Alamy Measures

[DCSmith]

As I understand it Alamy measures only shows searches from people who have licensed images from Alamy in the past.

Are we missing out on data from people who are searching for images, but have not as yet found something they liked on the site?

Edited February 9, 2020 by DCSmith

[John Morrison]

Only certain customers (those with accounts??) have their searches 'measured', so, yes, I think there are many searches which go unrecorded...

[DJ Myford]

Data is only gathered from certain verified buyers in order to prevent contributors boosting their rank by having friends and family zoom their images repeatedly.

[DCSmith]

3 hours ago, DJ Myford said:

Data is only gathered from certain verified buyers in order to prevent contributors boosting their rank by having friends and family zoom their images repeatedly.

 

I'm not suggesting that searches by unverified "lookers" be counted for ranking purposes.

Just thinking that we might be able to see holes in the catalog better and fill them in, and have a better idea of how many people might be looking for those images

[Kent Johnson]

On 11/02/2020 at 03:34, DCSmith said:

 

I'm not suggesting that searches by unverified "lookers" be counted for ranking purposes.

Just thinking that we might be able to see holes in the catalog better and fill them in, and have a better idea of how many people might be looking for those images

I'm here looking for buyers so money spent is the best statistic for me. I would like some wildcard search options so I can investigate the search database better though.

[Klinger]

On 17/02/2020 at 05:43, Kent Johnson said:

I'm here looking for buyers so money spent is the best statistic for me. I would like some wildcard search options so I can investigate the search database better though.

There's another thread about that question, I can't locate right now. Here's potentially useful link:  https://www.regular-expressions.info/quickstart.html

 

Oh I found one of them,

 

Somewhere on the site Alamy says the data in measures isn't just a select group, it's people who have bought a license during the period. Or maybe I'm reading that wrong?

 

[wiskerke]

35 minutes ago, Klinger said:

There's another thread about that question, I can't locate right now. Here's potentially useful link:  https://www.regular-expressions.info/quickstart.html

 

Oh I found one of them,

 

Somewhere on the site Alamy says the data in measures isn't just a select group, it's people who have bought a license during the period. Or maybe I'm reading that wrong?

 

 

Hmm Klinger, have a look at that topic about those wildcards: topic here.

And maybe have a look at who started it. 😁

 

wim

[Klinger]

On 26/02/2020 at 09:45, wiskerke said:

 

Hmm Klinger, have a look at that topic about those wildcards: topic here.

And maybe have a look at who started it. 😁

 

wim

 

Yes, good reading all of them! I was just linking for anyone who might want to see both threads.

 

So about measures, does anyone have the page where Alamy says, the reports are "anyone" who has purchased an image in the last 90 days? (or some other time period) And that it's not a selected group of customers, which is what I was led to believe years ago.

 

 

 

[DCSmith]

3 minutes ago, Klinger said:

So about measures, does anyone have the page where Alamy says, the reports are "anyone" who has purchased an image in the last 90 days? (or some other time period) And that it's not a selected group of customers, which is what I was led to believe years ago.

 

 

 

From the description on the measures page.

"How is this data collected?

This data is collected from the search activity of our paying customers. It records searches, visits, views, sales and zooms."

My assumption is that it's from anyone who has a record of purchasing a license.

My original question is, are we losing valuable data by ignoring people who haven't yet purchased a license?

 

 

[Matt Ashmore]

On 29/02/2020 at 16:00, DCSmith said:

From the description on the measures page.

"How is this data collected?

This data is collected from the search activity of our paying customers. It records searches, visits, views, sales and zooms."

My assumption is that it's from anyone who has a record of purchasing a license.

My original question is, are we losing valuable data by ignoring people who haven't yet purchased a license?

 

 

 

The problem is, how do you stop a contributor from looking at all their images and so artificially boosting their CTR?

[Klinger]

5 hours ago, Matt Ashmore said:

 

The problem is, how do you stop a contributor from looking at all their images and so artificially boosting their CTR?

 

True but if there are lots of views and no sales, wouldn't that lower the rank? 🙂

On 29/02/2020 at 10:00, DCSmith said:

From the description on the measures page.

"How is this data collected?

This data is collected from the search activity of our paying customers. It records searches, visits, views, sales and zooms."

My assumption is that it's from anyone who has a record of purchasing a license.

My original question is, are we losing valuable data by ignoring people who haven't yet purchased a license?

 

 

 

I suppose there's some kind of time period for that?

 

But thanks, that's the answer, paying customers. Somehow years ago, it seemed to be described as a select sample of customers, not just anyone who bought a license.

