Author Topic: Veer sales nowadays (Read 20879 times)

fiftyfootelvis · « **Reply #50 on:** May 12, 2015, 13:12 »

Pretty slow. I might get a payout once a year.
It's too bad, sales used to be pretty strong at Veer and I still like company.
I buy stock from them because the quality of the images and the search engine is better than a lot of sites.
More consistantly creative/artisitic.

Dumc · « **Reply #51 on:** May 13, 2015, 15:03 »

I am proud to announce, I've made my first sale at Veer.

It was this file: http://marketplace.veer.com/products/9390596

And it earned me 2.10$

marthamarks · « **Reply #52 on:** May 14, 2015, 01:45 »

Quote from: Dumc on May 13, 2015, 15:03

I am proud to announce, I've made my first sale at Veer.

It was this file: http://marketplace.veer.com/products/9390596

And it earned me 2.10$

Very nice image. Congratulations!

Dumc · « **Reply #53 on:** May 14, 2015, 02:19 »

Thanks

marthamarks · « **Reply #54 on:** May 14, 2015, 03:01 »

You're welcome.

Shelma1 · « **Reply #55 on:** May 14, 2015, 05:59 »

I had the same keyword issues with my vectors...my files don't show up when searching the main keywords. Went back and forth with emails and got the same silly answers sent to me from the keyword department. Stopped uploading there. Not worth it. I can use that extra time to create more images which sell very well at the bigger sites.

Noedelhap · « **Reply #56 on:** May 14, 2015, 08:42 »

Quote

"But again, I get that some of the mapping options are funky looking, but they don’t impact search negatively. In fact, we put their content in front of way more searches for free".

That is the best way we can explain it. We are not stripping or spamming images with keywords.

Actually, the flunky mapping options putting content in front of more searches IS in fact sort of spamming. Because these images will appear in irrelevant searches.

Let's take an example from one of my images:

Very realistic shiny chrome ball. Gradient mesh used.

Veer keywords:

balls, reflections, shiny, spheres, drawings, shadows, silver color, nobody, white background, three dimensional

My original keywords:

chrome, ball, bullet, metallic, metal, silver, gray, steel, blurry, reflective, reflection, shiny, realistic, photorealistic, realism, clean, sphere, spherical, vector, illustration, drawing, white, shadow, light, shape, object, gradient mesh

(In bold are the (completely) missing ones.)

When I search for "chrome ball", my image doesn't come up, but colored web 2.0 buttons, rugby balls, soccer balls, stairs and chrome pens do.

GrantP · « **Reply #58 on:** May 14, 2015, 12:31 »

Noedelhap -

I also want to add this screenshot of all the terms your image is associated with. You submitted 27 original kw's but your image is searching on 74 kw's.

Shelma1 · « **Reply #59 on:** May 14, 2015, 12:50 »

Veer has very low sales and serious keyword issues. Instead of arguing with us why don't you fix things? Time better spent, IMO.

dirkr · « **Reply #61 on:** May 14, 2015, 15:24 »

Quote from: GrantP on May 14, 2015, 12:59

Quote from: Shelma1 on May 14, 2015, 12:50
Veer has very low sales and serious keyword issues. Instead of arguing with us why don't you fix things? Time better spent, IMO.

I have passed this thread on to many others at Veer. I have done my part. For now, I will keep answering questions the best I can.

Grant,

I have posted an example from my port further up in this thread.

Quote

Example:

http://marketplace.veer.com/stock-photo/Australian-water-dragon-Physignathus-lesueurii-9383494?slot=01&pg=1&SearchId=94e74995&skeywords=9383494#

The search for "australian water dragon" shows a total of five results, none of that my image.

The search for the scientific name ("Physignathus lesueurii") shows no results at all.

Obviously, both of these were in the keywords when I uploaded the file.
It's not only that some keywords seem to be missing, it's the main keywords.

And @Grant: checking keywords for each file after submission is way too much effort. Sorry to say, but your sales volume is much too low to make that effort worthwhile.

When you report to your development team, I'd suggest whatever they plan to do to your CV, please make sure that images do appear in searches for the exact keywords that were existing at upload time.
If there is any fancy CV that adds additional search terms on top, fine with me. But please:
a) don't change / delete any of the existing keywords
b) don't expect us to spend additional effort after submission.

Thanks for listening, I just hope your folks back at Veer don't just ignore the input you are gathering...

