What determines the order of images when searching

[kwibob]

What determines the order of images when you do a general search of Alamy - say New Zealand Landscapes

[Brian Yarvin]

This is the biggest question of them all! 

 

[wiskerke]

Sales.

(mostly)

 

wim

[Joseph Clemson]

The first determinant of the order in which images are returned is the caption, supertags and ordinary tags (or keywords). Caption and supertags carry the greatest weight. getting these right helps put ones images near the front ofthe search.

 

Images are also ordered according to a ranking accorded to each seller, known as Alamy Rank. The forumla which makes up the Alamy rank is secret, but is believed to involve number of sales achieved and the contributors CTR (click through rate). It is also probable that other factors are used to calculate Alamy rank, but we don't know what they are. QC rank is not believed to be one of them. 

 

It is though other factors probably come into play including newness of images and possibly an element of randomess to keep searches fresh. However,  at the end of the day, the detailed recipe for Alamy's search sauce is mostly a matter of speculation.

[NYCat]

I hope you don't mind a bit of advice on this subject. You have 8 similar photos of a very pretty little bird. Since you don't have control over which of them will show up first it is beneficial (in my opinion) to only upload the very best. I would choose 2AMTJER because the light is better. The little light in the eye is considered very much a plus in animal images. I don't necessarily upload only one image of an animal but I am pretty choosey since I'm aware that the inferior one may be the only one the buyer sees.

 

Paulette

[kwibob]

Thanks all. Was just interested.

[Nick Hatton]

8 hours ago, NYCat said:

I hope you don't mind a bit of advice on this subject. You have 8 similar photos of a very pretty little bird. Since you don't have control over which of them will show up first it is beneficial (in my opinion) to only upload the very best. I would choose 2AMTJER because the light is better. The little light in the eye is considered very much a plus in animal images. I don't necessarily upload only one image of an animal but I am pretty choosey since I'm aware that the inferior one may be the only one the buyer sees.

 

Paulette

I tend to upload a few to many similars for the very reason that the best may not be seen, I have often sold an inferior shot because it showed up first.

[Harry Harrison]

No one knows all the nuances of Alamy Rank and they may change, I've learnt an awful lot from this forum though. One suggestion that I've got some sympathy with is that regular uploading might help.

[JaniMarkus Hasa]

If the number of sales is a factor, that's not very encouraging for newbies like me. No sales without views and no views without sales. Not a very good business model.

Edited January 17, 2020 by JaniMarkus Hasa

[geogphotos]

12 minutes ago, JaniMarkus Hasa said:

If the number of sales is a factor, that's not very encouraging for newbies like me. No sales without views and no views without sales. Not a very good business model.

 

 

New contributors get a medium rank so from there you need to work your way upwards. Work on your AlamyRank and you will get more searches, more zooms, and hopefully more sales = higher Alamy Rank. 

 

It does make sense to show off the images of those who have a proven sales record but I understand your point. 

Edited January 17, 2020 by geogphotos

[Niels Quist]

15 minutes ago, JaniMarkus Hasa said:

If the number of sales is a factor, that's not very encouraging for newbies like me. No sales without views and no views without sales. Not a very good business model.

 

A number of factors determine the order, people have mentioned most of them, I think. But sales are definitely an important factor. But well keyworded images of well chosen subjects will return sales.

Edited January 17, 2020 by Niels Quist

[JaniMarkus Hasa]

11 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

 

It does make sense to show off the images of those who have a proven sales record but I understand your point. 

 

Yeah, I get it. Definitely makes sense for Alamy to show what has proven to sell. Medium ranking - which I had forgotten about - naturally helps to get on board. However, downward spiral can get impossible to break. 

Edited January 17, 2020 by JaniMarkus Hasa

[Cryptoprocta]

11 hours ago, wiskerke said:

Sales.

(mostly)

 

wim

Maybe, but it's not necessarily what I see when I see how my own photos rank in generic searches.

[Pearl]

On 16/01/2020 at 23:56, wiskerke said:

Sales.

(mostly)

 

wim

Sometimes it is but not always.  I just did a search on Euros and one of my images which has never sold is near the top of p1 whereas an image that has sold at least six times was beyond p17 (I got bored looking any further).  Captions, keywords and super tags are very similar as is the age of the images and they are in the same high ranked pseudo.  Makes no sense to me.

 

Pearl

Edited January 18, 2020 by Pearl
typo

[Nick Hatton]

I think their is no logic to search results, I had a zoom recently where the customer viewed 100 images and only zoomed mine but when I did the search with the same words my image was on page 3!    think I read that it all depends on who the customer is as to the search results.

[Pearl]

1 hour ago, Nick Hatton said:

I think their is no logic to search results, I had a zoom recently where the customer viewed 100 images and only zoomed mine but when I did the search with the same words my image was on page 3!    think I read that it all depends on who the customer is as to the search results.

Maybe they didn't log in until they got to p3.  I was told by Alamy that that happens sometimes so earlier search results don't show up in measures.

 

Pearl

[Nick Hatton]

1 hour ago, Pearl said:

Maybe they didn't log in until they got to p3.  I was told by Alamy that that happens sometimes so earlier search results don't show up in measures.

 

Pearl

That makes a lot of sense  

[geogphotos]

14 minutes ago, LawrensonPhoto said:

The one thing I have noticed only being here for a couple of years is that I have improved my ranking considerably for most searches by consistently uploading and selling images every month and if the subject has only 3-5000 images total I can guarantee to be on the first page of a search most times and with larger searches on pages 1,2 or 3.

However, I have noticed a discrepancy with popular themes, for example, 'Gatwick airport' returns 6064 images, I was expecting to be on the first 1-2 pages, but my two images are on page 5 of the search.

