Recent images for a search term don't appear!

[Roy Conchie]

Has anyone else noticed that recently shot images never appear under a prime search term whereas their much older images do?

I've noticed that most of my pictures under a certain heading never appear in searches. The only ones that appear are older images I uploaded some time ago. I tried removing the search term from the Super Keywords(Blue Starred) of the old images and just having the search term within the Super Keywords(Blue Starred) of the recent( within 3 years) images but they still don't show on searches and the old images still come up even though they no longer have Super Keywords(Blue Starred). I'm beginning to think my recent images under this category are just lost in cyberspace although I can search them myself in 'Alamy Image Manager'.

[Jill Morgan]

43 minutes ago, Roy Conchie said:

Has anyone else noticed that recently shot images never appear under a prime search term whereas their much older images do?

I've noticed that most of my pictures under a certain heading never appear in searches. The only ones that appear are older images I uploaded some time ago. I tried removing the search term from the Super Keywords(Blue Starred) of the old images and just having the search term within the Super Keywords(Blue Starred) of the recent( within 3 years) images but they still don't show on searches and the old images still come up even though they no longer have Super Keywords(Blue Starred). I'm beginning to think my recent images under this category are just lost in cyberspace although I can search them myself in 'Alamy Image Manager'.

 

If these images have sold in the past, then they usually get placed higher in search.  If you want the newer ones to appear, then delete the old ones.  Especially if the new ones are superior to the older ones.

 

Do a test and change the caption of the older ones to something that doesn't contain the search words you are using.  Same with the keywords.  Totally remove the relevant ones and then check tomorrow and see if your new ones move up in the search.  The only way to get the new ones to the front all the time would be to delete the old ones.

Edited February 18, 2022 by Jill Morgan

[M.Chapman]

1 hour ago, Roy Conchie said:

Has anyone else noticed that recently shot images never appear under a prime search term whereas their much older images do?

I've noticed that most of my pictures under a certain heading never appear in searches. The only ones that appear are older images I uploaded some time ago. I tried removing the search term from the Super Keywords(Blue Starred) of the old images and just having the search term within the Super Keywords(Blue Starred) of the recent( within 3 years) images but they still don't show on searches and the old images still come up even though they no longer have Super Keywords(Blue Starred). I'm beginning to think my recent images under this category are just lost in cyberspace although I can search them myself in 'Alamy Image Manager'.

 

Try selecting the "New" option when searching.

 

Mark

[Roy Conchie]

On 18/02/2022 at 16:06, Jill Morgan said:

 

If these images have sold in the past, then they usually get placed higher in search.  If you want the newer ones to appear, then delete the old ones.  Especially if the new ones are superior to the older ones.

 

Do a test and change the caption of the older ones to something that doesn't contain the search words you are using.  Same with the keywords.  Totally remove the relevant ones and then check tomorrow and see if your new ones move up in the search.  The only way to get the new ones to the front all the time would be to delete the old ones.

Hi Jill, Thanks for your response which I detect goes along with my opinion that the search engine's regime is dysfunctional.  If a search prioritises previously sold images then, in doing so, it deprives picture researchers from seeing new material.  It also makes a nonsense of Alamy's continuous efforts asking contributors to submit new images when we can't get them shown to Buyers.   Maybe this is the reason why we see  an increasing number of searches with the (LU) suffix as an attempt to find newish images rather than what I originally thought was a system for finding images likely to be available at cent prices rather than dollar prices?

[Roy Conchie]

On 18/02/2022 at 16:35, M.Chapman said:

 

Try selecting the "New" option when searching.

 

Mark

Hi Mark,

I'm not sure what you mean here?   I'm not a picture researcher, I'm a contributor and, as far as I know, have no influence of search terms.

[spacecadet]

8 minutes ago, Roy Conchie said:

Hi Mark,

I'm not sure what you mean here?   I'm not a picture researcher, I'm a contributor and, as far as I know, have no influence of search terms.

He's suggesting that you do it in order to see how your images then appear.

Of course a picture researcher using the "new" option would see the newer images.

[NYCat]

1 hour ago, Roy Conchie said:

Hi Mark,

I'm not sure what you mean here?   I'm not a picture researcher, I'm a contributor and, as far as I know, have no influence of search terms.

 

At the top left of search results you can choose New, Creative, or Relevant. The results of New show the most recently shot photos first. It is hoped that researchers know this and will choose it if that is important to them.

