CTR?

[Ed Rooney]

When zooms drop, the CTR drops too. Is that correct? 

 

My ranking is still strong in test searches and my BHZ still sits on Page One. My sales for February are just above average expectations . . . but my CTR is falling. Hmmm

[Sultanpepa]

11 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

When zooms drop, the CTR drops too. Is that correct? 

 

My ranking is still strong in test searches and my BHZ still sits on Page One. My sales for February are just above average expectations . . . but my CTR is falling. Hmmm

 

Correct. My CTR for Feb is the lowest in a year. Doesn't bode well for sales.

[Matt Ashmore]

57 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

When zooms drop, the CTR drops too. Is that correct? 

 

My ranking is still strong in test searches and my BHZ still sits on Page One. My sales for February are just above average expectations . . . but my CTR is falling. Hmmm

 

CTR is a simple percentage calculation (ratio):

 

(num zooms / num views) * 100

 

Simple maths says that CTR will remain the same if your number of views also drops in line with the number of zooms.

 

 

44 minutes ago, Sultanpepa said:

 

Correct. My CTR for Feb is the lowest in a year. Doesn't bode well for sales.

 

Last month, my CTR was .40 which was my lowest in a year.... but this month, it currently sits at 0.97 which is the highest in a year. But my trend as a whole has been upwards.

Edited February 25, 2020 by Matt Ashmore

[John Mitchell]

If zooms drop while views remain roughly the same or increase, then CTR should fall.

 

Despite a below average month sales-wise, my CTR has gone up in Feb. due I assume to a healthy number of zooms.

[Bryan]

I'm not sure that CTR is all that important. While avoiding  keyword spamming, I aim to try to get as many views as possible, and accept that many searches will produce irrelevant outcomes. Such is the nature of the beast. We've recently discussed the effect that providing a location has on CTR, as some customers will  search for example for Liverpool, but I'd want to be in the game and, unless really inappropriate, always provide a location.

[Matt Ashmore]

13 hours ago, Bryan said:

I'm not sure that CTR is all that important. 

 

Yes.. I have suspicions too. If truth be known, we don't know either way whether or not it has much impact in search results.

Edited February 26, 2020 by Matt Ashmore

[M.Chapman]

20 hours ago, Bryan said:

I'm not sure that CTR is all that important.

 

Since Alamy have stopped doing re-ranks (when was the last one? 2018?), maybe it's irrelevant??

 

Mark

[John Mitchell]

 I think that maintaining decent CTR is still important for getting images seen (although it's a bit of a "catch-22"). However, I find that having a stable of repeat-sellers is more important than high CTR when it comes to generating regular income. However, today's repeat-sellers have a habit of becoming tomorrow's dust-gatherers. But c'est la vie.

Edited February 26, 2020 by John Mitchell

[Matt Ashmore]

On 26/02/2020 at 18:42, M.Chapman said:

 

Since Alamy have stopped doing re-ranks (when was the last one? 2018?), maybe it's irrelevant??

 

Mark

 

Just because there is no longer a 'big bang' style re-rank doesn't mean that they don't update stats on a much more regular basis such that it is not immediately visible as it could be much smaller increments.

 

If nothing else, I guess CTR is an indication of how "good" your images are to give you as a contributor some feedback. If you are getting a good ratio of zooms to views (which is what CTR tells you after all) then you are probably on the right track.

Edited February 28, 2020 by Matt Ashmore

[Niels Quist]

In my opinion sales are much more important.

Edited February 28, 2020 by Niels Quist

[spacecadet]

4 minutes ago, Niels Quist said:

In my opinion sales are much more important.

They pay better, too.

[M.Chapman]

1 hour ago, Matt Ashmore said:

don't update stats on a much more regular basis such that it is not immediately visible as it could be much smaller increments.

 

It maybe they are now relying on another method instead. I find (and it was confirmed by Alamy) that zoomed images maybe promoted in search results when the search term is the same. So zooms still help search placement, but in a different way.

