Author Topic: What's left to do (Read 7746 times)

morning.light · « **on:** May 20, 2013, 08:10 »

I worked like a maniac for almost an year to create 300 good images. Around 200 were accepted by SS. After a lot of stress, uploading, rejections, failures, I started at last to have 100 downloads a month. I finally felt motivated to upload more. I had around 10 pictures on the first popular pages which brought constant income.

Then SS did whatever they did with the search and only 1 of those 10 pictures is still on the first page ( but almost at the bottom ). My downloads dropped and I'll probably have only 40 downloads this month ( from 100 ), and that's only because the first half of the month was still on the old algorithm.

What can you do in this situation? When an entire year of hard work just goes to hell one night?

rubyroo · « **Reply #1 on:** May 20, 2013, 08:16 »

Just keep going. Upload as often as you can. Build up your numbers.

The longer you're in the game (IME), the lower the impact of algorithm changes. Eventually, if the algorithm favours old stuff, you have plenty of it. If it favours new stuff, you have plenty of that too.

Just find a rhythm that works for you to keep building. Focus on quality first and numbers second, but you need both.

Poncke v2 · « **Reply #2 on:** May 20, 2013, 09:01 »

You went from 100dls a month to 40 in half a month. Thats not destroying a years work imo, but a 20% drop, and it might pick up in the second half of may. With 300 images, a drop is much more in spikes as the effect of a few less sales is amplified. Just keep working away and your bottom line will go up.

fotografer · « **Reply #3 on:** May 20, 2013, 09:06 »

When they change the search there are winners and there are losers. Unfortunately for you this time you are one of the losers. Another time it might be you that benefits from it and others will be complaining while you are smiling. It's just the way it works and it happens some time or other to all of us.

fotografer · « **Reply #4 on:** May 20, 2013, 09:08 »

Quote from: Poncke v2 on May 20, 2013, 09:01

You went from 100dls a month to 40 in half a month. Thats not destroying a years work imo, but a 20% drop, and it might pick up in the second half of may. With 300 images, a drop is much more in spikes as the effect of a few less sales is amplified. Just keep working away and your bottom line will go up.

He said that he expects to finish the month with 40 and only because the beginning of the month was good so it is a much bigger drop.

Poncke v2 · « **Reply #5 on:** May 20, 2013, 09:25 »

Quote from: fotografer on May 20, 2013, 09:08

Quote from: Poncke v2 on May 20, 2013, 09:01
You went from 100dls a month to 40 in half a month. Thats not destroying a years work imo, but a 20% drop, and it might pick up in the second half of may. With 300 images, a drop is much more in spikes as the effect of a few less sales is amplified. Just keep working away and your bottom line will go up.
He said that he expects to finish the month with 40 and only because the beginning of the month was good so it is a much bigger drop.

Ok, I misread that bit.

But its still true, I had those big ups and downs as well, in percentage, albeit at the start up.

I agree though, that the behavior of the search is quite erratic lately

Pauws99 · « **Reply #6 on:** May 20, 2013, 09:51 »

Are you on other sites? - that spreads the risk.

Noedelhap · « **Reply #7 on:** May 20, 2013, 11:27 »

Stop worrying about changes in search algorithms, it's non-productive. All these search and Best Match discussions are a waste of time. Microstock isn't about short term, it's all about the long term. Just keep uploading stuff, and look back after a year or so to see what has sold and what hasn't.

ruxpriencdiam · « **Reply #8 on:** May 20, 2013, 12:16 »

Quote from: Noedelhap on May 20, 2013, 11:27

Stop worrying about changes in search algorithms, it's non-productive. All these search and Best Match discussions are a waste of time. Microstock isn't about short term, it's all about the long term. Just keep uploading stuff, and look back after a year or so to see what has sold and what hasn't.

Here here +1

tab62 · « **Reply #9 on:** May 20, 2013, 12:20 »

also toss in 'Rejections' just learn from them and keep uploading- in time your portfolio will gain in size and quality thus bringing in more $$

Batman · « **Reply #10 on:** May 21, 2013, 19:33 »

Quote from: Noedelhap on May 20, 2013, 11:27

Stop worrying about changes in search algorithms, it's non-productive. All these search and Best Match discussions are a waste of time. Microstock isn't about short term, it's all about the long term. Just keep uploading stuff, and look back after a year or so to see what has sold and what hasn't.