So the question is why?

 

Length of time submitting perhaps?

 

My hunch would be that Gatwick airport gets a few pics from many photographers passing through, some of which, perhaps many of which, have a better AlamyRank than yourself. So you are blocked from rising up the search order - the situation is active and dynamic and you are unable to rise up through the ranks..

 

When it comes to less prominent subjects because you are active and successful compared to many others you can beat the competition. ( there seem to be tens of thousands of contributors who don't seem to be very active). The search order is likely to be more static and you are going to be able to cut through to the first page or two.

Edited January 19, 2020 by geogphotos

[geogphotos]

11 minutes ago, LawrensonPhoto said:

How do I overcome this though, as it doesn't seem very fair to me that I can't rise to prominence in these very popular searches, that's why i mentioned 'time' being a factor in rank

 

I don't think that you can expect to be at the top of every generic search ( eg. London) simply because of the huge number of competing images and because others are doing the same as you who may  have a superior AlamyRank. 

 

But even with Gatwick you can offer 'Gatwick + something else' and probably have a chance of page 1. Add a few more specific keywords and you almost certainly will be on Page 1.

 

Probably best to think about what you can do and all the other searches where you can rise to the top quite easily.

 

 

Edited January 19, 2020 by geogphotos

[geogphotos]

8 minutes ago, LawrensonPhoto said:

Yes, I added Gatwick airport departure lounge!

I also notice London eye has 220,563 images where I have no chance at all of competing, however one of my images pops up at lot for the search because I have the keywords 'people queueing rain' they happen to be queueing for the ' london eye'

Thanks for the help, much appreciated

 

You're welcome. There is something else here too.

 

You don't actually necessarily want your image to appear on the front page for Gatwick unless it really is going to hold its own against the competition -  because it most likely won't get zoomed. Being viewed and not zoomed too often will hurt your AlamyRank. 

[meanderingemu]

1 hour ago, LawrensonPhoto said:

The one thing I have noticed only being here for a couple of years is that I have improved my ranking considerably for most searches by consistently uploading and selling images every month and if the subject has only 3-5000 images total I can guarantee to be on the first page of a search most times and with larger searches on pages 1,2 or 3.

However, I have noticed a discrepancy with popular themes, for example, 'Gatwick airport' returns 6064 images, I was expecting to be on the first 1-2 pages, but my two images are on page 5 of the search.

So the question is why?

 

Length of time submitting perhaps?

 

 

if you look at the first page of results for Gatwick Airport, most of the images have older ID, many starting with A and B.  So i would guess there has been enough great images added and sold that these will always dominate the subject.  If customers over and over purchase these, why would Alamy alter the offering.  Doesn't even seem that longer submitters get to break this first page (looked through the New submission (also please don't as some of the results will make many furious)).

 

I know taking images of Gatwick airport is easy, but as Ian mention, i think having my generic images appear at top in a search just for the Airport would actually be negative, as at this point i would be focusing on search for items not well covered of the airport.  

 

Actually making the first page is not always that great.  As i focus on more specifics of a subject, I generally get hits and no zoom from the general vague search, and i'm actually now experiencing with reducing the chance, by removing the generality from Title and Supertags, so it will be found when someone searches the specifics.  

 

For example if i had image of an "Empty Carousel at Gatwick Airport", which get getting hits for Gatwick Airport search, and never getting zoomed, I am moving the Gatwick to Tag only.  

[M.Chapman]

On 17/01/2020 at 11:40, Pearl said:

Sometimes it is but not always.  I just did a search on Euros and one of my images which has never sold is near the top of p1 whereas an image that has sold at least six times was beyond p17 (I got bored looking any further).  Captions, keywords and super tags are very similar as is the age of the images and they are in the same high ranked pseudo.  Makes no sense to me.

 

Pearl

 

If an image has been zoomed previously, using the same search term, it’s position in the search results may be improved relative to your other images that also meet the search term. This effect can be powerful, beating whether the search term matches any combination of tags, supertags or words in the caption. At least that’s how it used to be when I examined this over a year ago. But there’s an important caveat, Alamy can and do change the search algorithm. Nevertheless this may explain your observation. I’ve never found that a sale promotes the position of an individual image relative to others that meet the search term, but it may improve you overall rank, which may improve the position of all your images relative to those of other contributors. For some searches, the age of the image can also affect position, or so I was told (by Alamy).

 

Mark

Edited January 19, 2020 by M.Chapman

[M.Chapman]

On 17/01/2020 at 09:54, LawrensonPhoto said:

Your rank will determine where they place your uploaded images on the page (1st, 2nd, 3rd page of images, etc)

Sales will push your images further up the page

Probably 😉

 

Once you start don't ever ever give up 😁

 

Shame Alamy don’t seem to have run a re-rank for well over a year now. Or did I miss something?

 

Mark

[M.Chapman]

30 minutes ago, LawrensonPhoto said:

Before my time so I don't know, I started with a zero rank.

I assumed the more uploads with sales, the more it will push your rank up?

 

In theory yes, but it used to be the case that this only happened when they ran a re-rank calculation every 6 months or so, at which time the ranks of all contributors were updated at the same time. No idea what they are doing at the moment. Nobody has reported in a change in rank that's been confirmed by other contributors for well over a year, if not two. Maybe they are doing it individually now?

 

Mark

[Jill Morgan]

I currently have 6 images on page  one of a search for "Toronto Blue Jays".  There are over 13,000 images.  Yet in a search for "Toronto Street Car" where there are only 2500 images, I have 3 but on page two.  You would think I would have an easier time getting on page one for the search of less images.

 

You just don't know.

 

Jill