pigeons never fly away to anywhere. they're not made to think that way...
much like ss contributors, lol..
i am more like pavlov dog. as soon as i hit my monthly average, i drop down dead
and see zeros for days.
so, for me, i hope one day the bell will stop ringing...
and when i hit the monthly average, it will go past that
and i wont have to drop down dead to see zeros anymore ;)
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This new SS search is now being debated in a couple of private forums with dozens of fulltime stock-photographers and none is happy! why?
Could it be because when people gather together to have a moan about money none of them is happy?
By the way, what evidence is there that there is a new SS search and that people aren't just seeing a seasonal Thanksgiving week slowdown? Not many sales for me today, either, though I have just picked up a nice fat SOD. That's one department where SS seems to be doing particularly well recently.
besing close to X-mas shouldnt they at least be flaunting som X-mas stuff?
Try typing "christmas" into the search (though the "best match" results have been disgracefully spammed). Apart from that, they should probably be flaunting Easter and Summer holiday stuff now. Christmas is just about over.
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No not moaning about money but rather about the total absence of new uploads. Just a question if you dont mind. Why are you defending any search change when after all these years you must be aware of that x-amount of portfolios will always suffer badly and some even slaughtered as much as some ports will show stunning results. This is a well know fact.
I find that a bit strange?
New sort order! well I put my trust in a Tech who is actually also a contributor rather then some colleagues here in a forum. I guess you would do the same. :)
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A couple of people here can not see any difference and thats explainable because its always been the same. Ports containing lots of travel, landscapes and sort of general content will not ever notice too much difference.
A change of algorithm will most certainly hit specialized portfolio ten times more. Thats where you find most of the high commercial content and probably most of the best sellers.
I do agree with that large Tech-firm Mullenengines or whatever they were called who sorted the Adobe before they became tangled up with FT. They stipulated that its always a very bad sign indeed when tweaking any search to the point where top sellers fall outside first 4-5 pages and since there is no undo or reverse button chances are they could be gone forever in a downslope.
re:redded...
it all depend on the objective of the agency.
if you are told by the shareholders to make quantity over quality, pay less,...
you would be arm-twisted to please 1 million newbies and/or oldies cheerleaders of 35 bucks a month earners
at the displeasure of 35 top earners selling a million .
like telemarketing, there is a lots more excited newbies waiting in line to replace the old experts
and they get paid less and get excited with lower sales more often.
ss is in no exertion to cater to top earners anymore; that's a mission for adobe (my guess this).
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Why are you defending any search change when after all these years you must be aware of that x-amount of portfolios will always suffer badly and some even slaughtered
We've all got slaughtered at some point - I died at least once in the Great iStock Carnage of 2006 (I think it was) and again in March this year. I honestly don't know if there is any significant shake-up, when I checked the Crete result by most popular the first several pages were full of excellent images. The Christmas "best match" is just reading the number of times spammers have put the word "Christmas" into their metadata (which is atrocious) and the most recent files are just appearing by... err.... most recent.
Out of the three search methods available it's hard to see how most popular or most recent have been changed. Best match has obviously been sabotaged by spammers but I doubt if that's a new development. If it is, then SS needs to sort it out because buyers will simply use the most popular instead.
Apart from that I just happen to be feeling fairly optimistic at the moment and refuse to be brought down by two or three people whinging about the search.
You haven't provided any evidence of the search changing that I've noticed, you don't even say which search it is that has changed, in fact you haven't given any indication that you know there are three different searches available to buyers.
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rts
and they get paid less and get excited with lower sales more often.
ss is in no exertion to cater to top earners anymore; that's a mission for adobe (my guess this).
SS - and the others - have never been there to cater for top earners, they're there to cater to buyers. Putting rubbish up front isn't going to do anybody any good. We got to be top earners by producing stuff people like and want and that stuff is going to keep on performing on its own strengths. But if newbies produce better stuff then we're going to take a hit. IF the flood of new images simply drowns out the best then SS will have a problem keeping its buyers happy. That's just business.
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rts
and they get paid less and get excited with lower sales more often.
ss is in no exertion to cater to top earners anymore; that's a mission for adobe (my guess this).
