Poor Discoverability

[Michele Jackson]

I am certain this question has been asked many times before but I can't see where in the forum. 

I have images in "Poor Discoverability".  It seems to me that starring the super tags, adding enough keywords, and completing all the questions in the "Optional" section for every single image is very time consuming and hardly worthwhile considering the return dollars.  My questions are -  do I need to do them, or can I leave my images in the "Poor Discoverability" section and if I do will it damage sales ability?

Thank you for your patience in answering what I'm sure has been asked before.

Edited April 23, 2021 by Michele Jackson

[Mr Standfast]

It is still a red herring. Don't worry. Look in the blog for image manager and you will get an explanation. 

[Harry Harrison]

Many are concerned about this at first, don't be, this thread probably covers it for you:

 

https://discussion.alamy.com/topic/14205-discoverability/#comment-280597

 

[NYCat]

There is a new and very good blog post up now about captions and tags.... https://www.alamy.com/blog/captions-and-tags?utm_campaign=1921875_Blog update - April 2021&utm_medium=email&utm_source=contributoremail&dm_i=2SWW,156XF,12IMQ4,4EQ47,1  

 

Paulette

[Harry Harrison]

18 minutes ago, NYCat said:

There is a new and very good blog post up now about captions and tags.... https://www.alamy.com/blog/captions-and-tags?utm_campaign=1921875_Blog update - April 2021&utm_medium=email&utm_source=contributoremail&dm_i=2SWW,156XF,12IMQ4,4EQ47,1  

Yes, it is good, I suppose it would be difficult for Alamy to explain or at least mention the flawed Discoverability bar without accepting some of its shortcomings, pity. 

 

I was interested in this:

 

"This also means that “Rhinoceros Beetle” will show up in “Rhinoceros” searches, but the search engine tries to make sure that the beetle image does not appear too high up."

 

I'd love to know how the search engine does that, it would be useful to know.

 

Edit:

Not that I'm likely to photograph either the Rhinoceros or the Rhinoceros Beetle of course!

Edited April 23, 2021 by Harry Harrison

[Harry Harrison]

This much older blog post says the following:

 

Discoverability

Probably the most commonly raised topic we get asked about is the new ‘discoverability’ bar which appears on all images in AIM. The discoverability bar is not in any way ‘reading’ or ‘scoring’ the quality of your metadata, it simply increases with the volume of searchable information you enter.

Searchable information includes not only captions and tags but also the ‘optional information’; number of people, property, date taken, location, primary and secondary categories.

It is not a requirement for you to add extra information here as your images are already on sale and can be seen by customers, it’s optional. Sometimes, possibly more often than not, you may have an image that doesn’t require the ‘full quota’ of tags and information and its fine to leave these without boosting discoverability further.

 

https://www.alamy.com/blog/questions-we-get-asked-about-alamy-image-manager

[Mr Standfast]

3 hours ago, NYCat said:

There is a new and very good blog post up now about captions and tags.... https://www.alamy.com/blog/captions-and-tags?utm_campaign=1921875_Blog update - April 2021&utm_medium=email&utm_source=contributoremail&dm_i=2SWW,156XF,12IMQ4,4EQ47,1  

 

Paulette

 

 

I've book marked this for the next time the question is raised; next week?

[M.Chapman]

7 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

I was interested in this:

 

"This also means that “Rhinoceros Beetle” will show up in “Rhinoceros” searches, but the search engine tries to make sure that the beetle image does not appear too high up."

 

I'd love to know how the search engine does that, it would be useful to know.

 

I believe images that have been previously zoomed during a search using the term Rhinocerous are likely to be promoted in the search results.

 

Certainly I've seen strong evidence in the past that previously zoomed images are promoted if the search term is the same, and James A confirmed that this can happen when I spoke to him at the NEC. That was a few years ago now though, and Alamy can and do change things. However, I just checked, and the promotion of my image of Loweswater still appears to be happening.

 

Mark

Edited April 23, 2021 by M.Chapman