+ How did the 10 photos go on the front page, sombody else 10 had to be moved off. Same thing happens all the time. New come up old go down. Nothing stays in front always. The blame the algorythm is a waste of time because the answer is new photos come in thousands a day and move old down.

Keep uploading new and stay on top. King of the hill gets knocked down by new Kings. There's nothing that says once on top you get to stay on top. Like I ask, how did your 10 get on first page? They bumped somebody else off. That's not algorythm.

morning.light · « **Reply #11 on:** May 23, 2013, 16:48 »

Actually, it IS the algorithm. Yes, having your pictures knocked down is natural, but not all of them at once... One goes down, you upload 20 more pics that week and you'll probably be fine, because one of those 20 has to sell well and will replace the picture that went down. But when 9 pictures go down at the same time, how many do you have to upload that week to still keep your earnings at the same level?

Nothing is selling anymore on SS. I went to 0 sales days again. When I made this topic I said that I'm probably going to have 40 sales this month, but even that was optimistic.

Anyway, I didn't make this topic to whine and annoy everyone. I guess I just needed some words of encouragement because I literally felt like crying when the sales took that dramatic course. Even though I'm young, I don't have much hope for normal employment due to some health problems, and microstock allows me to work when I'm feeling ok, not to say that taking pictures is my hobby. And suddenly seeing everything go to hell after so much work was a big blow.

Yes, I know, things like these happen in microstock. It happened before, it's just that the situation now was much much worse than before. You can't just ignore a 80% drop in sales and go on. But I guess I have to try to do it anyway.

Thanks to everyone who replied.

JPSDK · « **Reply #12 on:** May 23, 2013, 16:53 »

morning.light
it sounds like you need a kick in the ass and some help.
If you PM me, Ill do the best I can.

gbalex · « **Reply #13 on:** May 23, 2013, 18:56 »

Quote from: Poncke v2 on May 20, 2013, 09:01

You went from 100dls a month to 40 in half a month. Thats not destroying a years work imo, but a 20% drop, and it might pick up in the second half of may. With 300 images, a drop is much more in spikes as the effect of a few less sales is amplified. Just keep working away and your bottom line will go up.

No it is a 60% drop and lots of us are experiencing this. Today I feel like focusing on RM work, I have had enough frustration over the last few months. SS has stacked the cards against us and the site shows every indication it is ready to implode.

My best selling images normally degrade over time if the clients like them. This time they dropped off the front page over night and that does not happen unless they deliberately make changes to hide them from buyers.

gbalex · « **Reply #14 on:** May 23, 2013, 19:02 »

Quote from: morning.light on May 23, 2013, 16:48

Actually, it IS the algorithm. Yes, having your pictures knocked down is natural, but not all of them at once... One goes down, you upload 20 more pics that week and you'll probably be fine, because one of those 20 has to sell well and will replace the picture that went down. But when 9 pictures go down at the same time, how many do you have to upload that week to still keep your earnings at the same level?

Nothing is selling anymore on SS. I went to 0 sales days again. When I made this topic I said that I'm probably going to have 40 sales this month, but even that was optimistic.

Anyway, I didn't make this topic to whine and annoy everyone. I guess I just needed some words of encouragement because I literally felt like crying when the sales took that dramatic course. Even though I'm young, I don't have much hope for normal employment due to some health problems, and microstock allows me to work when I'm feeling ok, not to say that taking pictures is my hobby. And suddenly seeing everything go to hell after so much work was a big blow.

Yes, I know, things like these happen in microstock. It happened before, it's just that the situation now was much much worse than before. You can't just ignore a 80% drop in sales and go on. But I guess I have to try to do it anyway.

Thanks to everyone who replied.

I agree with you, I think we need to find other options as long as SS continues to make these choices. Maybe it is time for us to look for other options.

falstafff · « **Reply #15 on:** May 24, 2013, 02:39 »

Quote from: morning.light on May 20, 2013, 08:10

I worked like a maniac for almost an year to create 300 good images. Around 200 were accepted by SS. After a lot of stress, uploading, rejections, failures, I started at last to have 100 downloads a month. I finally felt motivated to upload more. I had around 10 pictures on the first popular pages which brought constant income.

Then SS did whatever they did with the search and only 1 of those 10 pictures is still on the first page ( but almost at the bottom ). My downloads dropped and I'll probably have only 40 downloads this month ( from 100 ), and that's only because the first half of the month was still on the old algorithm.

What can you do in this situation? When an entire year of hard work just goes to hell one night?