I looked at the image again. Now the words "australian", "water", "dragons" have been added to it.
Did someone on Veer side add those words as a reaction to this thread?
If so, thank you for that.
But the image still does not show if I search for "australian water dragon". Neither when searching for the scientific name.

And anyway, manually fixing single images when reported cannot solve the problem. Who knows how many images are affected...

GrantP · « **Reply #62 on:** May 14, 2015, 15:35 »

Dirkr -

I sent this thread to the keywording team. They may be trying a few things on their end to understand your specific issue.

I will ask them and see if they can give me an update.

dirkr · « **Reply #63 on:** May 14, 2015, 15:48 »

Thanks.

Noedelhap · « **Reply #64 on:** May 14, 2015, 20:44 »

Quote from: GrantP on May 14, 2015, 12:27

Quote from: Noedelhap on May 14, 2015, 08:42
Quote
"But again, I get that some of the mapping options are funky looking, but they don’t impact search negatively. In fact, we put their content in front of way more searches for free".

That is the best way we can explain it. We are not stripping or spamming images with keywords.

Actually, the flunky mapping options putting content in front of more searches IS in fact sort of spamming. Because these images will appear in irrelevant searches.

Let's take an example from one of my images:

-image-

Veer keywords:

balls, reflections, shiny, spheres, drawings, shadows, silver color, nobody, white background, three dimensional

My original keywords:

chrome, ball, bullet, metallic, metal, silver, gray, steel, blurry, reflective, reflection, shiny, realistic, photorealistic, realism, clean, sphere, spherical, vector, illustration, drawing, white, shadow, light, shape, object, gradient mesh

(In bold are the (completely) missing ones.)

When I search for "chrome ball", my image doesn't come up, but colored web 2.0 buttons, rugby balls, soccer balls, stairs and chrome pens do.

Hi Noedelhap,

Your image appears for me in search and the keywords you listed are completely incorrect.

They weren't incorrect, I copied them directly from the keywords list. So they must have been added later...? Very strange.

dirkr · « **Reply #65 on:** May 22, 2015, 14:39 »

Quote from: GrantP on May 14, 2015, 15:35

Dirkr -

I sent this thread to the keywording team. They may be trying a few things on their end to understand your specific issue.

I will ask them and see if they can give me an update.

Any update?

Now I see that many of my files have today's date although they are online for quite a while.
And the missing keyword thing goes on.
Many of my wildlife shots have been stripped of the species names of the animal on the picture. A search for those does not deliver results.

It's getting totally ridiculous. Is it some kind of obscure strategy to hide the content from buyers?

sgoodwin4813 · « **Reply #66 on:** May 22, 2015, 16:57 »

Quote from: dirkr on May 22, 2015, 14:39

It's getting totally ridiculous. Is it some kind of obscure strategy to hide the content from buyers?

They certainly have no desire to hide content from buyers - I assume it was a misguided attempt to make things better. I can think of no reason to strip out scientific names - my guess is that they automatically remove or remap any word that is not in their controlled vocabulary. I have no idea how they are doing as an agency, but for me sales have pretty much dried up - this year they are averaging about a third of what it was last year, which was less than half the year before, which was only 75% of what it was in 2012. So far my monthly average sales in 2015 are about 12% of what they were in 2012. It is not a fair comparison because I had ELs that year but none so far this year but it is still a huge drop. It is too bad because Veer used to have good sales per image online but now it has dropped to next to nothing. Of course I am small potatoes so my stats don't say anything about their overall health but I can't imagine that messing with keywords is helping sales or drawing in customers. You would think with the iS CV nonsense that agencies would realize that an efficient search algorithm is the way to do it - that is why SS is tops right now. I hope Veer can bring back customers as they were good in the past. They did make reviewing faster so fixed one problem from the contributor side at least, and they do read and respond in these forums which is better than almost every other agency these days. I'll keep hoping for better sales but won't be holding my breath.

dirkr · « **Reply #67 on:** June 12, 2015, 04:13 »

Quote from: dirkr on May 22, 2015, 14:39

Quote from: GrantP on May 14, 2015, 15:35
Dirkr -

I sent this thread to the keywording team. They may be trying a few things on their end to understand your specific issue.

I will ask them and see if they can give me an update.

Any update?

Now I see that many of my files have today's date although they are online for quite a while.
And the missing keyword thing goes on.
Many of my wildlife shots have been stripped of the species names of the animal on the picture. A search for those does not deliver results.