 

Mark

[Robert M Estall]

The average Alamy CTR seems to have been 0.58 give or take a second digit or two for a long time. Mine doesn't often drift far below 0.90. That's in spite of the fact that measures used to show about 40 zooms and these days it shows between 10 and 15 zooms for the past month. 1/2 a dozen to ten sales most months, but of course, not at the levels they used to be. I.m not invisible on searches, but I don't spend a lot of time on that kind of exercise 

[Betty LaRue]

On 25/02/2020 at 15:49, Bryan said:

I'm not sure that CTR is all that important. While avoiding  keyword spamming, I aim to try to get as many views as possible, and accept that many searches will produce irrelevant outcomes. Such is the nature of the beast. We've recently discussed the effect that providing a location has on CTR, as some customers will  search for example for Liverpool, but I'd want to be in the game and, unless really inappropriate, always provide a location.

Location, location. 
I struggle with this. I never am sure when to use it, when not to.

 

image of a pie I baked. My pies don’t look like the pies baked in the U.K. Should I use my state? Only the USA? Or nothing?

Image of flowers in my garden, or wildflowers in the country, or a tree, bush or whatever. We have crossover flowers across countries, but many flowers only grow in the south, or the north, USA. I have most of the time put in the town, state, country. I’m rethinking this because my searches seem to be common name, scientific name. I can always put full location in the description. I have had searches for “Oklahoma “ occasionally, but probably they are not looking for plants.

So....not use location for these types of images but put it in the description? Or not?

i would think a storefront should have location, even if it is one in a chain. A searcher may want the store (shop) in a certain town or city. So I usually have it in the caption and tags.

A child gathering Easter eggs?

A woman walking her dog?

A man grilling hamburgers?

My CTR is usually below the average so I must be doing something wrong. I suspect it might largely be from unnecessary locations.

Betty

[meanderingemu]

16 minutes ago, Betty LaRue said:

Location, location. 
I struggle with this. I never am sure when to use it, when not to.

 

image of a pie I baked. My pies don’t look like the pies baked in the U.K. Should I use my state? Only the USA? Or nothing?

Image of flowers in my garden, or wildflowers in the country, or a tree, bush or whatever. We have crossover flowers across countries, but many flowers only grow in the south, or the north, USA. I have most of the time put in the town, state, country. I’m rethinking this because my searches seem to be common name, scientific name. I can always put full location in the description. I have had searches for “Oklahoma “ occasionally, but probably they are not looking for plants.

So....not use location for these types of images but put it in the description? Or not?

i would think a storefront should have location, even if it is one in a chain. A searcher may want the store (shop) in a certain town or city. So I usually have it in the caption and tags.

A child gathering Easter eggs?

A woman walking her dog?

A man grilling hamburgers?

My CTR is usually below the average so I must be doing something wrong. I suspect it might largely be from unnecessary locations.

Betty

 

 

if i have a location that is incidental to the subject, ie. client would not want this image if looking just at location search, but might want this particular as part of a specific search, like your chain store i will have the location as a KW not supertag so the algorithm shouldn't put it up and foremost in search of the location only.

 

by proactively managing my search results, over last 6 months, reviewing My Alamy at least weekly, i've managed to double my CTR 

[Bryan]

2 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

Location, location. 
I struggle with this. I never am sure when to use it, when not to.

 

 

A child gathering Easter eggs?

A woman walking her dog?

A man grilling hamburgers?

My CTR is usually below the average so I must be doing something wrong. I suspect it might largely be from unnecessary locations.

Betty

 

For each of these cases l would be tempted to search All of Alamy to see if a location is frequently required e.g. search for %walking dog% - in that instance there are many cases of the location being required, some by country, some by county (state) and some by town /city.

 

I vary the location information to suit the subject, maybe England, or north east England, or named town or city. If it's a shot of a consumer product, probably no location.