Yes they certainly know how to re-pay honest and hard work dont they? the wonderful thing about a search is that the actual sort can be skewed so that it only benefits the agency, any agency but not the contributor. The powers of the Internet.

fotografer · « **Reply #16 on:** May 24, 2013, 04:29 »

Quote from: falstafff on May 24, 2013, 02:39

Yes they certainly know how to re-pay honest and hard work dont they? the wonderful thing about a search is that the actual sort can be skewed so that it only benefits the agency, any agency but not the contributor.

However they skew the search some contributors benefit. For everybody that loses a sale somebody else gains one.

falstafff · « **Reply #17 on:** May 24, 2013, 08:45 »

Quote from: fotografer on May 24, 2013, 04:29

Quote from: falstafff on May 24, 2013, 02:39

Yes they certainly know how to re-pay honest and hard work dont they? the wonderful thing about a search is that the actual sort can be skewed so that it only benefits the agency, any agency but not the contributor.
However they skew the search some contributors benefit. For everybody that loses a sale somebody else gains one.

Yes exactly and thats yet another way, to skew the search CERTAIN contributors way. Anything and everything is possible to do with a sort algorithm.

Pauws99 · « **Reply #18 on:** May 24, 2013, 09:00 »

No algorithm forces people to buy images people dont want

falstafff · « **Reply #19 on:** May 24, 2013, 09:13 »

Quote from: Pauws99 on May 24, 2013, 09:00

No algorithm forces people to buy images people dont want

Ofcourse it forces people into buying! very few have probably got the time to flick through tons of pages until they finally arrive at what they really wanted. Thats the art of it.

Poncke v2 · « **Reply #20 on:** May 24, 2013, 10:26 »

Quote from: falstafff on May 24, 2013, 09:13

Quote from: Pauws99 on May 24, 2013, 09:00
No algorithm forces people to buy images people dont want

Ofcourse it forces people into buying! very few have probably got the time to flick through tons of pages until they finally arrive at what they really wanted. Thats the art of it.

That in bold are two different statements

Pauws99 · « **Reply #21 on:** May 24, 2013, 10:58 »

Ofcourse it forces people into buying! very few have probably got the time to flick through tons of pages until they finally arrive at what they really wanted. Thats the art of it.
[/quote]

So how do you know its YOUR images that people want - if images are very similar to others its just the luck of the draw isn't it?

gbalex · « **Reply #22 on:** May 24, 2013, 11:20 »

Quote from: Pauws99 on May 24, 2013, 09:00

No algorithm forces people to buy images people dont want

No but they do force us to view images we do not need or want and it forces us to squander time looking through piles/pages of images.

Which is exactly why I quit buying at IS, they buried the images I did want and force fed us poor quality expensive images I did not need. It took so long to find relevant images we did need, I abandoned the site.

If you will notice traffic is down at SS. When the popular searches are not served by the sites and images are instead allowed to rise in popularity based on buyers needs then you will find more useful and high quality images at the top of searches.

In the past that was the case at SS, the popular search reflected what the buyer wanted and needed. Images rose in popularity based on merit determined by the buyers. Now SS has decided to bury those images so that they can serve us the content that is in their best interest to sell, in other words what is best for their own bottom line and not what is best for buyers.

They killed the merit system that made them successful in the first place.

Pauws99 · « **Reply #23 on:** May 24, 2013, 12:26 »

good explanation thank you

falstafff · « **Reply #24 on:** May 24, 2013, 12:50 »

Quote from: Pauws99 on May 24, 2013, 10:58

Ofcourse it forces people into buying! very few have probably got the time to flick through tons of pages until they finally arrive at what they really wanted. Thats the art of it.

So how do you know its YOUR images that people want - if images are very similar to others its just the luck of the draw isn't it?
[/quote]

Just to keep it nice and friendly and put an end to it. I agree completely with what you say.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #25 on:** May 24, 2013, 18:11 »

My sales seem to remain constant regardless of the various best match shifts. I think it is because I don't bother chasing the "most popular" lists, instead I just upload fairly LCV stuff that it isn't worth people trying to copy.

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Author Topic: What's left to do (Read 7746 times)

morning.light

rubyroo

Poncke v2

fotografer

fotografer

Poncke v2

Pauws99

Noedelhap

ruxpriencdiam

tab62

Batman

morning.light

JPSDK

gbalex

gbalex

falstafff

fotografer

falstafff

Pauws99

falstafff

Poncke v2

Pauws99

gbalex

Pauws99

falstafff

BaldricksTrousers

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