It's getting totally ridiculous. Is it some kind of obscure strategy to hide the content from buyers?

Bump.

Grant, if you are reading, any update?

As long as Veer keeps stripping essential keywords from images I will not upload any more.

On top of that, I'd like to hear how Veer wants to add back those keywords they have removed to make existing files searchable by their main keywords again.

marthamarks · « **Reply #68 on:** June 12, 2015, 07:12 »

Quote from: sgoodwin4813 on May 22, 2015, 16:57

I can think of no reason to strip out scientific names - my guess is that they automatically remove or remap any word that is not in their controlled vocabulary.

If scientific (Latin) names are stripped from keywords, for any reason, then it's the kiss of death for a wildife/nature photographer.

Given that individual species of plants and animals can have many "common names" all over the globe, and also given that sub-species usually have a second Latin name that distinguishes them from other varieties of their general species… it's essential to provide the one thing that everybody can agree on: the official scientific (Latin) name.

If stripping those names out has been Veer's policy all along, it's no wonder that my specialty, birds and other wildlife, never seemed to have a chance of selling there. Makes me even happier that I dumped Veer a good while ago.

Pauws99 · « **Reply #69 on:** June 12, 2015, 07:14 »

An individual can get keywording wrong......but Veer need a whole TEAM to make it this bad

Sales for me.......nah - most underperforming expectations site for me

sgoodwin4813 · « **Reply #70 on:** June 12, 2015, 07:28 »

My last sale there was in March - it's been all downhill since 2012. It's really too bad they are sticking with this CV nonsense - you'd think iStock would have proven beyond a doubt that it doesn't work, it is just not possible to make a new language. SS has shown that an efficient search algorithm is the road to success. I hope Veer can turn things around because RPDL is usually very good there but will not be holding my breath.

Pauws99 · « **Reply #71 on:** June 12, 2015, 07:34 »

I remember in a past life Librarians and the like stuck to the gospel of controlled vocabularies and didn't understand how the likes of google searches undermined the concept completely. I heard many times how people wouldn't be able to use the internet efficiently without a controlled vocabulary then instantly go to google to find what I wanted. In fact the UK govt once had a very sophisticated and no doubt costly search engine based on this.....trouble was some wag put a very similar front end on google and it outperformed it nearly every time and no cost to the tax payer!!!!

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #72 on:** June 12, 2015, 08:54 »

All kinds of problems with the search and site plus terrible sales. I only still upload there because I have fond memories of their old rep!

Pauws99 · « **Reply #73 on:** June 12, 2015, 09:56 »

I'm a stubborn if started so I'll finish person but Veer are now (nearly) bottom of my priorities and as I now have quite a big backlog of pics to work on and post on better selling and easier sites to upload on think it will be a while before they see my stuff. (incidentally Panther at very bottom and crestock the only one I stopped on due to high rejection rates no sales and their downright rudeness in their rejection reasons).

dirkr · « **Reply #74 on:** June 12, 2015, 13:38 »

Quote from: marthamarks on June 12, 2015, 07:12

Quote from: sgoodwin4813 on May 22, 2015, 16:57
I can think of no reason to strip out scientific names - my guess is that they automatically remove or remap any word that is not in their controlled vocabulary.

If scientific (Latin) names are stripped from keywords, for any reason, then it's the kiss of death for a wildife/nature photographer.

Given that individual species of plants and animals can have many "common names" all over the globe, and also given that sub-species usually have a second Latin name that distinguishes them from other varieties of their general species… it's essential to provide the one thing that everybody can agree on: the official scientific (Latin) name.

If stripping those names out has been Veer's policy all along, it's no wonder that my specialty, birds and other wildlife, never seemed to have a chance of selling there. Makes me even happier that I dumped Veer a good while ago.

Fully agree, that's what's making me so mad.

And they do the same to travel images, they strip out the exact location names if it is not something super-well known.

Completely absurd.

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Author Topic: Veer sales nowadays (Read 20879 times)

fiftyfootelvis

Dumc

marthamarks

Dumc

marthamarks

Shelma1

Noedelhap

GrantP

GrantP

Shelma1

GrantP

dirkr

GrantP

dirkr

Noedelhap

dirkr

sgoodwin4813

dirkr

marthamarks

Pauws99

sgoodwin4813

Pauws99

Justanotherphotographer

Pauws99

dirkr

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