Topic search, in what order do pictures appear?

[GrandSlam]

Can anybody tell me what the criteria is in what order pictures appear when searching for a particular topic? I happened to look for a certain image whennoticing that my photos  were right at the end, the end was page13 :-(((   , despite a lot of them having  been taken at a more recent date than most of the images on the previous 12 pages.

 

[geogphotos]

Probably best if you tell us what the search criteria is so that your images can be compared with others. 

[meanderingemu]

and information such as which words you used as Supertag in these images, and idea of your CTR level

[geogphotos]

Hi meandering emu,

 

Just had a look at yours and noticed a typo with the fried chicken ones - you have 'friend chicken'.

 

Wanted to let you know.

 

Best

 

Ian

[meanderingemu]

3 hours ago, geogphotos said:

Hi meandering emu,

 

Just had a look at yours and noticed a typo with the fried chicken ones - you have 'friend chicken'.

 

Wanted to let you know.

 

Best

 

Ian

ha ha thanks..   shows how little i care recently.  I don't take any time to review, haven't supertagged in a couple of months

[wiskerke]

3 hours ago, GrandSlam said:

Can anybody tell me what the criteria is in what order pictures appear when searching for a particular topic? I happened to look for a certain image whennoticing that my photos  were right at the end, the end was page13 :-(((   , despite a lot of them having  been taken at a more recent date than most of the images on the previous 12 pages.

 

 

Sales is a big part of it.

Frequent sales may influence how high your other images appear. This used to be a great influence. Then over the years it seemed to have almost disappeared, now it seems to have some influence.

Also if your image comes up for a search term and is zoomed, it seems to have a big effect if someone uses the same search term later. According to people here on the forum. Very difficult to prove this last one.

To prove that sales have an important effect, just search for an image of yourself that has been sold before. The same for an image that has sold multiple times.

Try using AoA (All of Alamy) to look for the search terms clients are actually using. If you need pointers how to use AoA, try starting here.

 

wim

[Sally]

12 hours ago, GrandSlam said:

Can anybody tell me what the criteria is in what order pictures appear when searching for a particular topic? I happened to look for a certain image whennoticing that my photos  were right at the end, the end was page13 :-(((   , despite a lot of them having  been taken at a more recent date than most of the images on the previous 12 pages.

 

The algorithm is a closely guarded secret. We can only suppose that a number of factors contribute. Even with a relatively low CTR I usually have images fairly high up. There is, I think, also a mechanism which stops clusters of an individual photographer’s images appearing together. All you can do is make sure that you caption and keyword as accurately as possible (and of course produce high quality images).

[NYCat]

The date taken has nothing to do with the order. Just add as much specific and accurate information you can in the caption and keywords and tag some as supertags.

 

Paulette

[Michael Ventura]

15 minutes ago, NYCat said:

The date taken has nothing to do with the order. Just add as much specific and accurate information you can in the caption and keywords and tag some as supertags.

 

Paulette

Unless a buyer clicks on the “New” tab.

[Joseph Clemson]

Part of the way Alamy search works is to space a each photographers images at specific intervals in any given search, to avoid clusters, as Sally remarks above.  In those cases where a particular photographer has a high proportion of the total number of images which match the search term, the algorithm runs out of other photographer's  images to enable this spacing to take place and so all the remaining images end up in a cluster at the end. I suspect this is the case in what is described by the OP.

 

There is no way way can influence which of our images appear first in any given search, except by careful captioning, super-tagging and general tagging, leading to such images gaining zooms and sales and therefore high positioning in the long term. There is no shortcut to success. 

[wiskerke]

1 hour ago, NYCat said:

The date taken has nothing to do with the order. Just add as much specific and accurate information you can in the caption and keywords and tag some as supertags.

 

Paulette

It used to be that new images did get in front of older images, no matter what. This has changed. Partly because of the weight of sales and maybe per image CTR. Which would be a good thing, if true. However if new images would always start at the rear, that would be a very bad thing.

 

wim

[NYCat]

1 hour ago, wiskerke said:

It used to be that new images did get in front of older images, no matter what. This has changed. Partly because of the weight of sales and maybe per image CTR. Which would be a good thing, if true. However if new images would always start at the rear, that would be a very bad thing.

