Does Supertagging really work?

[Celluloid Hero]

I'm going back over my images that only have just a few supertags and getting them up to the requisite 10.

 

Question is - does having 10 supertags for each image really work or is that a question for the secret Alamy Algorithm makers?

 

L

[Cryptoprocta]

I can't say it's made any difference, and search results show that any word can be matched with any other word even though only 100 files were viewed from a possibility of thousands, so ...

It would be pretty hard for us sellers to extablish that it made any difference, because we don't have the same file with and without supertags to compare.

[Reimar]

Well, we could probably get a good idea - and many of us have done this when they were (hastily) introduced and did not function as advertised for about 6 months.

 

Want to check for yourself if a search for a supertag puts your image higher up in search results compared to a regular tag?  Use the same image and the same search term (many of us used BHZ in the past, but use your own term if you like).  Put the term only in the title, only as a tag, only as a supertag on successive days, wait for the collection to update over a day and search for the term and note it's position for these three situations.  For added points, mix and match.  Try caption and tag, or tag and supertag, or caption and supertag, or all three.  Again note the position of the image in search results.  Then report your findings here.🙂

[Celluloid Hero]

25 minutes ago, Reimar said:

Well, we could probably get a good idea - and many of us have done this when they were (hastily) introduced and did not function as advertised for about 6 months.

 

Want to check for yourself if a search for a supertag puts your image higher up in search results compared to a regular tag?  Use the same image and the same search term (many of us used BHZ in the past, but use your own term if you like).  Put the term only in the title, only as a tag, only as a supertag on successive days, wait for the collection to update over a day and search for the term and note it's position for these three situations.  For added points, mix and match.  Try caption and tag, or tag and supertag, or caption and supertag, or all three.  Again note the position of the image in search results.  Then report your findings here.🙂

Good thinking, Batman!

[Harry Harrison]

I really must try to take Reimar's advice myself, I read all the stuff about them apparently having a negative effect when they were introduced but hopefully they must have a positive effect now? 

 

I suppose it's two questions, do they work at all, and if they do then is it worth using up your full quota of 10? I guess that will depend upon there being 10 'super' relevant keywords for that particular image and for some images that can be a stretch for me. I do try though, I've recently worked through the download csv and made sure that all mine have at least 5 (some didn't have any!). I intend to sweep through them again but I don't have that many to go through fortunately.

[Reimar]

1 minute ago, Harry Harrison said:

I really must try to take Reimar's advice myself, I read all the stuff about them apparently having a negative effect when they were introduced but hopefully they must have a positive effect now? 

 

I suppose it's two questions, do they work at all, and if they do then is it worth using up your full quota of 10? I guess that will depend upon there being 10 'super' relevant keywords for that particular image and for some images that can be a stretch for me. I do try though, I've recently worked through the download csv and made sure that all mine have at least 5 (some didn't have any!). I intend to sweep through them again but I don't have that many to go through fortunately.

My thinking is that if you have more than 10 tags (and I assume all are relevant) then you will want 10 supertags.  You never know the search term that will be used by a customer - the most common or the least common - you would want your image to show up earlier rather than later in a search.

[Harry Harrison]

28 minutes ago, Reimar said:

My thinking is that if you have more than 10 tags (and I assume all are relevant) then you will want 10 supertags

 

Yes, I guess you're right!

[Joseph Clemson]

My own experiments, conducted about a year ago and along the lines Reimar suggested above, indicated that supertags carried noticeably more weight than ordinary tags. The process of supertagging is worthwhile, I believe.

 

This being the case, it also follows that one ought to be circumspect with supertags, and only create a supertag where the image really fits the supertag being used. If an inappropriate tag is used on an image it will tend to be falsely returned in searches and never get zoomed as the image is not what the buyer is looking for. Over time, views which do not result in zooms will be detrimental to the search ranking of the contributor. If an inappropriate tag is marked as a supertag, it will appear in search results even more, but still not get zoomed as it is still not what the buyer is looking for, and the harm to your CTR is, if anything, accelerated.

 

I typically use around 7-8 supertags, sometimes fewer and very occasionally, all 10. I don't use them if they are not clearly pertinent to the image, though I will leave a peripheral keyword as a normal tag.

 

I can't promise my method is the route to success, but it is logical and follows what I know of how Alamy operates.

[Cryptoprocta]

By chance, my searches yesterday included one on Scottish Gaelic (no filters for e.g. FS or DT). The searcher searched 400 files and 5 of mine were in that search. That didn't include one I uploaded two weeks ago.

So I did a little ferreting.

 

The one I uploaded on the 3rd (which didn't show on the recorded search, or on the first page on my search) has Gaelic in the caption and is a supertag. Scottish is a tag.

