Multiple Keywords

[zxzoomy]

I see one successful contributor includes multiple keywords as one tag (eg. woman, women, lady, female). Is that a good way to do it? I assumed (wrongly?) that buyers had to search for all the words in a tag to find our images. If they search for 'woman' would the tag 'woman, women, lady, female' appear to them?

[spacecadet]

3 hours ago, zxzoomy said:

If they search for 'woman' would the tag 'woman, women, lady, female' appear to them?

Yes, but the single tag is supposed to have more weight and appear higher up the results, something I've never tried to check.

I only have multiple tags if they're inherited from the legacy image manager (quite a few of those, and they're hard to correct im the current IM) or if I run over on numbers when it can save a bit of time. I'll never type in important KWs into a single tag nowadays.

Short answer- try not to do it deliberately, but don't waste any time correcting it. Life is too short, and returns too meagre, to spend any time trying to game search. IMO.

Edited April 24, 2023 by spacecadet

[zxzoomy]

19 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

Yes, but the single tag is supposed to have more weight and appear higher up the results, something I've never tried to check.

I only have multiple tags if they're inherited from the legacy image manager (quite a few of those, and they're hard to correct im the current IM) or if I run over on numbers when it can save a bit of time. I'll never type in important KWs into a single tag nowadays.

Short answer- try not to do it deliberately, but don't waste any time correcting it. Life is too short, and returns too meagre, to spend any time trying to game search. IMO.

Thank you for the speedy reply. I feared I was doing it wrong with single KW's.

[M.Chapman]

2 hours ago, zxzoomy said:

Thank you for the speedy reply. I feared I was doing it wrong with single KW's.

IMO The only time it's worth putting multiple words in a single tag is when they form a phrase a customer might look for as this will give better image placement if they do. e.g victoria falls, london bridge etc. It's easy to test the effect of using a phrase vs single words.

 

Mark

Edited April 24, 2023 by M.Chapman

[wiskerke]

5 hours ago, M.Chapman said:

IMO The only time it's worth putting multiple words in a single tag is when they form a phrase a customer might look for as this will give better image placement if they do. e.g victoria falls, london bridge etc. It's easy to test the effect of using a phrase vs single words.

 

Mark

One of the reasons Alamy initially gave us I think was higher placement in Google searches. Could be us deducting that, now I think of it.

The other one was that clients were using full phrases more often. However I still seldom see that in AoA. But for your own subjects your mmv.

 

wim

[Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg]

16 hours ago, zxzoomy said:

multiple keywords as one tag (eg. woman, women, lady, female)

> multiple keywords as one tag (eg. woman, women, lady, female)

 

but that's 4 tags...?
,woman women lady female, is one tag consisting of 4 keywords AFAIK;

reasons for doing it as one tag are multiple & cross-purpose compromise:

a. save tremendous time by doing it exactly same way for ALL woman-women images

leaving more time for highest priority = taking new varied images

b. purposely weaken ranking in single word searches of woman or woman or lady or female

if one believes it very unlikely one's images will be selected, a form of CTR preservation

c. images will still be well ranked in multi-word searches simply because typically only 3+

pages of images are returned, although Total Views under Your Images is no longer over

100 for quite some time so something in Measures is messed up???  😨::: 😨::: 😨

[zxzoomy]

Thank you everyone for your comments. It was your tags, Jeffrey, that provoked my question so I appreciate your views. Anything to save time is welcome as getting bogged down with tagging images that nobody looks at is no use. I do like: 'highest priority = taking new varied images'.

[spacecadet]

5 hours ago, Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg said:

b. purposely weaken ranking in single word searches of woman or woman or lady or female

This I hadn't thought of. Thanks, Jeff. Though I don't often include common words like that in  tags, usually just in captions.

Worth a greenie- though I notice our greenie count is no longer shown.

Edited April 25, 2023 by spacecadet

[Steve F]

Ditto. I multi-word tag often to avoid single word searches of common words showing up and lowering my CTR.

[NYCat]

7 hours ago, Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg said:

Total Views under Your Images is no longer over

100 for quite some time so something in Measures is messed up???  😨::: 😨::: 😨

 

I have been wondering about that.