SS - and the others - have never been there to cater for top earners, they're there to cater to buyers. Putting rubbish up front isn't going to do anybody any good. We got to be top earners by producing stuff people like and want and that stuff is going to keep on performing on its own strengths. But if newbies produce better stuff then we're going to take a hit. IF the flood of new images simply drowns out the best then SS will have a problem keeping its buyers happy. That's just business.
good point, but 80.4% to the right of the page... says spammers are drowning the best .
ss never left the 90% during the heydays when istock was a challenger.
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rts
and they get paid less and get excited with lower sales more often.
ss is in no exertion to cater to top earners anymore; that's a mission for adobe (my guess this).
SS - and the others - have never been there to cater for top earners, they're there to cater to buyers. Putting rubbish up front isn't going to do anybody any good. We got to be top earners by producing stuff people like and want and that stuff is going to keep on performing on its own strengths. But if newbies produce better stuff then we're going to take a hit. IF the flood of new images simply drowns out the best then SS will have a problem keeping its buyers happy. That's just business.
good point, but 80.4% to the right of the page... says spammers are drowning the best .
ss never left the 90% during the heydays when istock was a challenger.
Just seen in another thread that they've started closing down some spammers, so that's good.
Anyway, the World Chess Championship is about to recommence so I'm off over there now. Catch you later
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Why are you defending any search change when after all these years you must be aware of that x-amount of portfolios will always suffer badly and some even slaughtered
We've all got slaughtered at some point - I died at least once in the Great iStock Carnage of 2006 (I think it was) and again in March this year. I honestly don't know if there is any significant shake-up, when I checked the Crete result by most popular the first several pages were full of excellent images. The Christmas "best match" is just reading the number of times spammers have put the word "Christmas" into their metadata (which is atrocious) and the most recent files are just appearing by... err.... most recent.
Out of the three search methods available it's hard to see how most popular or most recent have been changed. Best match has obviously been sabotaged by spammers but I doubt if that's a new development. If it is, then SS needs to sort it out because buyers will simply use the most popular instead.
Apart from that I just happen to be feeling fairly optimistic at the moment and refuse to be brought down by two or three people whinging about the search.
You haven't provided any evidence of the search changing that I've noticed, you don't even say which search it is that has changed, in fact you haven't given any indication that you know there are three different searches available to buyers.
yes same here I took a real blow with Istock back in 2006. Well you know its a bit more then two or three people, he he! I am not at liberty to give any names of private forums but trust me this time its one heck of a noise! same at the SS-forum ( theyre always crying ). I am not whinging about fallen earnings I can live with that it goes with the territory and up and downs are to be expected. My problem and I am asking myself why try and produce HCV files involving people with realeases this and that when the files show up just for a day and most of the times dont show at all. Thats my problem. I suppose it would be different if just producing apples and oranges.
Btw. like your cityscapes!
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Something must of changed because so many of us are now getting sales from new images when we were getting almost none before this week. New images seemed to be almost invisible until this week. I'm also seeing some really old images that haven't sold in almost a decade selling.
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I went into the catalog Manager i clicked that I sorted photos from the new to the old. What I had to see all the pictures were mixed.
Everything was ransacked.
That explains why the SS sales fell by 30-50%?
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No mixed images in my catalog manager, but sales are 50% down since Monday morning.
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"My problem and I am asking myself why try and produce HCV files involving people with releases" Indeed it seems they are not HCV anymore due to over supply......seems to be you can either react to market demand or continue on the same path of feeding the oversupply and reducing the value of the assets.
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Pauws! sorry but that was not a clever answer. You normally do better then that. ::)
Anyway I found out why they did a change so its now water under the bridge.
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Pauws! sorry but that was not a clever answer. You normally do better then that. ::)
Anyway I found out why they did a change so its now water under the bridge.
H'mm in what way? Its quite blunt I know but its how markets work as far as as I know.
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Anyway I found out why they did a change so its now water under the bridge.
Would you care to enlighten us?
