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Author Topic: The Importance of Correct Keywords.  (Read 16906 times)

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FlowerPower

« Reply #25 on: February 17, 2016, 12:52 »
0
By now people here should see that good words help your search placement and spam makes your pictures drop. Alamy explains that, clicks, views, zooms, sales. Raises search

Alamy's rank is by contributor, not by individual file. Also contrary to what they say, words anywhere in the title, caption or keywords all affect search, so searches are by no means always clean. For example, search Leonards Cohen Doesn't  matter if you don't  have  a clue  what  he looks like - it will be perfectly obvious  that many of the top ranking pics aren't  him. Yet further down the search are plenty which are him. Actually in this case  few if the badly placed files are spammed , it's the way the search is pulling words from different fields combined with the rank of the contributor. Which must be annoying  for buyers and lower ranked togs with truly relevant pics.
But there is a lot of egregious spamming by Alamy contributors, so don't  imagine it's  the domain only of microstockers. I've seen pretty shocking keywording by direct uploaders to Getty too.
It just seems to be totally endemic. Why the buyers don't  complain a lot more is a mystery.

All the major micro agencies monitor keywords used to buy photos. Stop with your always looking at the negative and exceptions. If a word is searched and the photo sells, that gives a boost. If a word doesn't match, doesn't get a click or view, it adds nothing, takes away nothing, that's just relative. Positive advances for more postive results, places the photo higher in the search by many reasons.

We aren't harmed by negative results in a search as much as rewarded for positive results. Your name or leonard cohn doesn't lower rank or serach. Like here, search can only give + for search.


ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #26 on: February 17, 2016, 13:17 »
+1
^^ You believe what they tell us, and I'll believe the results I find. I assure you that the examples I give are by no means exceptions.

FlowerPower

« Reply #27 on: February 18, 2016, 22:43 »
0
^^ You believe what they tell us, and I'll believe the results I find. I assure you that the examples I give are by no means exceptions.

I see THEY and the truth. What are the results you find? Show me proof

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #28 on: February 19, 2016, 05:24 »
0
^^ You believe what they tell us, and I'll believe the results I find. I assure you that the examples I give are by no means exceptions.

I see THEY and the truth. What are the results you find? Show me proof

That's  not what I said. I said we each have different beliefs. Probably neither of us has the whole story, and it will be different between agencies.
 I have already given clear examples from Shutterstock-com and Alamy. You can do any number of similar searches in both agencies and find the same sort of  results. Also on Alamy any photo of Joe Bloggs and Jane Doe ( assuming each name is somewhere in the title, caption or keywords ) will also appear in a search for John Doe or Janet Bloggs,  higher or lower in the search according to the AR of the contributor.
Alamy is totally open that Alamy Rank is per contributor, not per individual file. That's  why they encourage pseudonym use.

iS keeps telling us that their system is as you described above. However, the minute a file is accepted, before  it's searchable, the keywords are rearranged, slightly in 'classic' view, radically and inexplicably in new view, where specifics  are pushed down in favour of much more general kws.
In iS in particular, for years people were reporting that a buy on one particular keyword  was a negative on the other keywords. For too long, like you, I didn't believe it, but I have two files which are high in best match for a more generic term and very low for the most obvious keyword. I'm not doing to show the files, but in keywording hierarchy it's  like being high for 'furniture' but very low for sofa. (These are not the words).
However like I said, I'll believe on my evidence, you are free to come to your own conclusions based on naive optimism.
« Last Edit: February 21, 2016, 10:59 by ShadySue »

« Reply #29 on: February 22, 2016, 19:00 »
0
DM shows iStock order for keywords. They don't hide anything from us. The words are in IS order, not our order. Is that some kind of naive optimism? Or do you just not undertsnad the facts in your negative world.

Every search on every site finds the words that we entered, when a buyer searches them, it finds the words they looked for. Your beloved IS, where you are exclusive, doesn't recognize a name it gets marked with a star as a not word, but if you have John Smith in the words, would you like IS to not find John and Smith? What should it find in your world? Some other words?

You keep using Alamy as the example because they are the only that ranks partly by contributor rank. The rest don't. Alamy also ranks search by relevance and diversity. Do you pay attention to that? All agencies use views, preview, search words, and a big many other things to make a match. It's not just about your words.