One of mine from the top 400 has Gaelic in the caption, Gaelic and Scottish as an ordinary tags but 'Gaelic Language Sign' as a supertag. (Contrary to Alamy's stated example that a search for rhinoceros should put pics keyworded 'rhinoceros' should come higher than those with 'rhinoceros beetle'. I haven't checked out that particular example, but I've known for years that principle does not generally hold. Ha, I just looked and the top 100 files in both relevant and creative searches for' rhinoceros' are in fact all rhinos. That must be one of the cleanest first pages in the site!)

 

I decided to look and see where my five files came in the Scottish Gaelic search, and incidentally found something else:

With the default Creative sort, I have another file on the first page (which wasn't reported in the search of 400*) - the caption says, "A group of musicians blending traditional Scottish Gaelic and Ghanaian music, performing at Glasgow Mela 2019, a free multicultural festival in Kelvin" but Gaelic isn't in the keywords at all (as there is no visible Gaelic in the image). Scottish is an ordinary tag.

Strong theory (haven't found it to be false yet): Search currently rates caption higher than tags or supertags. 'Scottish Gaelic' is in the caption. I have found this numerous times in the past year or more.

 

Second hypothesis: Relevant will show a different result. Well, no, it didn't. AFAICS Relevant and Creative looks the same for that search on the first page, my pic of the singers with Gaelic in the caption only is at #53 in both searches.

 

BUT my Gaelic singers image didn't show up on yesterday's search of 400 on Scottish Gaelic in Measures (which is fair enough, but not for purposes of trying to work out the search weighting). It couldn't have been a sort by date, or my recent upload would have shown top (of my files) with the singers just under as that pic was uploaded at the end of June. I can't explain that unless

*Tentative third hypothesis: different people get different search results, possibly based on location or previous buying patterns.

 

Observation: as has been for a while, some files have the same first page under Creative and Relevant, and others have different 'top 100s'.

 

Conclusions:

Make sure your most important words are in the caption.

Supertags don't currently do any harm, as they did for a while when they were first introduced.

Newly uploaded files don't get any sort of boost.

Edited July 19, 2019 by Cryptoprocta

[wiskerke]

16 minutes ago, Cryptoprocta said:

Conclusion: who knows? But supertags aren't currently harmful, as they were for a while after they were introduced.

 

Did you count the sales and zooms of those images for those specific keywords?

 

wim

[Cryptoprocta]

24 minutes ago, wiskerke said:

 

Did you count the sales and zooms of those images for those specific keywords?

 

wim

??? No zooms, far less sales were recorded from yesterday's search, i.e. the sitewide search, not just my little subset.

I've had sales (that I can remember) of two of these images  in the past, but I didn't note what might have been searched for.

 

BTW, I realised after I posted the above that Scottish Gaelic like that is in the caption, strenghthening my long term assertion that caption rates higher than supertags (and tags) and was amending my post as you were typing.

 

BTW (2) I have a particular file (totally different subject) which always shows in the top 100 of at least four searches. I stand by the file, it has specific uses, but I wish some of my other files of the subject with more general interest would show higher in the search. Anyway, a couple of months back, a deep searcher found one of my other files of that subject way down in the hundreds and bought it, but that file didn't jump any higher in the particular reported search that I assume lead to the sale.

Edited July 19, 2019 by Cryptoprocta

[wiskerke]

13 minutes ago, Cryptoprocta said:

??? No zooms, far less sales were recorded from yesterday's search, i.e. the sitewide search, not just my little subset.

I've had sales (that I can remember) of two of these images  in the past, but I didn't note what might have been searched for.

 

BTW, I realised after I posted the above that Scottish Gaelic like that is in the caption, strenghthening my long term assertio that caption rates higher than supertags (and tags) and was amending my post as you were typing.

 

BTW (2) I have a particular file (totally different subject) which always shows in the top 100 of at least four searches. I stand by the file, it has specific uses, but I wish some of my other files of the subject with more general interest would show higher in the search. Anyway, a couple of months back, a deep searcher found one of my other files of that subject way down in the hundreds and bought it, but that file didn't jump any higher in the particular reported search that I assume lead to the sale.

 

The image order is supposedly determined by past sales and zooms too. Or maybe mostly. Or maybe totally in Creative. Who knows? Maybe not even the creator of the algorithm.

 

wim

[Cryptoprocta]

2 minutes ago, wiskerke said:

 

The image order is supposedly determined by past sales and zooms too. Or maybe mostly. Or maybe totally in Creative. Who knows? Maybe not even the creator of the algorithm.

 

wim

Who knows indeed? You might hope there would be some sort of new file boost, else these would never be seen in large searches.

Edited July 19, 2019 by Cryptoprocta