 

Paulette

[Roy Conchie]

1 hour ago, spacecadet said:

He's suggesting that you do it in order to see how your images then appear.

Of course a picture researcher using the "new" option would see the newer images.

Thanks for that guidance about how researchers might quantify their requirement.

Part of my issue, having changed the blue star tags on the old images, is that the blue star tags don't appear to have any relevance.

[Roy Conchie]

21 minutes ago, NYCat said:

 

At the top left of search results you can choose New, Creative, or Relevant. The results of New show the most recently shot photos first. It is hoped that researchers know this and will choose it if that is important to them.

 

Paulette

Thanks Paulette!  I appreciate your feedback.  I looked at the filtering of researchers results and it's interesting but I'm not sure how I might respond to it in keywording apart from maybe lowering my expectations.  Part of my issue was about the blue tags which you can see from my reply to Spacecadet above. 

[meanderingemu]

40 minutes ago, Roy Conchie said:

Thanks for that guidance about how researchers might quantify their requirement.

Part of my issue, having changed the blue star tags on the old images, is that the blue star tags don't appear to have any relevance.

 

 

this does not match my findings.  within a set of similar subject images, the one where i SuperTagged the Keyword generally appear ahead of the ones i didn't.

 

[Roy Conchie]

4 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

 

 

this does not match my findings.  within a set of similar subject images, the one where i SuperTagged the Keyword generally appear ahead of the ones i didn't.

 

Thanks meanderingemu !!

[meanderingemu]

Just now, Roy Conchie said:

Thanks meanderingemu !!

 

 

that said, the algorithm is in constant flux, all we can do is try to optimise our best images so they can quickly rise.  I have an image that licensed early, and it now sits at top of searches.  Another that was zoom and it's in first page....

[Jill Morgan]

Whether an image is new or older quite often has no relevance on what the buyer is looking for.  If it is a city skyline, then yes, when the picture was taken is important, but the researcher would know that.

 

If it is something generic like an image of a bird, then the date taken isn't really important.  So if you have images you prefer to be shown higher up that are quite similar to the older ones, then delete the older ones.   I plan on going through my bird images and starting to filter them out.  I have a lot of Blue Jay images, and since there are thousands of those on Alamy and elsewhere, I would want my better shots to be first shown and the only way I have power over that is to delete some of them.

 

Jill 

[M.Chapman]

2 hours ago, Roy Conchie said:

Thanks for that guidance about how researchers might quantify their requirement.

Part of my issue, having changed the blue star tags on the old images, is that the blue star tags don't appear to have any relevance.

Be careful to wait at least 24 hours (for the database update) when checking the effect of changing a tag to a supertag, or modifying the caption on search results. Several contributors (including me) have tested the weighting applied to words in captions, tags and supertags and those results showed (at that time) that words in caption and supertags carry a higher weighting than  words in tags. But.... there are a number of other factors that can also affect results (e.g previous zooms, age of photo,etc.) so this sort of testing has to be carried out on freshly uploaded images with similar dates which don't have any history. The usual caveat also applies, that Alamy can, and do, change the weightings being applied from time to time.

 

Mark

Edited February 22, 2022 by M.Chapman

[Roy Conchie]

1 hour ago, M.Chapman said:

Be careful to wait at least 24 hours (for the database update) when checking the effect of changing a tag to a supertag, or modifying the caption on search results. Several contributors (including me) have tested the weighting applied to words in captions, tags and supertags and those results showed (at that time) that words in caption and supertags carry a higher weighting than  words in tags. But.... there are a number of other factors that can also affect results (e.g previous zooms, age of photo,etc.) so this sort of testing has to be carried out on freshly uploaded images with similar dates which don't have any history. The usual caveat also applies, that Alamy can, and do, change the weightings being applied from time to time.

 

Mark

Jill and Mark,

Thanks again for your contributions.   I do OK for sales and the number increase each year although I get frustrated at some of the sales that show in cents which are for commercially unviable amounts that must cost more to enter onto and administer within a Sales Ledger!   My frustration is that I get notes from Alamy asking for new images and yet they don't show on searches yet images I took 10 years ago keep appearing.  The quality of my recent images being far superior to the old ones.  There's a suggestion I delete my old images but perhaps that may make space on searches for images that aren't necessarily mine!

[Allan Bell]

The only ones that appear are older images I uploaded some time ago.

 

I like it when the older images keep coming up and selling over and over.

 

Allan