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Take into account that reload of previously bought files (in same size) is for free (at least it was so couple years ago, i presume nothing is changed). Specially for seasonal themes and very often used themes agencies reload previously purchased files very often. It means that company and also seller lose potential money. This is one very impotant thing to focus not only on old, very popular stuff.
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Take into account that reload of previously bought files (in same size) is for free (at least it was so couple years ago, i presume nothing is changed). Specially for seasonal themes and very often used themes agencies reload previously purchased files very often. It means that company and also seller lose potential money. This is one very impotant thing to focus not only on old, very popular stuff.
I'm very satisfied with last days changes. Very.
I suppose no matter what anybody says, the negtives will find some conspiracy about how SS has changed search things against them. Them is most of the gloom and doom people here.
Uploaded March 2016, which is a new file? 170 download, #9 on popular search for two words. I don't see that as being hidden or buried? Other photos have done similar. Not everything does that well, but I'm not buried or hidden, just because something is new. I think most of the complainers are thinking they should have some special place because they are old or because they are better? Why can't new photos be equal and better? Oh wait, new photos don't sell.
How can two complete opposite claims be made over and over?
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Take into account that reload of previously bought files (in same size) is for free (at least it was so couple years ago, i presume nothing is changed). Specially for seasonal themes and very often used themes agencies reload previously purchased files very often. It means that company and also seller lose potential money. This is one very impotant thing to focus not only on old, very popular stuff.
I'm very satisfied with last days changes. Very.
I suppose no matter what anybody says, the negtives will find some conspiracy about how SS has changed search things against them. Them is most of the gloom and doom people here.
Uploaded March 2016, which is a new file? 170 download, #9 on popular search for two words. I don't see that as being hidden or buried? Other photos have done similar. Not everything does that well, but I'm not buried or hidden, just because something is new. I think most of the complainers are thinking they should have some special place because they are old or because they are better? Why can't new photos be equal and better? Oh wait, new photos don't sell.
How can two complete opposite claims be made over and over?
Be happy youre young and merry then! uploaded Feb 2016..... 293 sales. 2 ELs and one single-sale: $.99.
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"My problem and I am asking myself why try and produce HCV files involving people with releases" Indeed it seems they are not HCV anymore due to over supply......seems to be you can either react to market demand or continue on the same path of feeding the oversupply and reducing the value of the assets.
Perfect and right.
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Pauws! sorry but that was not a clever answer. You normally do better then that. ::)
Anyway I found out why they did a change so its now water under the bridge.
H'mm in what way? Its quite blunt I know but its how markets work as far as as I know.
Yes but I am not referring to HCV files being only people images. I am actually thinking more of conceptual photography as being images of commercial value and in that field there are just billions and billions of ideas that will never dry out.
I do agree that the so called waxy and colgate smiling lifestylers are probably on their way out. Oh well I don't do that. No fun! :)
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Pauws! sorry but that was not a clever answer. You normally do better then that. ::)
Anyway I found out why they did a change so its now water under the bridge.
H'mm in what way? Its quite blunt I know but its how markets work as far as as I know.
Yes but I am not referring to HCV files being only people images. I am actually thinking more of conceptual photography as being images of commercial value and in that field there are just billions and billions of ideas that will never dry out.
I do agree that the so called waxy and colgate smiling lifestylers are probably on their way out. Oh well I don't do that. No fun! :)
OK yes if you reckon you have something original and its not finding its way in front of buyers I can see that can be frustrating. As you surmise I was really thinking of the "image factory" style images that seem to be an ad nauseum repeat of the same thing with imperceptible differences.
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What did SS do now? It is just an awful awful Monday. Never seen it like this ...
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I'm doing fine, not good, but not bad either, just average sales...
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After all those 3 great days, it now looks same old wine again, only 4 sales day :(
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After all those 3 great days, it now looks same old wine again, only 4 sales today :(
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Something is badly wrong I have about 25 sales which is dreadful considering I always have way over 100 sales per day. This is also supposed to be a busy time just before the x-mas holidays.
What bugs me is that listening to reports the traditional agencies are doing great and I can back that up since I work with two of them.
Of course I might be very wrong but could it be that the micros have finally done it? been messing around just a bit too much for too long with both contributors and buyers bugs and glitches all along and no Tech help in sight.
