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Deleting non selling image themes to improve our CTR?


zxzoomy

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11 minutes ago, zxzoomy said:

After a few years here I think I know which of my image themes don't sell. Is it worth culling them to improve CTR and our Alamy rank?

 

No you don't. This week, I licensed an image which had been on sale on Alamy for 17 years 😀

 

Long time ago, Alamy advised not to delete pictures not selling and to just leave them here just in case. Of course it's your call. 

But if you think it's a genre that does not sell, surely it does not get views, so no harm to CTR?

 

 

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Gen is right. My most recently licensed image, licensed earlier this month, has been online here since early 2015. In the past year, Alamy has licensed previously unsold images from as far back as 2009 (I haven't been doing this as long as Gen has).

 

I'm often surprised by what sells and what doesn't - I doubt any of us can accurately predict what sells, even if we are constantly learning to spot trends and improve what we shoot. Use what you've learned to help you choose new uploads but keep the rest of you images up there. It only effects your CTR if it shows up in a search and if it shows up in searches, then it's probably commercially viable and worth having on here. 

 

 

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I've been wondering the same thing as much of my collection has apparently sunk to the bottom of the ocean, and if sales so far this year are any indication I'll soon be joining them. However, my CTR remains fairly consistent from month to month, so I'll probably leave things the way they are. You never know... 🤞

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1 hour ago, John Mitchell said:

I've been wondering the same thing as much of my collection has apparently sunk to the bottom of the ocean, and if sales so far this year are any indication I'll soon be joining them. However, my CTR remains fairly consistent from month to month, so I'll probably leave things the way they are. You never know... 🤞

 

My CTR has dropped off a cliff, hovering around 0.36 for the past few months.

 

Weirdly, my three sales so far this year all show up as Sales in measures, which is highly unusual, but sadly and surprisingly,  it didn't help my CTR, which is zero in those two tiny pseudos. Usually when something shows as a Sale in Measures, it's also a Zoom, which is probably why I thought Sales in Measures helped CTR. (At least now that they're at zero, it's a good time to consolidate those pseudos into my main one, whether or not it helps or hurts my CTR. I hate having my work attributed to a made-up name). 

 

As I know I've said before, the strength of my sales and that of my CTR rarely correspond. I had a CTR of 1.00 or above during my last dry spell midyear, then it dropped and I had more sales than usual. Granted, at the moment my CTR is low and sales are a little below average for me, the exception that proves the rule?  Even so, thanks to a $$$ sale in January, earnings are up. So I'm doing better than when my CTR was high. Go figure. 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Marianne
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1 hour ago, Marianne said:

 

My CTR has dropped off a cliff, hovering around 0.36 for the past few months.

 

Weirdly, my three sales so far this year all show up as Sales in measures, which is highly unusual, but sadly and surprisingly,  it didn't help my CTR, which is zero in those two tiny pseudos. Usually when something shows as a Sale in Measures, it's also a Zoom, which is probably why I thought Sales in Measures helped CTR. (At least now that they're at zero, it's a good time to consolidate those pseudos into my main one, whether or not it helps or hurts my CTR. I hate having my work attributed to a made-up name). 

 

As I know I've said before, the strength of my sales and that of my CTR rarely correspond. I had a CTR of 1.00 or above during my last dry spell midyear, then it dropped and I had more sales than usual. Granted, at the moment my CTR is low and sales are a little below average for me, the exception that proves the rule?  Even so, thanks to a $$$ sale in January, earnings are up. So I'm doing better than when my CTR was high. Go figure. 

 

 

 

 

 

My average CTR hovers around 0.8 from month to month. But as you say, there isn't always a big correlation with number of sales. Mine are currently in the dumps compared to last year's average. I don't like one of my made-up pseudos, but I'm afraid to transfer all the images to a newly created one in case it negatively affects ranking. I wish we could just change the names of existing pseudos without having to start from scratch.

Edited by John Mitchell
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2 hours ago, Marianne said:

 

So I'm doing better than when my CTR was high. Go figure. 

 

 

It's because CTR is only one ingredient of ranking. Perhaps you've been uploading more frequently or unknowingly done something contributing to the mysterious ranking algorithm. Who knows.

