Multi-word tags and scientific names

[ATJ]

The majority of my photographs on Alamy are of animals.  I identify them to species if possible but I was wondering if it is better to have the scientific name (and common names for that matter) as a single tag with two words or two tags (or a combination of both).

 

For example, take the Red Wide-bodied Pipefish, Stigmatopora harastii.  For the caption I'd have "Red Wide-bodied Pipefish, Stigmatopora harastii, at Kurnell, New South Wales, Australia." but for the tags (super or otherwise) am I better off with:

 

1. Stigmatopora harastii, Red Wide-bodied Pipefish, Kurnell, New South Wales, Australia,  (and any other tags)
2. Stigmatopora, harastii, red, wide, bodied, pipefish, Kurnell, New South Wales, Australia, (and any other tags)
3. Stigmatopora harastii, Stigmatopora, harastii, Red Wide-bodied Pipefish, red, wide, bodied, pipefish, etc.

 

I would thing 2. would be sufficient but wasn't sure if 1 or 3 might somehow provide some special cases with seraches. 

[Cryptoprocta]

Generally, any word in the caption or keywords combines with any other word in caption or keywords which can give really odd search results.

The theory is that if you have them combined in a keyword phrase, 'New South Wales', that should come higher in the search  for New South Wales than it does in a search for Wales, but that's debatable in practice: it certainly varies with different search iterations.

For example if you have a photo of Joe Bloggs and Jane Doe, your pic will also appear in searches for Joe Doe, Jane Bloggs, Joe Jane, Jane Joe as well as the actual two people.

If you check every now and then you'll see how strictly the actual search order is keeping to the theory, depending on how often the search is being 'tweaked'.

So essentially, keep it as your example 1, for your own sense of professionalism at least.

[Betty LaRue]

22 minutes ago, Cryptoprocta said:

Generally, any word in the caption or keywords combines with any other word in caption or keywords which can give really odd search results.

The theory is that if you have them combined in a keyword phrase, 'New South Wales', that should come higher in the search  for New South Wales than it does in a search for Wales, but that's debatable in practice: it certainly varies with different search iterations.

For example if you have a photo of Joe Bloggs and Jane Doe, your pic will also appear in searches for Joe Doe, Jane Bloggs, Joe Jane, Jane Joe as well as the actual two people.

If you check every now and then you'll see how strictly the actual search order is keeping to the theory, depending on how often the search is being 'tweaked'.

So essentially, keep it as your example 1, for your own sense of professionalism at least.

I agree 100%.

By the way, the last 3 searches of different plant images of mine, they were searched by scientific names only. Which shows how important those are. I do see some newbies who say “pretty white flower” with neither common or scientific names. I’ve never seen a search identified like that.

I have devoted half or whole days tracking down identifications, myself.

ATJ, good on you for caring enough, and for going to the trouble to try to get it right.

Edited August 19, 2021 by Betty LaRue

[ATJ]

My fear with example 1 is that if someone was to search on just the genus, Stigmatopora, they wouldn't find my photographs - or they might but they'd be further down in the list as it would matching on the caption only.

 

The same problem can occur for common names.  For example, the "official" common name for S. harastii is "Red Wide-bodied Pipfish", but people might put "Red Wide-body Pipefish".  I can preempt that by putting various combinations of common names, but if I have "red, wide, bodied, body, pipefish" it would still be found, wouldn't it? 

Edited August 19, 2021 by ATJ

[cbimages]

ATJ, I tend to put the full scientific name as one tag, and also as separate tags. I just a checked back for the past month, I had 7 of my underwater images viewed by full scientific name, and 5 with just part of the scientific name, usually Genus. ie. Alpheus.

"Common" names I do similar. But agree it's a minefield, so many "common' names, and it's easy to run out of tags, especially if you have more than one thing in the image.

Love your images!

[Inchiquin]

7 hours ago, ATJ said:

 

My fear with example 1 is that if someone was to search on just the genus, Stigmatopora, they wouldn't find my photographs

 

 

 

My understanding was that each word is still treated as a separate keyword, it's just that if the keywords appear as the same phrase they should come higher up the search. But I haven't put this to the test. Can anyone else confirm?

 

Alan

[Cryptoprocta]

1 hour ago, Inchiquin said:

 

My understanding was that each word is still treated as a separate keyword, it's just that if the keywords appear as the same phrase they should come higher up the search. But I haven't put this to the test. Can anyone else confirm?

 

Alan

I have, as explained above. My test search is Leonard Cohen.

When there are pictures 'not' of him well above pics of him, I sometimes go in and look at the caption and keywords.

Often (not ATM) it's Leonard X or X Leonard with X Cohen.

So I'm surmising, without any proof, that these have been taken by contributors with a better overall selling record.

That particular search is sometimes very clean, sometimes really quite poor. At the moment, the first page is particularly relevant. 🙂

 

Caveat: we don't know whether PA have plans to review the search algorithms, or to regularly change them.

 

Edited August 19, 2021 by Cryptoprocta

[Stokie]

8 hours ago, ATJ said:

The majority of my photographs on Alamy are of animals.  I identify them to species if possible but I was wondering if it is better to have the scientific name (and common names for that matter) as a single tag with two words or two tags (or a combination of both).

 

For example, take the Red Wide-bodied Pipefish, Stigmatopora harastii.  For the caption I'd have "Red Wide-bodied Pipefish, Stigmatopora harastii, at Kurnell, New South Wales, Australia." but for the tags (super or otherwise) am I better off with:

 

1. Stigmatopora harastii, Red Wide-bodied Pipefish, Kurnell, New South Wales, Australia,  (and any other tags)
2. Stigmatopora, harastii, red, wide, bodied, pipefish, Kurnell, New South Wales, Australia, (and any other tags)
3. Stigmatopora harastii, Stigmatopora, harastii, Red Wide-bodied Pipefish, red, wide, bodied, pipefish, etc.

 

I would thing 2. would be sufficient but wasn't sure if 1 or 3 might somehow provide some special cases with seraches. 

I would have:

 

Stigmatopora harastii, Stigmatopora, harastii, Red Wide-bodied Pipefish, red, wide, bodied, pipefish, plus Wide bodied pipefish, and general tags such as fish, animal, etc. where bold are supertags. Not sure I would put red as a tag as that might generate too many false hits.

 

John.