Comma between keywords

[berkay]

Hi, i am new to alamy. I've been uploading my photos with metadata to this site. But, my keywords for e.g: apple, fruit, red appear as apple fruit red. Do i have to add comma between them or is it okay without keywords?

Any help is appreciated!

[Allan Bell]

Commas not necessary in Alamy keywording just a space between words.

 

Allan

[TokyoM1ke]

Commas not necessary BUT, if you use commas then Alamy will pick up strings of keywords without commas. e.g.

 

London Bridge,River Thames,water,murky

 

I believe that if you don't use commas then Alamy gives up after the fourth word in the non-comma-separated section. e.g.

 

Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog

 

Would find the connected key words (in order) "Quick Brown Fox Jumps" but not "Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over" as a connected phrase.

 

Of course this is all from what I have read elsewhere on this forum and some experimentation but may be wrong now, even if it was correct in the past!

[Martin P Wilson]

|I use commas in exactly w

 

Commas not necessary BUT, if you use commas then Alamy will pick up strings of keywords without commas. e.g.

 

London Bridge,River Thames,water,murky

 

I believe that if you don't use commas then Alamy gives up after the fourth word in the non-comma-separated section. e.g.

 

Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog

 

Would find the connected key words (in order) "Quick Brown Fox Jumps" but not "Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over" as a connected phrase.

 

Of course this is all from what I have read elsewhere on this forum and some experimentation but may be wrong now, even if it was correct in the past!

 

I use commas in exactly that way (and quotes. belt and braces!). As I do most of my keywording before uploading I do not separate keywords/keyphrases with spaces so it is ready for other libraries as well, most user commas as separator. Only use spaces when I need to save characters in Essential keywords in Alamy manage images.

[Betty LaRue]

A search on the topic will reveal many posts by me the way I do it.

It causes more work but everything, phrases, etc. stay as I mean them to.

Colorado mountains,man climbing "Pike's Peak"Colorado,mountains,man,belaying,

 

While the keywords appear in Manage Images with spaces, in the interest of time you can leave them that way, only putting what you want in the three fields.

I do use commas, and sometimes quotes. If I don't have a lot of keywords, I put in commas and quotes and leave the spaces.

If I need extra space to squeeze in more keywords, I take out the spaces while leaving in the commas and quotes.

It is said that quotes don't matter. But Alamy is constantly tinkering with the search, (they say so) so I'm covering my bases.

Edit. Glad I looked at my images. I saw some keyword mistakes that I corrected that will show up tomorrow.

[Steppeland]

Hi all,

 

I'm new to Alamy too. I found it very interesting to read through this topic. I too use to enter my keywords in LR before uploading to Alamy : comma and space separated. However, when opening the keyword-editor in Alamy, I noticed that all the comma's have disappeared, thus separating the phrases that are supposed to stay together in single words. Is there a way to avoid this from happening? Or is there another way, except using comma's, to keep phrases together?

[Betty LaRue]

I think you can use quotes around a phrase. But if you do this:

"Sawtooth mountains"countryside winter snow "Big Horn sheep", countryside winter snow will also be treated as a phrase. I believe I remember that if there is four or more words between the quoted phrases, they'll be treated separately.

To keep things simple and not mess up, I just do:

Sawtooth mountains,countryside,winter snow,winter,snow,Big Horn sheep,etc,etc,

Yes, it's a pain if you have a lot of keywords to squeeze in, because you'll need to take out the spaces. But if I'm below the allowed amount of keywords, I simply put in the commas and leave the spaces in.

 

If you click on my image number and bring up my images, look at the picture of aphids and ants on a trumpet vine on the first page. Enlarge it and look at my keywords. You'll see numerous phrases and single keywords, and it all comes out just as I want it.

The only difference is Alamy alphabetizes the keywords in the zoom, In reality, during a customer search, they are listed in order of importance the way we input them.

So I've been told, lol.

[Steppeland]

Thanks for your reply, Betty, I definitely will explore this further, and compare your many experiences with my little ones. Also, you answered another question of mine on the go: how to get an overview of an artist's portfolio. So thanks for that too!

[Betty LaRue]

Thanks for your reply, Betty, I definitely will explore this further, and compare your many experiences with my little ones. Also, you answered another question of mine on the go: how to get an overview of an artist's portfolio. So thanks for that too!

You are welcome. I had no one to explain keywording to me when I joined. At the time, the forum wasn't such a friendly place and I was afraid to ask questions that might appear dumb to the old guard. Flame wars went on a lot. So I just muddled along, doing more things wrong than right. It's been a slow-developing journey for me.

The forum these days is for the most part a helpful one, with a bit of sarcasm occasionally thrown in when someone's having a bad day,

[Bella]

I had been searching the forum for this information so thank you! Betty, I also thought it might have been a dumb question so muddled on and was playing on the safe side and putting commas in but it's nice to know exactly how it works. It's probably worth the extra effort to be able to keep them how you want them.

[Betty LaRue]

I had been searching the forum for this information so thank you! Betty, I also thought it might have been a dumb question so muddled on and was playing on the safe side and putting commas in but it's nice to know exactly how it works. It's probably worth the extra effort to be able to keep them how you want them.

Glad that helped, Bella. Just as important as the picture you take is keywords. Without them done right, the greatest image might not come up in a search.

[Darryl]

Just did a search on this topic and found this thread good info. In the past, after uploading, my keywords are all stripped of commas so I have used quotes to group words together. Today, in one of my images, the commas were still in place. The same software, Lightroom, was used to keyword the images and I used the same uploading tool on Alamy. I would probably prefer that my commas be left in place for the most part depending on how many keywords I am trying to use. For the most part, I tend to use less keywords here than in other places, partially because of the way they are separated and partially because of an assumption based on no information whatsoever, that buyers here will be more specific in their searches.

 

So, my questions are:

Any idea why/how one image would leave the commas in place and another they would be replaced by spaces?, and

Any thoughts on more vs less keywords?

 

Wish there was more info here on keywording - it's always been more of a mystery and a lot of trial and (mostly) error for me.