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1 hour ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

We know what has sold. We don't know what will sell. If you want to improve sales, check the captions and keywords to make sure they are complete and not inappropriate. And my CTR has never been high but I have regular sales.   

 

I agree with you Ed. All we can do is shoot what is or may be highly likely to be topical subjects in the future, but no one can predict that 100%. Churning out images that tens of thousands or more photographers have already covered isn't worth while, unless it is a particularly unique variant with captions and tags that cover the uniqueness. We can only do the best we can, then it's down to the buyers, and we can't read their minds.

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Searching for photos used in The Times I come across those submitted by live news shooters. Typically, but not always, they shoot multiple images to cover an event including numerous similars. Indeed it is often difficult to pick out the photo used as there are others that are almost identical. Now these folk continue to sell well, so apparently their ranking does not suffer with this approach !  

 

I'm not advocating this approach for general stock work, a couple of shots landscape and portrait is normally enough.

 

As has been mentioned above it's not unusual to sell a photo that has languished unused for years, so don't delete those.

 

I do occasionally delete a shot if I have uploaded a better version of it, maybe through improved processing of the original or because I have taken a nearly identical view in better weather, but I wouldn't lose sleep over it.

Edited by Bryan
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2 hours ago, Bryan said:

do occasionally delete a shot if I have uploaded a better version of it, maybe through improved processing of the original or because I have taken a nearly identical view in better weather,

 

I do the same but usually leave the original image up for sale with pointers to and from both images.

 

I have actually sold what I thought was the worse of the two images whereas the better (in my opinion) still languishes waiting a sale.

 

Allan

 

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I just recently licensed one that was around 9 years old. A good colorful sharp image worth keeping. I have only deleted crap images from early on, then stopped that when one that was up for deletion sold.

When I first joined, I uploaded some images before I understood whether they had a clear concept/hook someone might want/need. Some years ago I deleted a handful of those. Just taking a random photo, even well shot & developed doesn’t make it a good stock image.

Its easy to get caught up and start firing away without thought of how “this” image could be used.  If you can’t really think of tags that fit it very well, don’t upload it, but if you did, leave it & license it in 2035. Ya never know when someone might enjoy mining the nether pages.

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22 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

 

My average CTR hovers around 0.8 from month to month. But as you say, there isn't always a big correlation with number of sales. Mine are currently in the dumps compared to last year's average. I don't like one of my made-up pseudos, but I'm afraid to transfer all the images to a newly created one in case it negatively affects ranking. I wish we could just change the names of existing pseudos without having to start from scratch.

 

Me too - that would be great.

 

I'm just going to consolidate mine - and not worry about how it affects CTR. 

 

I've got one in my name for editorial newsy type images that may be dated but could potentially sell (and have sold years later on occasion), one for European travel images (not sure why I made that separate, but since I haven't been to Europe since 2011, maybe just as well, though it's not like photos of the Roman forum nor the Icelandic countryside will be dated), and one for everything else - all in my name (with and without my middle initial or with just my first initial), then I have a bunch of little ones with no rhyme nor reason all with made-up names. I may keep one of them for illustrations & backgrounds, but the rest have to go. I think I'd set up so many by type of image to help keep better track of what kind of images sold and also what I'd uploaded here. I should do a collection in Lightroom for uploads but going back to 2008 and finding them all (some on disparate hard drives) seems like a nightmare chore. 

 

Finally, I have one called "Duplicates to Delete" for obvious reasons. No matter how careful I am, I just seem to make mistakes and upload images twice sometimes. I also am often amazed that images I'm sure I uploaded years ago aren't actually there! I can't imagine how bad it would be if I had tens of thousands of images - but then, I'd have to be much better organized to achieve that type of portfolio. 

 

Another agency had a Lightroom upload plug in for a few years and it was great - I found I uploaded a lot more because I could add things to the collection as I went and then once a week just hit upload and they'd be online -but they've since done away with it, which is a shame. I wish Alamy had one. It was great, being a collection/plugin,  I didn't have to make duplicates to upload. As I came across things in various folders on LR, I could just move them there. 

 

Is the an Alamy upload plugin out there that I don't know about? 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Marianne
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21 hours ago, gvallee said:

 

It's because CTR is only one ingredient of ranking. Perhaps you've been uploading more frequently or unknowingly done something contributing to the mysterious ranking algorithm. Who knows.