Because the agencies don't tell you how they do everything, you can't just make up your guess and claim it's intelligence. It's just a guess. When I ask for proof you answer, not naive optimism. Maybe not but it's not some imaginative conspiracy based on no facts or logic.

Many of my photos show on page 1 of SS search out of thousands of matches. Might be because they have good clean keywords or because I use words that have a good relation to word searches. But you complain and you aren't with SS. You should lean how IS works.

Correct precise keywords are important, there's nothing to agency tricks against us about that.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #30 on: February 22, 2016, 21:37 »
0
DM shows iStock order for keywords. They don't hide anything from us. The words are in IS order, not our order. Is that some kind of naive optimism? Or do you just not undertsnad the facts in your negative world.

I only go by the evidence I see, not by people telling me how they think, or have been told, that the system works.
DM shows MY order for keywords, not iStock's.
My most recent file, no sales  The views it has are directly from my 'look at this' link, not via a keyword search:

Top, the order I uploaded in (directly, not via DM)
Next down: the order DM has the keywords in, which is the same as my original order.
Next down: the order in the Classic view, a bit changed.
Last: The order in the New view: totally different from the order I uploaded in, and was like that as soon as it was accepted, before it had any views.

Particularly, notice how the main keyword (the species name) has sunk right down to insignificance in the New View. Yet if I was only allowed one keyword, that would be the one.
Also know that although it says 'sort by iStock order', that isn't what it means. QED.

BTW, being exclusive at iS doesn't mean it's beloved to me, I can't imagine where you got that idea; it means that it was the best of a bad lot, inasmuch as back then, they didn't have subs. Though of course, back in the day, it wasn't that bad (IMO).

I totally don't understand your John Smith/iS example. If you want any keyword phrase to show up, you need to ask them to add it to the CV, otherwise it won't show up, ever since some bug was introduced (Previously they could be searched in quotes, if the buyer knew to do that, and old keyword phrases not in the CV can still be searched that way, but not new single words or 'keyword phrases' on files added since over a year ago, you need to ask for it to be added.) The words which are old 'added for your own use' files, and are searchable in one language only, not translated, by using quotes are blue in Deep Meta and have a tickbox. The ones which are blue with no tickbox can't be searched at all.

I wouldn't normally keyword John and Smith separately, as it messes up search far too much, though obviously thereby I'm missing sales to people wanting to write articles about Johns or Smiths. Occasionally, I might have to do similar, if they decide not to add 'John Smith' or whatever to the CV. On other occasions, if the individual words aren't in the CV either, not adding the main keyword/keyword phrase might be an indication that there's little if any point having the image on iS, as the only possibility of a sale would be from secondary keywords (if the 'John Smith' not in the cv was the most important kw).

I don't see Alamy having a sort by diversity; what I see is searches by New, Creative and Relevant. Relevant is much better than it was a year or two ago, for sure (since they took location and contributer name out of the keyword search, for example), but still as the example I gave shows, it doesn't always show the most relevant files most highly. I can still see 'bizarre' searches coming up in my Measures which are a combination of words from different keyword sections.
All the factors, zooms, sales etc affect Alamy Rank, which is per contributor/pseudo. BHZ shows the effect.  Otherwise, what would the point of pseudos be?

'Creative' I have no idea about. I have a series where some are Creative and most are not, yet it's an editorial series with no difference in the way they were shot. whether they have sold or been zoomed or not doesn't seem to be influencing creative.

I have advocated clean keywording on here from the very beginning. But what the agencies do with keywords ...  :(
« Last Edit: February 23, 2016, 08:22 by ShadySue »

« Reply #31 on: February 23, 2016, 04:57 »
0
I'm quite happy for these folks to spam their images  It makes buying from Microstock companies unreliable for clients that require accuracy. Therefor they continue to buy from the specialist (often RM) agencies where prices are much higher.

What would make a buyer trust a RM agency more? In Alamy you keyword files after they are approved and there is plenty of space for spamming. Are the keywords checked afterwards?

PS Having multiple unrelated geographic locations for one image looks more cheating to me than spamming..

