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Keywords: Necessary or redundant?


Aul Zitzke

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Hi Forum,

 

what do think about keyword variations like "graze" and "grazing"? Would you recommend to use both forms or would it be enough just to choose one of it? For example a customer search contains the words: "Sheep graze on a pasture" In case, I only take the form "grazing" could my image be found in the search results?

 

What is your opinion about singular and plural forms? If you have an image showing an assortment of fresh vegetables. Do I need both keywords "vegetable" and "vegetables"

 

Another example: "closeup" close-up" "close"

 

On Adobe Stock there are keyword suggestions with both singular and plural, "closeup" and "close-up" but is this really necessary?

 

Thank you in advance.

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...the same for close-up and closeup IMHO.

E.g., for cut-outs I use all "cutout", "cut-out", "isolated", "white background", and see customer searches for each of these variants. I just hope that British and American differences are somehow compensated by the Alamy search engine (the Google search certainly compensates) because I am not proficient enough to use both when necessary (except something like "color" and "colour").

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16 hours ago, IKuzmin said:

...the same for close-up and closeup IMHO.

E.g., for cut-outs I use all "cutout", "cut-out", "isolated", "white background", and see customer searches for each of these variants. I just hope that British and American differences are somehow compensated by the Alamy search engine (the Google search certainly compensates) because I am not proficient enough to use both when necessary (except something like "color" and "colour").

I think punctuation is ignored, so "cut-out" and "cutout" are seen as the same. Therefore I think it's better to use "cut out" and "cutout" to include both possibilities. It's easy to test, in case things have changed since I tested this.

 

Mark

 

Update - retesting shows tags of "cut out" and "cut-out" are now seen as the same. A tag of "cutout" is seen as different. But it's still probably best to use "cutout" and "cut out" to cover both possibilities - in case the way hyphens are treated is changed (again?).

Edited by M.Chapman
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1 hour ago, M.Chapman said:

I think puctuation is ignored, so "cut-out" and "cutout" are seen as the same. Therefore I think it's better to use "cut out" and "cutout"

I guess that's what I meant, i.e. "cut-out" and "cut out" are the same but "cutout" is different, hence use {"cutout" and "cut-out"} or {"cutout" and "cut out"}, these should be equal...

Sometimes incorrect wording also makes sense to be included as was mentioned in different topics here before, e.g. people sometimes search for the incorrect "bull frog" instead of the correct "bullfrog" 🙂

 

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14 hours ago, IKuzmin said:

Have double checked: the above is correct, not the Mark's version.

Thanks - I just rechecked. You're right. I think something must have changed?

Hyphens in tags are now effectively treated the same as a space

If an image has a tag of "anti-bacterial", for example, it appears in searches for "anti", or for "bacterial", or for "anti bacterial" but NOT in a search for "antibacterial"

 

Mark

Edited by M.Chapman
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23 hours ago, IKuzmin said:

<>

I just hope that British and American differences are somehow compensated by the Alamy search engine (the Google search certainly compensates) because I am not proficient enough to use both when necessary (except something like "color" and "colour").

<>

 

No.

You have to add all variants yourself.

If you're only concerned about spelling, setting your spellchecker to International English (maybe called American English were you live) will do the trick.

However there are many words that are really different. Lorry/truck bonnet/hood and just yesterday here we had bushfire; wild fire or forest fire.

A search for American UK English here on the forum could keep you occupied for hours.

My go to links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_American_terms_not_widely_used_in_the_United_Kingdom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_British_terms_not_widely_used_in_the_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_words_having_different_meanings_in_American_and_British_English

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences

Words that could be confusing and embarrassing in the UK & US

Plus the Merriam-Webster; Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries.

 

wim

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3 hours ago, wiskerke said:

A search for American UK English here on the forum could keep you occupied for hours.

Thanks, but my life is not that long to spend it that way.

And then, how about non-English languages (not even mention non-Latin alphabets)?

I guess I will just go as I do now... 🙂

 

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4 hours ago, IKuzmin said:

Thanks, but my life is not that long to spend it that way.

And then, how about non-English languages (not even mention non-Latin alphabets)?

