quotation marks in captions & supertags affect searches, too? or not?

[FocusUno]

found this wrt using quotation marks, specifically in tags:

 

• I’ve tagged my image “Banff National Park”, will my image show if someone searches “Park”? Our tagging system does not exclude constituent words of a tag from being searched. For example, “Banff National Park” will still show up for “banff”, “national park” and “park” searches. 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.

 

has anyone tested quotation marks for supertags & captions?  conclusions?  TIA.

[Cryptoprocta]

34 minutes ago, FocusUno said:

found this wrt using quotation marks, specifically in tags:

 

• I’ve tagged my image “Banff National Park”, will my image show if someone searches “Park”? Our tagging system does not exclude constituent words of a tag from being searched. For example, “Banff National Park” will still show up for “banff”, “national park” and “park” searches. 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.

 

has anyone tested quotation marks for supertags & captions?  conclusions?  TIA.

At other times that has not been true. Rhinoceros searches have thrown up beetles, hornbills etc on the first page well above rhino (the mammal) photo

But right now, as I noted in another thread, search seems particularly 'clean', and at least for me, on a search for rhinoceros just now, no quotation marks, every image on the first place is one of the rhino (mammal) species.

I'm sure you can devise your own searches to see how widespread this is.

Not much we can do about the search algorithm: even though, when it isn't working as well as it should we, could be disadvantaged, as people my not see our e.g. rhino pics if the first page is badly polluted with beetles, hornbills and helicopers, and - as we know from Measures - a reasonable proportion of buyers only look at the first page.

[Cryptoprocta]

1 minute ago, Cryptoprocta said:

*

At other times that has not been true. Rhinoceros searches have thrown up beetles, hornbills etc on the first page well above rhino (the mammal) photo

But right now, as I noted in another thread, search seems particularly 'clean', and at least for me, on a search for rhinoceros just now, no quotation marks, every image on the first place is one of the rhino (mammal) species.

I'm sure you can devise your own searches to see how widespread this is.

Not much we can do about the search algorithm: even though, when it isn't working as well as it should we, could be disadvantaged, as people my not see our e.g. rhino pics if the first page is badly polluted with beetles, hornbills and helicopers, and - as we know from Measures - a reasonable proportion of buyers only look at the first page.

*Whoops, I realised that you were asking specifically about putting quotes into your own tags. I have no idea.

I don't know whether that bit you quoted really meant that the person had tagged with quotation marks, rather the quote was just to indicate that they had used a  search phrase. Punctuation marks in tags in my previous experiments have been ignored, e.g. possessives, in the manner of "Land's End". This may not currently be true.

 

[FocusUno]

thanks for response

forgot to mention that quote in OP is from an Alamy blog

still interested in knowing if quotation marks in captions & supertags has effect on searches

or is just wasted character space... TIA

[Cryptoprocta]

32 minutes ago, FocusUno said:

thanks for response

forgot to mention that quote in OP is from an Alamy blog

still interested in knowing if quotation marks in captions & supertags has effect on searches

or is just wasted character space... TIA

I know that's in an Alamy blog. I tried it out when it came out, and at that very time the search was very 'muddy', even rhinoceros beetles!

It would be an easy experiment to do yourself, by changing tags you already have.

But the important thing to remember is that the algorithm changes from time to time, and what works now probably won't work in the next change, or the one after that.

[Cryptoprocta]

BTW, although you didn't ask, I'd just like to say that your captions should be written in sentences and describe what's in the photo. What you seem to have just now is a list of keywords in the caption.

https://www.alamy.com/blog/tips-for-your-captions-from-the-sales-team

At least you don't have too many to go back over! 🙂

[meanderingemu]

i just picked a few where word that was in quotation marks in caption vs other images where word is not, and it doesn't seem to have impact. 

[FocusUno]

this response left me sort of gobsmacked

as it states 0 effect....

 

Including quotation marks with the words won’t improve search results, so this isn’t something we would suggest.

Kind regards,

Alamy Contributor Relations

 

does anyone's very recent testing contradict...? TIA

[spacecadet]

20 minutes ago, FocusUno said:

this response left me sort of gobsmacked

as it states 0 effect....

That's right. Only a comma is recognised as a separator in AIM, so quotes are simply ignored. Phrase tags rank higher than the component words on their own, so including, banff national park  is the best you can do. You can't stop the images appearing in searches for the separate words, but the images should be lower down.

[Cryptoprocta]

18 hours ago, FocusUno said:

this response left me sort of gobsmacked

as it states 0 effect....

 

Including quotation marks with the words won’t improve search results, so this isn’t something we would suggest.

Kind regards,

Alamy Contributor Relations

 

does anyone's very recent testing contradict...? TIA

Why were you gobsmacked?

That's exactly as I expected, because search ignores punctuation in keywords  -as SpaceCadet said and Meanderingemu tested.

Edited August 24, 2021 by Cryptoprocta

[FocusUno]

Sentence in Alamy Blog (see OP)

 

“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.
 

indicates quotation marks has desired effect of lowering single word returns...?