« Reply #32 on: February 23, 2016, 05:15 »
+1
I used to chuck in every keyword I could think of (pertinent of course) but now less so. I spent more time getting the description right because the agencies told me it drove traffic. I found keywords/phrases that nobody was using but which I thought were essential.

But - I have no idea AT ALL if any of these make a difference or not since sales dropped across the board in mid 2015.....so now I worry about the things I can change and leave everything else to the runes.

« Reply #33 on: February 23, 2016, 06:06 »
0
I'm quite happy for these folks to spam their images  It makes buying from Microstock companies unreliable for clients that require accuracy. Therefor they continue to buy from the specialist (often RM) agencies where prices are much higher.

What would make a buyer trust a RM agency more? In Alamy you keyword files after they are approved and there is plenty of space for spamming. Are the keywords checked afterwards?

PS Having multiple unrelated geographic locations for one image looks more cheating to me than spamming..

Alamy isn't a specialist agency.

50%

« Reply #34 on: February 23, 2016, 06:37 »
+3


I'm quite happy for these folks to spam their images  It makes buying from Microstock companies unreliable for clients that require accuracy. Therefor they continue to buy from the specialist (often RM) agencies where prices are much higher.
+1000000000000000000000000000000000000000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FlowerPower

« Reply #35 on: March 25, 2016, 11:32 »
0
By now people here should see that good words help your search placement and spam makes your pictures drop. Alamy explains that, clicks, views, zooms, sales. Raises search

Alamy's rank is by contributor, not by individual file. Also contrary to what they say, words anywhere in the title, caption or keywords all affect search, so searches are by no means always clean. For example, search Leonards Cohen Doesn't  matter if you don't  have  a clue  what  he looks like - it will be perfectly obvious  that many of the top ranking pics aren't  him. Yet further down the search are plenty which are him. Actually in this case  few if the badly placed files are spammed , it's the way the search is pulling words from different fields combined with the rank of the contributor. Which must be annoying  for buyers and lower ranked togs with truly relevant pics.
But there is a lot of egregious spamming by Alamy contributors, so don't  imagine it's  the domain only of microstockers. I've seen pretty shocking keywording by direct uploaders to Getty too.
It just seems to be totally endemic. Why the buyers don't  complain a lot more is a mystery.

Remember when description was searched and people would add a short book. New Alamy 1 keyword box, 10 weighted will solve most except the spam people.

« Reply #36 on: March 25, 2016, 12:43 »
0
theres spamming in every agency, micro, macro, rf, rm you name it, why is he upset about spamming at shutter when he is not even part of it?

the buyer doesnt notice that the background is canada and not the states, cant blame the photographer for that stupidity.

Rose Tinted Glasses

« Reply #37 on: March 25, 2016, 13:15 »
0
theres spamming in every agency, micro, macro, rf, rm you name it, why is he upset about spamming at shutter when he is not even part of it?

the buyer doesnt notice that the background is canada and not the states, cant blame the photographer for that stupidity.

Perhaps you miss the point...  regardless of where you submit your work, bad keywords affect us all, and accuracy in keywords benefits us all. This is a fact regardless if you are RM, RF, Macro, Micro, etc.

I don't think the blame lies on the buyer at all. If I search for "monkey" and end up by purchasing and publishing a photo of an "ape" due to inaccurate keywords and being a buyer who sits in an office somewhere working for a magazine or whatever how am I to suddenly become a specialist in "primates"? Now if I were  to search for "primates" as a buyer and published a "monkey" or an "ape" that would be accurate.

After all, who came out looking good with such inaccurate keywords? Accurate keywords don't make news headlines or retractions.

And yes it is totally the photographer's fault. How can one shot/clip of a harbor in Canada be several different harbors in two different countries as per the keywords used?