Oh well hope not. :)
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No mixed images in my catalog manager, but sales are 50% down since Monday morning.
Yes they are, but you have to go around the 10/14 pages before seeing the very messy mix
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The place is a right mess! right now faulty sums are showing up and I am proud to have earnt close to 90K this month!! I mean whats going on over there?
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Went from 20-30 sales a day to 5 or less a day....... :o Horrible!
I'm a loyal contributor since 2011.
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I'm seeing a drop of about 15-20%. I'm still not sure if it's related to the day after the holidays or the search change. I'll have to wait a day or 2 to know for sure.
I did a search, and the search results are the same as always in my region (West Coast, United States). If there is a search change, it must be in another region of the world...maybe Europe or Asia.
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Went from 20-30 sales a day to 5 or less a day....... :o Horrible!
I'm a loyal contributor since 2011.
Loyalty means nothing in this business :(
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Hi, I noticed strong sales drop since monday 21 >:(. I still cant find out where the problem is? Search engine shows results as usual (i'm from Europe). Maybe is caused by upcoming holiday season, Who knows?
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I'm definitely seeing a pattern now. There is a drop about 15-20% in downloads. Search results seem to be consistent in the (West Coast) US and Europe, so maybe they made a change in Asia or elsewhere.
I'm very confident to say that my FT earnings will easily overtake my SS earnings for November.
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well the search that we see is actually not that interesting since in most cases depending on continent there is a Geo-search and also of course the buyers will see a different search from what we the members see.
Thats why most of the time we find some of our own files on lets say one to three pages thinking wow what a great placement. Buyers comes along and see the same files on something like page 10.
Not long ago I tried it out and asked a friend ( buyer ) in South-Africa to look up a file that I saw on page-1 he found the same file on page 11 and using the same search-word of course.
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Ok, let's test it. I see one of my files on page 1, 2nd position for "popular". Keyword "hare".
This is the image:
https://www.shutterstock.com/pic-363531434/stock-photo-wild-brown-hare-with-big-ears-sitting-in-a-grass.html?src=N99LsiXu1GgaBuI3cm_REA-1-1 (https://www.shutterstock.com/pic-363531434/stock-photo-wild-brown-hare-with-big-ears-sitting-in-a-grass.html?src=N99LsiXu1GgaBuI3cm_REA-1-1)
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The place is a right mess! right now faulty sums are showing up and I am proud to have earnt close to 90K this month!! I mean whats going on over there?
lol, i guess it was for the shareholders to spot check all the contributors' earnings...
so when they see yours ... 90K a month
and SNP tenths of thousands
and mine 11 k a month, etc..
they go ... waaaaaaza, this is good vultue picking stock (bad pun)...
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Ok, let's test it. I see one of my files on page 1, 2nd position for "popular". Keyword "hare".
This is the image:
https://www.shutterstock.com/pic-363531434/stock-photo-wild-brown-hare-with-big-ears-sitting-in-a-grass.html?src=N99LsiXu1GgaBuI3cm_REA-1-1 (https://www.shutterstock.com/pic-363531434/stock-photo-wild-brown-hare-with-big-ears-sitting-in-a-grass.html?src=N99LsiXu1GgaBuI3cm_REA-1-1)
Same result. West coast, US.
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I'm Europe, Slovenia....
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Page one, position two here in UK :)
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"Hi, I noticed strong sales drop since monday 21 >:(. I still cant find out where the problem is? Search engine shows results as usual (i'm from Europe). Maybe is caused by upcoming holiday season, Who knows?"
Yes, same here ... Very strange.
I notice a 40/50% drop in download in the last ten days ...
I'm from Europe, contributor from 2011.
In 6 years November will be first month with Shutterstock under 50% of my total earnings.
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My sales also fell big time since last week. -100 downloads a day. At first I thought it had to do with Thanksgiving but now I am afraid that it will take longer. Maybe they just mixed things up to give their portfolio a fresh look. Would make sense to me. Hope not and sales will come back soon. Time will tell.