 

Paulette

[IKuzmin]

I never had sales for something like "African fruit bat flying at night".

Either "African bat", "Fruit bat", "flying bat". As the maximum "fruit bat flying" or "bat flying at night".

Just an example, I have several such long strings that never worked.

Moreover, images with many keywords (including such long strings) for some reason are shown in searches deeper than images with the regular 20-30 keywords, singular or two-word.

[M.Chapman]

12 hours ago, Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg said:

Total Views under Your Images is no longer over

100 for quite some time so something in Measures is messed up??? 

It's been messed up for ages. I think, if the customer looks at subsequent pages they are logged as separate searches. Shouldn't mess up CTR% but it does make it look like customers never look beyond page 1. 

 

Mark

Edited April 25, 2023 by M.Chapman

[spacecadet]

34 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

It's been messed up for ages. I think, if the customer looks at subsequent pages they are logged as separate searches. Shouln't mess up CTR% but it does make it look like customers never look beyond page 1.

 

Mark

Waste of space. Apart from checking in occasionally to see if it's been fixed yet, I rarely bother with "views" anymore.

[M.Chapman]

12 hours ago, Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg said:

> multiple keywords as one tag (eg. woman, women, lady, female)

 

but that's 4 tags...?
,woman women lady female, is one tag consisting of 4 keywords AFAIK;

reasons for doing it as one tag are multiple & cross-purpose compromise:

a. save tremendous time by doing it exactly same way for ALL woman-women images

leaving more time for highest priority = taking new varied images

b. purposely weaken ranking in single word searches of woman or woman or lady or female

if one believes it very unlikely one's images will be selected, a form of CTR preservation

c. images will still be well ranked in multi-word searches simply because typically only 3+  

Interesting. Are there actually 3 levels of tag weighting?

High weighting = Supertag match

Medium weighting = Tag match

Low weighting = Tag partial match (e.g a match of just one word of a two word tag)

 

Not to mention the possibility of a partial match on a Supertag...

 

I know that a two word match with a two word tag (ie. phrase) gets high weighting but have never tested if the partial match of a two word tag is given a lower weighting than an exact match of a single word tag. Probably merits a test or is there already evidence?

 

Mark

[Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg]

Curious, checked most recent rolling month...
Measures > Your Views > one of my pseudos page 1 of 37 (100/pg) down to first "100" Total Views:

(why would first listing have massive Total Views more than any other??)
(so there is NOT artificial 100 upper view limit for very small percentage of searches?)

 

high school marching band              1            1            0            0              0.00       3,000     10          0.33

Exhibition Road  3            1            0            0            0.00       900              2            0.22

Sale Sign in Front of Home             1            1            0            0              0.00       700        0            0.00

arkansas homes [PH]         3            1            0            0            0.00              639        0            0.00

flagstaff sign        1            1            0            0            0.00       500              1            0.20

flagstaff 1            1            0            0            0.00       400        3              0.75

SALE SIGN IN FRONT OF HOME             1            1            0              0            0.00       300        0            0.00

route%2066%20highway  1            1            0            0            0.00              300        3            1.00

Taiwan   1            1            0            0            0.00       229        0              0.00

united rentals [PH]            2            1            0            0            0.00              200        1            0.50

united rentals       2            1            0            0            0.00       200              0            0.00

hawaii oahu [YoungAdult] 1            1            0            0            0.00              200        0            0.00

arab business       1            1            0            0            0.00       200              1            0.50

6            1            0            0            0.00       200        0            0.00

Black boy            1            1            0            0            0.00       196              0            0.00

ethnicity 2            1            0            0            0.00       191        1              0.52

child garden [Teenager] [Europe]    1            1            0            0              0.00       169        0            0.00

drum class [Land]              1            1            0            0            0.00              165        0            0.00

quilts      1            1            0            0            0.00       144        1              0.69

quilts      1            1            0            0            0.00       143        0              0.00

transgender man  2            1            0            0            0.00       141              0            0.00

girl peru [PH]      5            1            0            0            0.00       137              0            0.00

women eating community at the table [Adult]             1            1              0            0            0.00       134        0            0.00

twins teenagers [Teenager] 1            1            0            0            0.00              129        0            0.00

walking dog [Adult] [Senior]          1            1            0            0              0.00       120        0            0.00

forest flowers       1            1            0            0            0.00       114              0            0.00

alabama shooting 1            2            0            0            0.00       114              0            0.00