 

 

[Ed Rooney]

It's funny that my thread has taken this turn because I'm having trouble deciding if I should include a location with some of my restaurant food pics. If there's a menu or something unique that IDs the bistro, I add all the location info. Here's something I uploaded today and see as a possible problem. That little round portion of green mayo would ID this place, no? Unless I was at a famous place in Havana shooting Cuban food, I would rather not put in a location. Nobody on Planet Earth is interested in the fact that this Cubana mixto was ordered in Liverpool.

 

[Matt Ashmore]

44 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

Nobody on Planet Earth is interested in the fact that this Cubana mixto was ordered in Liverpool.

 

 

 

Absolutely.. and by adding Liverpool to your keywords would only give you false-positives in the search results. Presumably someone searching for just "Liverpool" would be looking for an image of the city itself rather than some food which could be anywhere.

[Ed Rooney]

I agree, Matt. I'm gonna review all my Liverpool food snaps. But . . . I still feel that I'm in a grey area with the restaurants. I think I will remove all the location tags but check the box that says I don't have a property release. 😥

[Matt Ashmore]

42 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

I agree, Matt. I'm gonna review all my Liverpool food snaps. But . . . I still feel that I'm in a grey area with the restaurants. I think I will remove all the location tags but check the box that says I don't have a property release. 😥

 

I took the liberty of taking a quick look at your pictures (great pictures BTW). The likes of 2AWJF6N, I would remove the location from as it's just food that could be anywhere. But for an image like 2B0WRY2, I would include location because it is about the place as much as the food.  

 

Edit: And it's kind of reassuring to see that I'm not the only person that thinks to take pictures like 2AW9E14 .. making absolutely sure nobody is about when I take it as that would just be awkward!

Edited February 28, 2020 by Matt Ashmore

[Ed Rooney]

 

Yeah, I've been retagging in the last hour. They will show up tomorrow.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Ed Rooney

[meanderingemu]

1 hour ago, Matt Ashmore said:

 

Absolutely.. and by adding Liverpool to your keywords would only give you false-positives in the search results. Presumably someone searching for just "Liverpool" would be looking for an image of the city itself rather than some food which could be anywhere.

 

 

i went through the first 3 pages of results for Liverpool, and all have it in the caption.  so i still think there is a case to have it as a KW, in case someone is looking for Food in Liverpool... 

[JaniMarkus Hasa]

23 hours ago, meanderingemu said:

 

 

i went through the first 3 pages of results for Liverpool, and all have it in the caption.  so i still think there is a case to have it as a KW, in case someone is looking for Food in Liverpool... 

 

Based on the same assumption, I have location in every image as KW, but in caption only if I think it's relevant. I don't recall having any false views because of location. Except that I have lot of views for "Northern light Finland" which I have none. Instead I do have a lot of images taken in Finland, Northern Europe and in evening light. Couple have car headlights.

[meanderingemu]

3 hours ago, JaniMarkus Hasa said:

 

Based on the same assumption, I have location in every image as KW, but in caption only if I think it's relevant. I don't recall having any false views because of location. Except that I have lot of views for "Northern light Finland" which I have none. Instead I do have a lot of images taken in Finland, Northern Europe and in evening light. Couple have car headlights.

 

 

i was curious, since i rarely add large regional KW,  less than 20 searches for %northern europe% in last 12 months. and most with no zoom

[spacecadet]

I almost always have the location of food pix, usually in the caption but there or in the tags. The way a country eats is relevant IMO and you never know who might be looking for that particular establishment.

The only recent exception is a closeup of some mince pies at Christmas. It wasn't relevant where they were, but NZ is still in the tags as I'd already batch tagged them. As Betty says, we do things differently in different places, even down to the design of a pie.

Edited March 1, 2020 by spacecadet

[Ed Rooney]

Every image we submit for stock requires its own judgement call. But I can't say I'm generally in favour of giving a location on most food shots. If I have an overhead closeup of a bowl of pasta that I've snapped in Liverpool or San Miguel de Allende, I would not be putting in those location. If I'd taken the picture in Italy or NY's Little Italy I would. The dish below has the location as UK and Great Britain.