New images do sell quicker now like they used to so I will just keep making new ones and hope old sales come back soon! :)
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Im seeing about 50% drop since 22 November. Typically, I would have 100+ DLs on a working day so I can see a difference. Im also in Europe, contributor since 2011.
Most of my best sellers are about 2-3 years old, I have very few files from the last six months - so I cant complain, I should have done more new work... :-\ It may be an algorithm change - some people are seeing increase in sale in the same period. Hopefully it will swing back at some point :)
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I think they want to pay their executives big bonuses for xmas, but don't want to dip into shareholder money. Therefore they decided to only report 10% of sales for a time
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The only thing I see is that sales are skewed more to new images again, like it was 7-8 years ago. Until a month ago it was frightening that new images didn't sell at all. In this last week it turned around, the frightening thing is that sales would be terrible without my images uploaded since this summer.
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Anybody experiencing a search-change at SS? because suddenly pictures are selling from my first submission some 12 years back. Its down and out embarrassing they are not even good but terrible!
Surely a change like that and people thats been there for years better prepare themselves for a lousy time indeed.
If you are embarrassed about one of your pictures delete it. The database is not your trash can. Whatever you put in there is to sell.
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Well honestly I dont know whats happened but the last three days have been astounding! almost 800 dollars in just three days. How often does that happen? all stills no videos!
X-mas is coming early thats for sure.
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Anybody experiencing a search-change at SS? because suddenly pictures are selling from my first submission some 12 years back. Its down and out embarrassing they are not even good but terrible!
Surely a change like that and people thats been there for years better prepare themselves for a lousy time indeed.
If you are embarrassed about one of your pictures delete it. The database is not your trash can. Whatever you put in there is to sell.
Those are the key words. He just said they are selling. If they weren't selling and were "terrible", then I would agree with you. We all need every single penny we can squeeze out of these moneygrubbers.
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Anybody experiencing a search-change at SS? because suddenly pictures are selling from my first submission some 12 years back. Its down and out embarrassing they are not even good but terrible!
Surely a change like that and people thats been there for years better prepare themselves for a lousy time indeed.
Not really. I noticed this: it SEEMS (but this is not a verifiable data) that anything has NEVER sold something, sometimes, one time in 2 weeks, even if you don't do anything, sells.
There was some time I wasn't uploading anything. Every 2 weeks something I never sold before had a "first time sale". Something that made me thing they try to sell EVERYTHING at least one time.
It's been two months since I was uploading 20-35 files a day: I have 6-7 "first sales" since 2 weeks ago.
I think there is something in their "stock management" that pushes files with 0 sales "up" to be viewed almost 1 time. My files aren't less embarassing that the new ones.
my 2 cents.
HTH
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Ok, let's test it. I see one of my files on page 1, 2nd position for "popular". Keyword "hare".
same, Italy...very nice wildlife pictures :D
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Thanks, so I guess, this "geo-location" search is just a conspiracy myth...
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Thanks, so I guess, this "geo-location" search is just a conspiracy myth...
Maybe? Maybe not? I know that SS sends cookies from what I search and I get ads to match that. Why can't that also match what it shows in search to previous search. If you look, login as a buyer, you will see last viewed images and searches.
They track buyers habits and we aren't buyers, most of us, so we see the same. Somebody else who buys will see different.
Search changed? So what, some will do better some not. Maybe next change I will do better and next after that you will. Can't be good for everybpdy all the time. Not worth the worry and nothing we can do to change that. Find something new to worry and complain about, maybe something we can change?
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It would be perfectly reasonable to try and match search results to the buyers history and even their location to reflect their preferences and in fact potentially beneficial. Whether they could do this successfully is another question.
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It would be perfectly reasonable to try and match search results to the buyers history and even their location to reflect their preferences and in fact potentially beneficial. Whether they could do this successfully is another question.
Considering how the site runs like a skateboard on a gravely path. You make a good point. Trying is one thing, success is a distant dream.
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Thanks, so I guess, this "geo-location" search is just a conspiracy myth...
Maybe? Maybe not? I know that SS sends cookies from what I search and I get ads to match that.
Yeah. For the life of me, I can't understand why they spend money on ads trying to convince me that I should buy my own photos from them..