AI art     1            1            0            0            0.00       110        0              0.00

cafe        1            2            0            0            0.00       105        0              0.00

Lolita whale         1            1            0            0            0.00       103              0            0.00

asian friends        2            1            0            0            0.00       103              0            0.00

summer camp      1            1            0            0            0.00       102              0            0.00

sandwich making teen       3            1            0            0            0.00              102        1            0.98

Darien expedition              1            1            0            0            0.00              102        5            4.90

18th century plantation [USA]        1            1            0            0              0.00       102        0            0.00

woman jet ski      1            1            0            0            0.00       101              4            3.96

waterfront buildings canada             1            1            0            0              0.00       101        1            0.99

sunscreen             1            1            0            0            0.00       101              0            0.00

school child working         2            1            0            0            0.00              101        0            0.00

Panama Causeway             2            1            0            0            0.00              101        0            0.00

neptuno fountain madrid    1            1            0            0            0.00              101        1            0.99

miami beach girl  2            1            0            0            0.00       101              0            0.00

hotel staircase      1            1            0            0            0.00       101              1            0.99

garden buffet       1            1            0            0            0.00       101              1            0.99

Cancer people [PH]           1            1            0            0            0.00              101        1            0.99

asian people eating outdoor             1            1            0            0              0.00       101        4            3.96

zoo school trip [PH]          1            1            0            0            0.00              100        1            1.00

z

 

Edited April 25, 2023 by Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg

[M.Chapman]

I see the similar. If I search my views by the total no of views column I see a few entries with over 100 views followed by page after page of entries with exactly 100 views with repeated search terms. Very strange.

 

Mark

[Ognyan Yosifov]

2 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

I see the similar. If I search my views by the total no of views column I see a few entries with over 100 views followed by page after page of entries with exactly 100 views with repeated search terms. Very strange.

 

Mark

It's been like that for at least a year now...

[wiskerke]

If the 100 views actually is accurate we either have lost those clients that used to view more pages, or most clients have lost the will or patience to look any further than that one page.

A third (remote) possibility: Every visit to a results page is counted, even the ones that leave the page without looking at the results or waiting for the page to load. And as pages can take a fair while to load nowadays since the new collections were introduced, some visitors may not have the patience to wait for it at all.

 

wim

[Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg]

> It's been like that for at least a year now...

 

Was it also a year ago that "true" thumbnails disappeared from search returns?

Do we even know if buyers also no longer see those smallish thumbnails?
Could it be the all-larger-image returns somehow inhibit going beyond page 1...?
If seeing smallish thumbnails is still a thing, IDK how to get them...

These are the questions I ask myself, & you, too, online friends...

😲=====😲=====😲=====😲

Edited April 26, 2023 by Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg

[John Mitchell]

I'm not a big fan of conspiracy theories, but perhaps, for reasons unknown, Alamy no longer wants to share with us the actual number of views. Or it could just be a stubborn technical glitch. ¿Quién sabe? 🙄

[Ognyan Yosifov]

1 hour ago, John Mitchell said:

I'm not a big fan of conspiracy theories, but perhaps, for reasons unknown, Alamy no longer wants to share with us the actual number of views. Or it could just be a stubborn technical glitch. ¿Quién sabe? 🙄

You can see the actual number of views in the AoA section

[wiskerke]

3 hours ago, Ognyan Yosifov said:

You can see the actual number of views in the AoA section

Well spotted!

And indeed there's a huge difference.

 

wim

[zxzoomy]

If we have the country (eg UK) in the searchable caption is it therefore a bad idea to include, if they are all relevant, 'Britain, British Isles, England UK' in the tags as this damages our CTR? Should we leave these out of the tags? Or include 'Britain British Isles England UK' as one tag?