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Couple of Noobie Questions, Help Needed


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Hi all, I just joined with Alamy. I have photos on a couple other stock sites, but the Alamy preparation system is a bit different, hence my questions.

 

First, how do I create a pseudonym? I don't see any tab with that option, nor guidance on it (I'm probably just missing it).

 

Second, I have all my photos thoroughly embedded with meta-data, so I was somewhat displeased to see that the captions and so forth don't follow through here; I need to input them all in again in the Alamy submission fields. The one area where info carried over seems to be "comprehensive keywords". On my photos the keywords are separated by semicolons, but those have vanished. Question: do I need to use commas or semicolons in Alamy for keywords? (Again, I see no guidance on this).

 

Thanks

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You don't need to create a pseudonym as your name will be used but if you want something different go to My Alamy < Manage Images and click on the Defaults and Pseudonyms link at the top.  You can create a new one there.

 

Embedded metadata should transfer across BUT keywords will go into comprehensive and then need to be moved. The caption should go into the right place but may be truncated if longer than 128 characters.  the whole caption will then be in the Description field.  If your caption was originally under title then it won't transfer across.

 

Oh and you don't need commas or semicolons, just a space between keywords.

 

Hope that makes sense.

 

Pearl

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You don't need to create a pseudonym as your name will be used but if you want something different go to My Alamy < Manage Images and click on the Defaults and Pseudonyms link at the top.  You can create a new one there.

 

Embedded metadata should transfer across BUT keywords will go into comprehensive and then need to be moved. The caption should go into the right place but may be truncated if longer than 128 characters.  the whole caption will then be in the Description field.  If your caption was originally under title then it won't transfer across.

 

Oh and you don't need commas or semicolons, just a space between keywords.

 

Hope that makes sense.

 

Pearl

Sorry if I have misunderstood but I thought that you did need commas unless you wanted linked keywords. e.g. you want "Westminster Abbey" and "church" so you put the keywords in as:

Westminster Abbey,church

 

Then a searcher can search on any of:

Westminster, Westminster Abbey, Abbey, church.

 

I understood that if you don't put commas in then you miss the compound search terms after the third(?) word.

 

This seems to go around and around - I'm never certain that I've nailed it.

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Does it take a while for the pseudonym to show up? I created one, but not seeing it among my options in the control panel for images that have passed QC

 

Normally it's immediate. Look under the Attributes Tab.

 

wim

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You don't need to create a pseudonym as your name will be used but if you want something different go to My Alamy < Manage Images and click on the Defaults and Pseudonyms link at the top.  You can create a new one there.

 

Embedded metadata should transfer across BUT keywords will go into comprehensive and then need to be moved. The caption should go into the right place but may be truncated if longer than 128 characters.  the whole caption will then be in the Description field.  If your caption was originally under title then it won't transfer across.

 

Oh and you don't need commas or semicolons, just a space between keywords.

 

Hope that makes sense.

 

Pearl

Sorry if I have misunderstood but I thought that you did need commas unless you wanted linked keywords. e.g. you want "Westminster Abbey" and "church" so you put the keywords in as:

Westminster Abbey,church

 

Then a searcher can search on any of:

Westminster, Westminster Abbey, Abbey, church.

 

I understood that if you don't put commas in then you miss the compound search terms after the third(?) word.

 

This seems to go around and around - I'm never certain that I've nailed it.

 

 

Well I never use commas.

 

Pearl

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I've been using commas for a while. I found it was the only way to get phrases to generate the correct keyword strings for use by Google (and other non-Alamy search engines). Quotation marks on their own seemed to cause all sorts of inconsistencies. There were some threads in the forum about this at the time (see here). Maybe Alamy have fixed the problems with inconsistent treatment of quotation marks?

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I've been using commas for a while. I found it was the only way to get phrases to generate the correct keyword strings for use by Google (and other non-Alamy search engines). Quotation marks on their own seemed to cause all sorts of inconsistencies. There were some threads in the forum about this at the time (see here). Maybe Alamy have fixed the problems with inconsistent treatment of quotation marks?

Your post validates my way of doing things, commas rule for me. A few people seem to think its not necessary, and I respect that. But I know what works for me and I'm one of the early adopters of commas in the past couple of years. When I check how my keywords are displayed in a search, the results are just as I want them to be.

Betty

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I've been using commas for a while. I found it was the only way to get phrases to generate the correct keyword strings for use by Google (and other non-Alamy search engines). Quotation marks on their own seemed to cause all sorts of inconsistencies. There were some threads in the forum about this at the time (see here). Maybe Alamy have fixed the problems with inconsistent treatment of quotation marks?

Your post validates my way of doing things, commas rule for me. A few people seem to think its not necessary, and I respect that. But I know what works for me and I'm one of the early adopters of commas in the past couple of years. When I check how my keywords are displayed in a search, the results are just as I want them to be.

Betty

 

I've converted all my keywords to use commas too, and I also find the search results are now the way I want them. When I didn't use commas, the phrases kept being corrupted.  Also means my keyword strings are compatible elsewhere.

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I've been using commas for a while. I found it was the only way to get phrases to generate the correct keyword strings for use by Google (and other non-Alamy search engines). Quotation marks on their own seemed to cause all sorts of inconsistencies. There were some threads in the forum about this at the time (see here). Maybe Alamy have fixed the problems with inconsistent treatment of quotation marks?