I guess I will just go as I do now... 🙂

 

Right. As long as you have your Latin sorted out. 😁

 

wim

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On 24/04/2023 at 05:55, Mr Standfast said:

https://www.alamy.com/blog/captions-and-tags

Alamy search engine does not stem search words

  • (my comments in red)
  • What about plurals and stemming? The Alamy search engine doesn’t ’stem’ search words. 
    (ALL other major agency DO have stemming, why is that?!!!!!!!!!!)

    This means that if a customer searches for “Cat”, the search engine does not extend this to “Cats”. If the plural is important to the image, then you should add it as an additional tag.
    (Plural AND the singular both are ALWAYS important, e.g., MANY buyers looking for single cat
    search "cats" because in their minds they are
    thinking, "I want to see many pictures of cats.")
    Consider this carefully though – you could potentially be giving the customer irrelevant results which can harm your ranking in the future. If you have a lifestyle shot of a child playing on a swing, “Child” is a perfectly acceptable tag, but “Children” is not – a customer searching for “Children” will likely want to see just that: more than one child.

    (MANY buyers search "children on swing" because in their minds they are thinking, "I want to see many photos of children on a swing.")
    (most searches "restaurants" "farms" "
    cities" "festivals" etc., were NOT seeking single photos
    with multiple restaurants-farms-cities-festivals
    , they sought multiple photos of single subject)
    I've been kicked to the curb each time I've suggested reintroducing
    stemming to boost sales & boost submissions, end manual busywork.
    Stemming machines can be tweaked to eliminate occasional
    unwanted stemming, e.g., ski skis skies or whatever.  There could
    even be "Don't Stem This Search" option for buyers.
    Millions of images are NOT manually stemmed at all, some have
    wrong singular stem.  😨So sad    😨so unnecessary    😨boils me blood...
Edited by Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg
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On 26/04/2023 at 15:10, wiskerke said:

 

No.

You have to add all variants yourself.

If you're only concerned about spelling, setting your spellchecker to International English (maybe called American English were you live) will do the trick.

However there are many words that are really different. Lorry/truck bonnet/hood and just yesterday here we had bushfire; wild fire or forest fire.

A search for American UK English here on the forum could keep you occupied for hours.

My go to links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_American_terms_not_widely_used_in_the_United_Kingdom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_British_terms_not_widely_used_in_the_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_words_having_different_meanings_in_American_and_British_English

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences

Words that could be confusing and embarrassing in the UK & US

Plus the Merriam-Webster; Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries.

 

wim

Only got to "B" on the second one, but I'll be back. Love this kind of stuff for task evasion :)

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3 hours ago, Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg said:
  • (my comments in red)
  • What about plurals and stemming? The Alamy search engine doesn’t ’stem’ search words. 
    (ALL other major agency DO have stemming, why is that?!!!!!!!!!!)

    This means that if a customer searches for “Cat”, the search engine does not extend this to “Cats”. If the plural is important to the image, then you should add it as an additional tag.
    (Plural AND the singular both are ALWAYS important, e.g., MANY buyers looking for single cat
    search "cats" because in their minds they are
    thinking, "I want to see many pictures of cats.")
    Consider this carefully though – you could potentially be giving the customer irrelevant results which can harm your ranking in the future. If you have a lifestyle shot of a child playing on a swing, “Child” is a perfectly acceptable tag, but “Children” is not – a customer searching for “Children” will likely want to see just that: more than one child.

    (MANY buyers search "children on swing" because in their minds they are thinking, "I want to see many photos of children on a swing.")
    (most searches "restaurants" "farms" "
    cities" "festivals" etc., were NOT seeking single photos
    with multiple restaurants-farms-cities-festivals
    , they sought multiple photos of single subject)
    I've been kicked to the curb each time I've suggested reintroducing
    stemming to boost sales & boost submissions, end manual busywork.
    Stemming machines can be tweaked to eliminate occasional
    unwanted stemming, e.g., ski skis skies or whatever.  There could
    even be "Don't Stem This Search" option for buyers.
    Millions of images are NOT manually stemmed at all, some have
    wrong singular stem.  😨So sad    😨so unnecessary    😨boils me blood...

I agree. I stem singular things for just the reasons you mentioned. If I have a child, I tag children, kid, kids, etc.

A large mp landscape image with two children in it standing or playing apart, one can easily be cropped out giving an image of one child.

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