 

 

[Matt Ashmore]

4 hours ago, Klinger said:

 

True but if there are lots of views and no sales, wouldn't that lower the rank? 🙂

 

 

If you were to find and click on (zoom) your own images, then that would raise your CTR.... you could probably push your CTR to something like 50 - 60 if you were really committed!

[DCSmith]

10 hours ago, Matt Ashmore said:

 

The problem is, how do you stop a contributor from looking at all their images and so artificially boosting their CTR?

That should be very easy.

Alamy is able to collect and display the searches of paying customers.

I assume that they are also collecting all search data.

Just use the data from the paying customers to calculate CTR, but display all the collected search terms, views and zooms for contributor research purposes.

[Klinger]

1 minute ago, DCSmith said:

That should be very easy.

Alamy is able to collect and display the searches of paying customers.

I assume that they are also collecting all search data.

Just use the data from the paying customers to calculate CTR, but display all the collected search terms, views and zooms for contributor research purposes.

 

And according to the old information, which could have changed, "9 months of customer activity" which is what I was trying to get some sort of estimate.

 

I don't think the rank or pseudonyms or much of this, make much of a difference to me. Since I have so many in one or another subject area, and because of the diversity algorithm, I'm scattered throughout just fine. If someone looks at one and checks to see what other similar I have, that's good news. In other words, my images here lack diversity, but the search helps me, within those areas.

 

[DCSmith]

2 minutes ago, Klinger said:

 

And according to the old information, which could have changed, "9 months of customer activity" which is what I was trying to get some sort of estimate.

 

I don't think the rank or pseudonyms or much of this, make much of a difference to me. Since I have so many in one or another subject area, and because of the diversity algorithm, I'm scattered throughout just fine. If someone looks at one and checks to see what other similar I have, that's good news. In other words, my images here lack diversity, but the search helps me, within those areas.

 

I don't understand how what you're writing relates to my question.

[Matt Ashmore]

2 hours ago, DCSmith said:

That should be very easy.

Alamy is able to collect and display the searches of paying customers.

I assume that they are also collecting all search data.

Just use the data from the paying customers to calculate CTR, but display all the collected search terms, views and zooms for contributor research purposes.

 

Presumably you could test this theory.. do some searches of your own and then see if your searches appear in 'All of Alamy' a day later,

[DCSmith]

6 minutes ago, Matt Ashmore said:

 

Presumably you could test this theory.. do some searches of your own and then see if your searches appear in 'All of Alamy' a day later,

Alamy doesn't currently included results for people who have not licensed images.

I'm asking them to provide results from people who have not yet purchased licenses.

[Klinger]

On 02/03/2020 at 15:24, DCSmith said:

Alamy doesn't currently included results for people who have not licensed images.

I'm asking them to provide results from people who have not yet purchased licenses.

 

On 02/03/2020 at 13:04, DCSmith said:

I don't understand how what you're writing relates to my question.

 

Because if it was people who have not purchased an image, the results could be us, a friend, a buyer, or just someone passing through. By measuring the people who actually buy something, that makes the search more valid. Does that explain my opinion better?

 

[DCSmith]

On 10/03/2020 at 22:22, Klinger said:

 

 

Because if it was people who have not purchased an image, the results could be us, a friend, a buyer, or just someone passing through. By measuring the people who actually buy something, that makes the search more valid. Does that explain my opinion better?

 

There are two ways to analyze the search. One is to look at what people are buying and copy those images.

The other way is to look at what people are looking for and not finding and try to meet those needs.

In that case, the bigger the pool of data the better.

[Klinger]

On 16/03/2020 at 19:27, DCSmith said:

There are two ways to analyze the search. One is to look at what people are buying and copy those images.

The other way is to look at what people are looking for and not finding and try to meet those needs.

In that case, the bigger the pool of data the better.

Good thoughts, thank you.

 

Yes, and if there's invalid data, which I mean, someone just looking or worse, if other artists could sandbag the people with similar images, to ruin their rank, what would be possible is "everyone" who searched and looked was recorded. There needs to be a standard to qualify who is searching. In my opinion, someone who actually buys images, is a good way to separate that from the curious or anyone trying to manipulate results.

 

Valid data, quality information, that is meaningful, is more important than just looking for more data.

 

Are there other sources, outside of Alamy that show what people are searching for? That might be a resource as well?

 

For example, but we'd need to weed out the words that don't apply to photos.  https://www.pagetraffic.com/blog/most-popular-keywords-on-search-engines/

 

Here's another?  https://www.stockphotosecrets.com/stock-agency-insights/most-downloaded-images-2018.html

 

Edited March 18, 2020 by Klinger