« Last Edit: March 25, 2016, 13:17 by Rose Tinted Glasses »

« Reply #38 on: March 25, 2016, 14:13 »
+1
well in that logic you cannot expect a photographer to be a specialist either,

 i make an effort to correctly keyword my images, but i dont know if the bird in my photo is for example a larus or a kittiwake, i dont care, they look the same

« Reply #39 on: March 25, 2016, 14:14 »
+1
as for the city names, chichikov already touched on that

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #40 on: March 25, 2016, 14:27 »
+2
i make an effort to correctly keyword my images, but i dont know if the bird in my photo is for example a larus or a kittiwake, i dont care, they look the same
::) :( Thereby starts the slippery slope:

Stage 2: One "doesn't care" about Terns or Fulmars either, as they "look the same" as Gulls on a superficial glimpse.
...
Stage 5: One thinks all rhinos "look the same", and "don't care", so you photoshop (badly) an extra horn onto a photo of an Indian/One-horned Rhinoceros and submit it to iStock titled, described and keyworded as a Black Rhino, including a description of the shape of the mouth, which clearly doesn't apply to your actual photo of a different species. (I just found that hoax on iS a couple of days ago, and haven't  got over it yet.)
« Last Edit: March 25, 2016, 18:38 by ShadySue »

Rose Tinted Glasses

« Reply #41 on: March 25, 2016, 20:03 »
+3
i dont care

That is very reassuring for professional photo buyers and a great character reference.
 :(


Chichikov

« Reply #42 on: March 26, 2016, 03:40 »
0
as for the city names, chichikov already touched on that

Yes, a simple example, the transliteration of capital of Ukraine.
Киев (Kiev) in Russian
Київ (Kyiv) in Ukrainian

The official language in Ukraine is Ukrainian (even if everybody speaks also Russian there).

In October 2006, the United States federal government changed its official spelling of the city name to Kyiv, upon the recommendation of the US Board of Geographic Names. The British government has also started using Kyiv.

So why the Shutterstock system continues to accept Kiev and to reject Kyiv?
I dont mean that Kiev should be rejected, because it is still very used, and honestly it is still the most used form all over the world, but Kyiv should not be considered as an error because it is the official orthography.
In my opinion both transliterations should be accepted.

« Reply #43 on: March 26, 2016, 04:00 »
+2
selective quoting to make a point, you should be in politics rtg, read my full comments and try to understand what i am saying

« Reply #44 on: March 26, 2016, 04:08 »
+1
as for the city names, chichikov already touched on that

Yes, a simple example, the transliteration of capital of Ukraine.
Киев (Kiev) in Russian
Київ (Kyiv) in Ukrainian

The official language in Ukraine is Ukrainian (even if everybody speaks also Russian there).

In October 2006, the United States federal government changed its official spelling of the city name to Kyiv, upon the recommendation of the US Board of Geographic Names. The British government has also started using Kyiv.

So why the Shutterstock system continues to accept Kiev and to reject Kyiv?
I dont mean that Kiev should be rejected, because it is still very used, and honestly it is still the most used form all over the world, but Kyiv should not be considered as an error because it is the official orthography.
In my opinion both transliterations should be accepted.

I guess SS vocabulary is just not properly updated, it especially concerns the geo names. It gives me errors all the time, because it doesn't know half of the map, I ignore and submit as it is anyway..

In case of Kyiv though I would use both spellings in keywords since both could be used in searches (I actually spell as "Kiev" because I transliterate from Russian)

Chichikov

« Reply #45 on: March 26, 2016, 04:14 »
0
selective quoting to make a point, you should be in politics rtg, read my full comments and try to understand what i am saying


???????????????????

What selective quoting??
I have quoted all your post.

And what is your rantings about politics??
What do you mean?


Edit: Sorry, just misunderstanding
« Last Edit: March 26, 2016, 04:21 by Chichikov »

« Reply #46 on: March 26, 2016, 04:16 »
+1
i wasnt replying to your comment

Chichikov

« Reply #47 on: March 26, 2016, 04:18 »
0
i wasnt replying to your comment

Okay.
But generally when you answer to a comment without quoting it means that you answer to the previous comment, it is the use (netiquette) on forums ;)

« Reply #48 on: March 26, 2016, 04:24 »
+1
i wasnt replying to your comment

Okay.
But generally when you answer to a comment without quoting it means that you answer to the previous comment, it is the use (netiquette) on forums ;)

it was referred to "rtg" ;D

« Reply #49 on: March 26, 2016, 04:32 »
+2
netiquette also requires to read a comment properly and then you would have noticed it was addressed to someone else


 

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