Your post validates my way of doing things, commas rule for me. A few people seem to think its not necessary, and I respect that. But I know what works for me and I'm one of the early adopters of commas in the past couple of years. When I check how my keywords are displayed in a search, the results are just as I want them to be.

Betty

 

I've converted all my keywords to use commas too, and I also find the search results are now the way I want them. When I didn't use commas, the phrases kept being corrupted.  Also means my keyword strings are compatible elsewhere.

 

 

Betty and Mark(?): may I ask - did you go through all your images to change this from spaces to commas?  Must have taken an age to do?!  I have been very fed up for a long while with Alamy's lack of consistency with this matter.  I find it incredibly annoying and frustrating, :angry: but have avoided changing things 'cos I'm afraid that the rug may well be pulled out from under me again!  :unsure: 

 

After image quality, keywords are sooo important here, yet It's the most difficult place to get it right, owing to the methods in place. :(

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I've been using commas for a while. I found it was the only way to get phrases to generate the correct keyword strings for use by Google (and other non-Alamy search engines). Quotation marks on their own seemed to cause all sorts of inconsistencies. There were some threads in the forum about this at the time (see here). Maybe Alamy have fixed the problems with inconsistent treatment of quotation marks?

Your post validates my way of doing things, commas rule for me. A few people seem to think its not necessary, and I respect that. But I know what works for me and I'm one of the early adopters of commas in the past couple of years. When I check how my keywords are displayed in a search, the results are just as I want them to be.

Betty

 

I've converted all my keywords to use commas too, and I also find the search results are now the way I want them. When I didn't use commas, the phrases kept being corrupted.  Also means my keyword strings are compatible elsewhere.

 

 

Betty and Mark(?): may I ask - did you go through all your images to change this from spaces to commas?  Must have taken an age to do?!  I have been very fed up for a long while with Alamy's lack of consistency with this matter.  I find it incredibly annoying and frustrating, :angry: but have avoided changing things 'cos I'm afraid that the rug may well be pulled out from under me again!  :unsure:

 

After image quality, keywords are sooo important here, yet It's the most difficult place to get it right, owing to the methods in place. :(

 

I changed all mine automatically. I got member services to email me a spreadsheet of all my metadata, ran some Excel VBA macros on it to replace spaces with commas (amongst other things), and emailed it back to them.  Take a look at my posting at the end of this thread for more details.

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I've been using commas for a while. I found it was the only way to get phrases to generate the correct keyword strings for use by Google (and other non-Alamy search engines). Quotation marks on their own seemed to cause all sorts of inconsistencies. There were some threads in the forum about this at the time (see here). Maybe Alamy have fixed the problems with inconsistent treatment of quotation marks?

When I check how my keywords are displayed in a search, the results are just as I want them to be.

Betty

 

 

Betty do you mean that the keywords look right when you zoom the image?  I can understand that being the case but in my limited experiments using commas makes no difference to the placement / order of images returned in a search.  For that reason I have thought it not worth the extra time it would take to replace spaces with commas.  If you have found otherwise then it might be worth the work.

 

Pearl

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I

 

 

 

I've been using commas for a while. I found it was the only way to get phrases to generate the correct keyword strings for use by Google (and other non-Alamy search engines). Quotation marks on their own seemed to cause all sorts of inconsistencies. There were some threads in the forum about this at the time (see here). Maybe Alamy have fixed the problems with inconsistent treatment of quotation marks?


When I check how my keywords are displayed in a search, the results are just as I want them to be.
Betty

 

 

Betty do you mean that the keywords look right when you zoom the image?  I can understand that being the case but in my limited experiments using commas makes no difference to the placement / order of images returned in a search.  For that reason I have thought it not worth the extra time it would take to replace spaces with commas.  If you have found otherwise then it might be worth the work.

 

Pearl

 

In my case, yes it's the way the keywords appear when I zoom the image that commas sort out. It's not easy to check how the keywords appear to Alamy's internal search engine (especially as Alamy's search engine results are a bit "unpredictable" at the moment). It's quite possible that adding commas is having no effect on Alamy's internal search engine results. However... my belief is that getting these keywords right will affect Google (or other) search results for those customers who are using a broader search starting from outside Alamy, since the keywords that appear on the zoomed page are likely to be those that are indexed by external search engines.

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I

 

 

 

I've been using commas for a while. I found it was the only way to get phrases to generate the correct keyword strings for use by Google (and other non-Alamy search engines). Quotation marks on their own seemed to cause all sorts of inconsistencies. There were some threads in the forum about this at the time (see here). Maybe Alamy have fixed the problems with inconsistent treatment of quotation marks?

When I check how my keywords are displayed in a search, the results are just as I want them to be.

Betty

 

 

Betty do you mean that the keywords look right when you zoom the image?  I can understand that being the case but in my limited experiments using commas makes no difference to the placement / order of images returned in a search.  For that reason I have thought it not worth the extra time it would take to replace spaces with commas.  If you have found otherwise then it might be worth the work.

 

Pearl

 

In my case, yes it's the way the keywords appear when I zoom the image that commas sort out. It's not easy to check how the keywords appear to Alamy's internal search engine (especially as Alamy's search engine results are a bit "unpredictable" at the moment). It's quite possible that adding commas is having no effect on Alamy's internal search engine results. However... my belief is that getting these keywords right will affect Google (or other) search results for those customers who are using a broader search starting from outside Alamy, since the keywords that appear on the zoomed page are likely to be those that are indexed by external search engines.

 

That's what I thought.  Thanks for confirming.

 

Pearl

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