 

wim

 

I think that was the date uploaded rather than the date taken and I think the new tab is different in that respect too. I do find that images that have sold get promoted to the beginning of searches. It is frustrating to not be able to choose the order of my own images since I think some are a lot better than others and uploading new ones makes me wonder if they will push a better image back.

 

Paulette

[wiskerke]

8 minutes ago, NYCat said:

 

I think that was the date uploaded rather than the date taken and I think the new tab is different in that respect too. I do find that images that have sold get promoted to the beginning of searches. It is frustrating to not be able to choose the order of my own images since I think some are a lot better than others and uploading new ones makes me wonder if they will push a better image back.

 

Paulette

Yes people have reported that it's now the image taken date that decides the order in the New tab.

So it is to be expected that it will shake up the order in which images are being displayed as well.

It used to be date uploaded and that made a lot of sense.

Having a tab Recent Images and a tab Newly Uploaded Images would solve part of the (probably real) problem. However clients don't always use tabs or any other tools on the page. Lots of people just skip all that and go over to another agency or Google. This may not apply to seasoned customers.

 

Before the algorithm change that did away with the weight of different pseudos one could influence the order somewhat by keeping bestsellers and single keyword sellers in one pseudo and images with complicated search phrases (aka as niche images) in another. Not anymore since Alamy in its wisdom deemed it cheating.

Choosing the order by yourself would be quite a task, not just for you, but for the database as well: For what keywords would the order have to change? And how should the algo know how to do that?

Having different weighted pseudos was a very elegant way to solve all that. The algorithm still decided which pseudo and which image would rise and which should fall.

Rant over.

 

Now where do the newly uploaded images rank within your own image order for all different keywords, or just for the most important ones? The only proof of the pudding so far is upload and check afterward.

I can think of a couple of tests, but for some reason I can't bring myself to do it.  ( 💵 💵 maybe? Winter blues? Pandemic fatigue? All of the above? )

 

wim

[GrandSlam]

Wow, I'm overwhelmed by the response to my question😁.  I had only typed in one name of a city in the SEARCH window, just to see what would come up, as I know from a few picture editors that is what they do to get a general overview and the add more and more specific words. 

I reckon the suggestition by 'wiskerke' having a tab Recent Images and a tab Newly Uploaded Images would be a good idea.  I'd say most of my travel images are uploaded pretty much in the same year they were taken, in my search results (13) pages there was quite a big difference like my pic was taken in 2018 and other something like 2006 and soforth which made me ask this question in the first place.

Anyway , reading all your interesting answers made me aware of the complexity of the subject.

Merry Christmas everyone

 

Juergen

[meanderingemu]

16 minutes ago, GrandSlam said:

Wow, I'm overwhelmed by the response to my question😁.  I had only typed in one name of a city in the SEARCH window, just to see what would come up, as I know from a few picture editors that is what they do to get a general overview and the add more and more specific words. 

I reckon the suggestition by 'wiskerke' having a tab Recent Images and a tab Newly Uploaded Images would be a good idea.  I'd say most of my travel images are uploaded pretty much in the same year they were taken, in my search results (13) pages there was quite a big difference like my pic was taken in 2018 and other something like 2006 and soforth which made me ask this question in the first place.

Anyway , reading all your interesting answers made me aware of the complexity of the subject.

Merry Christmas everyone

 

Juergen

 

 

if you want to see the biggest impact i have found so far, make that word a supertag, as well as having it in the caption.  

[wiskerke]

5 hours ago, GrandSlam said:

Wow, I'm overwhelmed by the response to my question😁.  I had only typed in one name of a city in the SEARCH window, just to see what would come up, as I know from a few picture editors that is what they do to get a general overview and the add more and more specific words. 

I reckon the suggestition by 'wiskerke' having a tab Recent Images and a tab Newly Uploaded Images would be a good idea.  I'd say most of my travel images are uploaded pretty much in the same year they were taken, in my search results (13) pages there was quite a big difference like my pic was taken in 2018 and other something like 2006 and soforth which made me ask this question in the first place.

Anyway , reading all your interesting answers made me aware of the complexity of the subject.

Merry Christmas everyone

 

Juergen

 

Merry Christmas / Frohe Weihnachten!

 

5 hours ago, meanderingemu said:

if you want to see the biggest impact i have found so far, make that word a supertag, as well as having it in the caption.  

+1 !

(Just in case you have not been aware of this one.)

 

wim