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rts
and they get paid less and get excited with lower sales more often.
ss is in no exertion to cater to top earners anymore; that's a mission for adobe (my guess this).
SS - and the others - have never been there to cater for top earners, they're there to cater to buyers. Putting rubbish up front isn't going to do anybody any good. We got to be top earners by producing stuff people like and want and that stuff is going to keep on performing on its own strengths. But if newbies produce better stuff then we're going to take a hit. IF the flood of new images simply drowns out the best then SS will have a problem keeping its buyers happy. That's just business.
One of the best replies I seen on this topic! Plus 100 8)
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Thanks, so I guess, this "geo-location" search is just a conspiracy myth...
Maybe? Maybe not? I know that SS sends cookies from what I search and I get ads to match that.
Yeah. For the life of me, I can't understand why they spend money on ads trying to convince me that I should buy my own photos from them..
and if you did you'd be banned!
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We all need every single penny we can squeeze out of these moneygrubbers.
Good lord! It's just an agency trying to sell your images - the more "moneygrubbing" they do, the more you get paid.
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After this changes I can tell that with more then 16000 vectors (photos) and 8 years in this business I can't earn even $500 monthly!!! I don"t know what they changed but I know that this isn't serious business anymore. Maybe for part time job but that is a question for considering!!! They have every power!!!
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We all need every single penny we can squeeze out of these moneygrubbers.
Good lord! It's just an agency trying to sell your images - the more "moneygrubbing" they do, the more you get paid.
If only that were true. I notice the more moneygrubbing they do the less of it winds up in my pockets.
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Adobe/Ft and losing buyers^ Misic! I have even more photos there then you have vectors! We have had this for years and sooner or later its sorted itself out but this time I am not so sure and I seriously believe that they are losing it. It cant be a coincidence that an enormous amount of people not only here but in other forums and talks are seeing huge increses of earnings at Adobe and at the same time a major drop at SS. Its funny I am experiencing at least a 40% increase at Adobe and about a 30% loss at SS.
Baldrick is right though all theyre trying to do is selling our pictures and theyve done a fantastic job doing that for the last 12 years but just look at Getty! in the end they couldnt sustain and they have been on a downhill slope for the last three years.
How would you feel as a buyer approaching an agency with 100 million pictures trying to find anything?
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Video sales on SS are crapy this month too. Maybe the VB dumping prices disease has become pandemic.
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I'm finding video sales are slow everywhere at the moment. First week of December was OK and then a big slowdown. Seems a bit early yet for Christmas but who knows?
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the bad weather in US Midwest may be having more of an effect than any SS search change -- 1400 flights delayed, and probably affecting people in Chicago & other major cities
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Adobe/Ft and losing buyers^ Misic! I have even more photos there then you have vectors! We have had this for years and sooner or later its sorted itself out but this time I am not so sure and I seriously believe that they are losing it. It cant be a coincidence that an enormous amount of people not only here but in other forums and talks are seeing huge increses of earnings at Adobe and at the same time a major drop at SS. Its funny I am experiencing at least a 40% increase at Adobe and about a 30% loss at SS.
Baldrick is right though all theyre trying to do is selling our pictures and theyve done a fantastic job doing that for the last 12 years but just look at Getty! in the end they couldnt sustain and they have been on a downhill slope for the last three years.
How would you feel as a buyer approaching an agency with 100 million pictures trying to find anything?
I don't see that Adobe/Ft going up that much. I've been there so long as I'm on SS, but decline in sales at SS can't be measured with growth at Adobe/ft!!!
And I do not have only vectors. I have video and photos. They berried they database with bad photos and vectors in last two or three years!!!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Download numbers are up today. It's not back to pre-thanksgiving levels, but it's 20% higher than the last couple weeks. I wonder if they fixed something.
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Looking like the 5th zero day this month, happy christmas!
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My sales are also higher than a week ago. Actually they're quite good. Nice to see that also new files are selling very well.
Maybe that's a good thing that files are dissapearing, because when they show up again in the mean time files of other contributors dissapear and they're more visible :) Just a thought though, don't know if this is true...