 

Thanks Gen, good point. I had a banner year for (number of) sales in 2022, though way too many were small value, but I'm guessing the improved frequency of sales has probably helped. 

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8 hours ago, Marianne said:

 

Me too - that would be great.

 

I'm just going to consolidate mine - and not worry about how it affects CTR. 

 

I've got one in my name for editorial newsy type images that may be dated but could potentially sell (and have sold years later on occasion), one for European travel images (not sure why I made that separate, but since I haven't been to Europe since 2011, maybe just as well, though it's not like photos of the Roman forum nor the Icelandic countryside will be dated), and one for everything else - all in my name (with and without my middle initial or with just my first initial), then I have a bunch of little ones with no rhyme nor reason all with made-up names. I may keep one of them for illustrations & backgrounds, but the rest have to go. I think I'd set up so many by type of image to help keep better track of what kind of images sold and also what I'd uploaded here. I should do a collection in Lightroom for uploads but going back to 2008 and finding them all (some on disparate hard drives) seems like a nightmare chore. 

 

Finally, I have one called "Duplicates to Delete" for obvious reasons. No matter how careful I am, I just seem to make mistakes and upload images twice sometimes. I also am often amazed that images I'm sure I uploaded years ago aren't actually there! I can't imagine how bad it would be if I had tens of thousands of images - but then, I'd have to be much better organized to achieve that type of portfolio. 

 

Another agency had a Lightroom upload plug in for a few years and it was great - I found I uploaded a lot more because I could add things to the collection as I went and then once a week just hit upload and they'd be online -but they've since done away with it, which is a shame. I wish Alamy had one. It was great, being a collection/plugin,  I didn't have to make duplicates to upload. As I came across things in various folders on LR, I could just move them there. 

 

Is the an Alamy upload plugin out there that I don't know about? 

 

 

 

 

Marianne, way back I uploaded a couple of duplicates. I decided to do something to stop that. I have a copy of the jpeg next to the RAW. The jpeg has a -AL as part of the file name. Like BEL2054-AL. That way, if I ever look in an older folder, I know which have been uploaded. AL=Alamy. At one time I was uploading nature images to a new startup after Photoshelter’s stock agency folded, so if I uploaded the same image to both agencies I had another dash with initials for that agency also. That agency folded. 😟 You probably know it…Darrell’s.

Anyway, those added initials stopped me from uploading duplicates.

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8 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

Marianne, way back I uploaded a couple of duplicates. I decided to do something to stop that. I have a copy of the jpeg next to the RAW. The jpeg has a -AL as part of the file name. Like BEL2054-AL. That way, if I ever look in an older folder, I know which have been uploaded. AL=Alamy. At one time I was uploading nature images to a new startup after Photoshelter’s stock agency folded, so if I uploaded the same image to both agencies I had another dash with initials for that agency also. That agency folded. 😟 You probably know it…Darrell’s.

Anyway, those added initials stopped me from uploading duplicates.

 

I find it easy to keep track in Lightroom. When an image goes on sale on Alamy it gets a red label. Lots of ways to organize in Lightroom. I do think I ought to get that Alamy/Lightroom plug-in just for the coordination of keywords so I have them everywhere. Another new thing to learn though so I keep putting it off. My keyword list in Lightroom is a mess and I've kind of given up on cleaning it up.

 

Paulette

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12 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

Like BEL2054-AL.

 

Errr!  You need a license from me to use my name or derivatives thereof.

 

Allan Bell  (Bell Allan)

 

Edited by Allan Bell
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29 minutes ago, Allan Bell said:

 

Errr!  You need a license from me to use my name or derivatives thereof.

 

 

 I'll give you a quid for an in-perpetuity full res RF usage. Take it or leave it, I ain't got all day.

Edited by Cal
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3 hours ago, Allan Bell said:

 

Errr!  You need a license from me to use my name or derivatives thereof.

 

Allan Bell  (Bell Allan)

 

Actually, some of my prefaces is BAL not BEL, so 😛 Betty Alice LaRue=BAL. I guess I hit the wrong letter! 😄 So I’ll leave it unless you’ll take an American nickel. And not a Buffalo nickel, either.

5-cents-coin-buffalo-nickel-usa-1915-DWB

Edited by Betty LaRue
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