Agency Based Discussion > Shutterstock.com
Someone tricked the Shutterstock algorithm?
Roscoe:
Brought up on the Shutterstock forum, but some of you might have missed it.
Check the guy's portfolio and then the ranking of his images
(not sure if I'm allowed to put up a link to his portfolio here, but you can find it on the SS forum in the One account phenomenon topic)
The guy has a lot of his images showing up on the first page for highly competitive keywords. (e.g. car, cat, beach, ...)
Now, I'm sure a lot of you have similar images in terms of quality of cars, cats, beaches and so on but most of them are probably nowhere near the first pages.
And he managed to get a lot of his content on the first page for highly competitive keywords. Not just a few lucky submissions which gained traction.
A bit too much to be a coincidence, and the balance between quality, competition and ranking seems to be off if you ask me.
So how did he do it?
My personal theory on this is that he paid clickfarm-like organizations to buy images from his portfolio until they reached on the first page.
Is it true? I don't know, but if it is, a lot of others are probably doing the same.
Firn:
Saw the thread too. It's really...curious.
His images are quite decent, probably above average for Shutterstock standard, but not as extraordinary as to explain why they are pretty much all up on the first page when seraching for the most basic words like beach, stone or cloud. When you compare his to other top images for some search results, for example "beach", his images actually stand out as being of poorer quality than the other images.
The sad thing is - We will never find out what happaned here.
Someone having friends buy his photos like crazy the moment they are approved to raise them in the search?
Someone managed to hack into the database?
Someone doing someone else a favor by deliberate placing all his images high in the search?
Whatever it is, it will be impossible to get someone from Shutterstock to even see the thread, aknowledge that there is something strange going on, yet alone look into it, take actions and, most of all, ever tell us what the reason was. There isn't really anyone around from Shutterstock at the forum. Kate, who was hardly present, left, Alex, who according to her still is an admin hasn't been seein in months and when you contact the Support via mail you get fowarded to other contributors with reading comprehension problems who will give you a copy & paste reply that won't address the issue.
So, this will probably stay a big mystery forever. :-\
But it's obvious that there isn't something right and it's really frustrating to other contributors who play by the rules....
Dodie:
I say it's witchcraft.
lazy_ella:
It's amazing! I tried it with random stuff - tree, clouds, woman, man, truck, grass, color, ... He's always there, usually in the very first row.
And you can always tell which photo is going to turn out to be his! ;D
For example, this stunning shot is the second result if you search for "rabbit": https://www.shutterstock.com/de/image-photo/little-funny-rabbit-running-on-field-1627393333
Firn:
--- Quote from: lazy_ella on April 23, 2021, 04:56 ---It's amazing! I tried it with random stuff - tree, clouds, woman, man, truck, grass, color, ... He's always there, usually in the very first row.
And you can always tell which photo is going to turn out to be his! ;D
For example, this stunning shot is the second result if you search for "rabbit": https://www.shutterstock.com/de/image-photo/little-funny-rabbit-running-on-field-1627393333
--- End quote ---
Yepp, that's what I meant - His photos always stand out as being of noticable poorer quality compared to all other images in the top image results. A photo of a bunny turning its back to the camera is not a "top image". A photo of someone's back in a chair at a beach with gloomy sky doesn't fit into the other pictures of beautiful sunlit beaches and so on.... If you look at all the other images, you can always understand why they have a place in the top results, but not with his.
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