But CR email contradicts! = gobsmacked...

 

So is it now correct that image with
, RHINOCEROS BEETLE, (commas) will return lower in
RHINOCEROS or BEETLE search than image with
RHINOCEROS BEETLE or " RHINOCEROS BEETLE"

the latter two will return to same or nearly same place...? TIA

[Cryptoprocta]

1 hour ago, FocusUno said:

Sentence in Alamy Blog (see OP)

 

“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.
 

indicates quotation marks has desired effect of lowering single word returns...?

But CR email contradicts! = gobsmacked...

 

So is it now correct that image with
, RHINOCEROS BEETLE, (commas) will return lower in
RHINOCEROS or BEETLE search than image with
RHINOCEROS BEETLE or " RHINOCEROS BEETLE"

the latter two will return to same or nearly same place...? TIA

That is for searchers using quotation marks, not for keywording.

[FocusUno]

24 minutes ago, Cryptoprocta said:

That is for searchers using quotation marks, not for keywording.

??

Was only considering contributor adding quotation marks to keywording-tags...

Trying to target searchers using quotation marks seems a waste of time since in rolling year

less than handful of searchers used quotation marks according to All of Alamy:

             

01-Aug-2020

 

22-Aug-2021

 

  Search Term :

%"%  <===(NOTE SEARCH)

Return to all searches

Results per page:

20

Page 1 of 1           Go to page: 

< Previous |   Next >

Search Term

UCO

Sales

Zooms

Views

Descending         

CTR (%)

The "red guards" 1            0            0            474        0.00

"anne frank"        2            2            3            200        1.50

"Coburger fuchsschaf"      1            0            0            102        0.00

"lara croft"           1            2            1            100        1.00

Culture "              1            0            0            100        0.00

"Duke of Edinburgh"         1            0            0            100        0.00

Katee Sackhoff "Halloween: Resurrection"   1            0            0            17              0.00

Poster "Live free OR die " 1            0            0            9            0.00

"leselotte powder"              1            0            0            0            0.00

"White Whale Sea Hunting"            1            0            0            0            0.00

fifteenth-century exhibition of the Aqua Vergine, "Guide of Rome" by Giuseppe Vasi (1763).         1            0            0            0            0.00

christina aguilera sings "diamonds are a girl's best friend" in the film "burlesque"              1            0            0            0            0.00

jean paul belmondo out of breath "  1            0            0            0            0.00

old master "paradise" by roelant sevary f       1            0            0            0              0.00

Mimi "Monster" Zhang     1            0            0            0            0.00

boxer saúl "el canelo" alvarez against his rival russian sergei kovalev at the mgm grand garden arena, 2019, tass, alamy.          1            0            0            0              0.00

exercise "personal exchange program"          1            0            0            0              0.00

Vincent van Gogh, Woman ("Sien") sitting by the stove, 1882 1            0            0              0            0.00

old master "paradise" by roelant sevary         1            0            0            0              0.00

van Gogh Pink peaches ("memory of Mauve"),           1            0            0            0              0.00

Export to excel< Previous |  1 | Next >

[Cryptoprocta]

More than a handful, but nothing like as many as I'd have thought, as I'm used to doing it with searches elsewhere, even though Google doesn't pay as much attention to phrases in quotation marks as they used to be.

I'd have thought that during certain very 'polluted' search iterations, a searcher would try it 'just to see' if it would give them better results (it often did).

 

In fact, an Alamy employee once said quite categorically that if a seach was shown in Measures in quotes, it was a staff member who had done it. I took that with a liberal pinch of salt, but What Do I Know?

 

Just use commas to separate keyword phrases.

 

[M.Chapman]

14 hours ago, Cryptoprocta said:

Just use commas to separate keyword phrases.

+1

[FocusUno]

So, if my image is tagged
Miami Beach Florida word4 T word5 U word6 V word7 X word8 Y word9 Z
with T U V X Y Z coincidentally being words that are names of other beaches
the ONLY strategy for keeping this Miami Beach image out of sight in searches
T Beach, U Beach, V Beach, etc., is to order & punctuate as

Miami Beach, Florida word4 word5 word6, word7 word8 word9 T U V W X Y Z (2 commas total)

weakening T U V W X Y Z by putting at back end

weakening T U V W X Y Z by comma-phrasing to 10-word limit , word7 word8 word9 T U V W X Y Z

 

 

[M.Chapman]

So far as I'm aware, there's no way to exclude your images by changing the sequence, or using quotes, or using phrases. The best you can hope for is that your image appears further down in the search results for less favourable matches. If you have an image you want to appear high in searches for Miami beach, for example, make sure the words miami beach appear as a phrase in your supertags and in your caption. It doesn't need to be in quotes, but don't seperate miami and beach with a comma in your supertags. e.g.

Supertags: miami beach, sand, sea, surf, etc.

 

I've no idea how effective "hiding" unfavourable keywords inside phrases is at demoting an image. I've never tried it.

 

Mark

Edited August 24, 2021 by M.Chapman