Views and Zooms have dropped to near zero

[mwakeling]

For some reason, my usually pretty good CTR has plummeted for April and May. I have had sales. Has something changed in Alamy's search algorithm?

[VbFolly]

7 minutes ago, Broad Norfolk said:

Parts of Measures haven't moved for days. Is something being worked on? No zooms, no sales, or is it just mine?  

Not just you. The last update of views/zooms was on Wednesday for some unknown reason.

[Broad Norfolk]

9 minutes ago, VbFolly said:

Not just you. The last update of views/zooms was on Wednesday for some unknown reason.

Thanks. I did have a feeling I might not be the only one!

[Rebecca Ore]

8 hours ago, Broad Norfolk said:

Thanks. I did have a feeling I might not be the only one!

 

Still on 26/7/2023 this morning. 

[sb photos]

47 minutes ago, Rebecca Ore said:

 

Still on 26/7/2023 this morning. 

 

The errors must be corrected before the end of the month, which only leaves Monday. This is becoming a reoccurring problem the needs fixing reliably.

Edited July 29, 2023 by sb photos

[Sultanpepa]

Working in a fashion now. I have way too many views (about 4 times as many) and quite a few entries don't have a search term, so my CTR has taken a dive. To top it all off my largest sale this month has been refunded. Oh the joys😠

[Ognyan Yosifov]

Today I got 100 "views" with no search term which nearly halved my CTR for the day. I want to ask if someone else has experienced the same and what that would mean.

[Ed Rooney]

 

I have 3,292 views and 29 zooms showing today, 4 Aug 2023. Still no sales in August though. 

[M.Chapman]

54 minutes ago, Ognyan Yosifov said:

Today I got 100 "views" with no search term which nearly halved my CTR for the day. I want to ask if someone else has experienced the same and what that would mean.

Lots of days when I get plenty of views but no zooms. Then another day I'll get low views but with zooms. It's random. I don't worry about until nearer to the end of the month by which time the month's CTR% becomes more statistically reliable.

 

Mark

[Alexander Hogg]

1 hour ago, Ognyan Yosifov said:

Today I got 100 "views" with no search term which nearly halved my CTR for the day. I want to ask if someone else has experienced the same and what that would mean.

Practically non existent for views and hardly get any zooms for most months nowadays  

[Ognyan Yosifov]

9 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

Lots of days when I get plenty of views but no zooms. Then another day I'll get low views but with zooms. It's random. I don't worry about until nearer to the end of the month by which time the month's CTR% becomes more statistically reliable.

 

Mark

Same to me Mark, and I guess for all of us, but what I meant was views with no search term - today there were 100 of those...It happens from time to time and it was discussed here, I don't remember.

[Tony ALS]

2 hours ago, Ognyan Yosifov said:

Same to me Mark, and I guess for all of us, but what I meant was views with no search term - today there were 100 of those...It happens from time to time and it was discussed here, I don't remember.

Yes, that's something I've seen too but views have increased substantially for me suddenly this week after dropping considerably in the last few months with zooms a rarity still. Doesn't follow that sales come from zooms as usual which don't seem related most of the time.

All a mystery to me!

[M.Chapman]

10 hours ago, Ognyan Yosifov said:

but what I meant was views with no search term

Oh sorry I misread your post. Why does that drive down CTR%?

 

Mark

[Ognyan Yosifov]

12 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

Oh sorry I misread your post. Why does that drive down CTR%?

 

Mark

These 100 "empty" views just add up to the actual views with zooms for the day and when all views are divided by the zooms the CTR gets smaller. 200 views/4 zooms = CTR 2, but 300 views/4 zooms = CTR 1.33. It affects contributors with fewer views/zooms. I quite often get that kind of views in very low figures, but 100 is too much. I just wonder why it happens.

[M.Chapman]

10 minutes ago, Ognyan Yosifov said:

These 100 "empty" views just add up to the actual views with zooms for the day and when all views are divided by the zooms the CTR gets smaller. 200 views/4 zooms = CTR 2, but 300 views/4 zooms = CTR 1.33. It affects contributors with fewer views/zooms. I quite often get that kind of views in very low figures, but 100 is too much. I just wonder why it happens.

Do the "empty views" always have no zooms? Or is it just chance - like normal views.

 

Mark

[Ognyan Yosifov]

8 hours ago, Tony ALS said:

Yes, that's something I've seen too but views have increased substantially for me suddenly this week after dropping considerably in the last few months with zooms a rarity still. Doesn't follow that sales come from zooms as usual which don't seem related most of the time.

All a mystery to me!

When I have a low-figure license for web use, I know it'll show up as zoomed the next day.

[Ognyan Yosifov]

Just now, M.Chapman said:

Do the "empty views" always have no zooms? Or is it just chance - like normal views.

 

Mark

Always, but as I said those 100 were for the first time. Previously I've had, to say 1, 2, or 5 so the chances for zooms out of those were very low.

[Steve F]

13 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

Still no sales in August though. 

 

Only one sale for me so far Edo. Still early doors...

[Ed Rooney]

 

Steve, in July I had 9 sales, 2 less than the 1 per K images that used to be thought normal. 

[mwakeling]

10 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

Steve, in July I had 9 sales, 2 less than the 1 per K images that used to be thought normal. 

I have rarely met that 'normal' 1 per K, likely due to the nature of my portfolio. Nada for August and back at zero.

[Ed Rooney]

 

That juvenile tree swallow looks like it's out on a drunk. I like your pictures, but I'm a seller, not a buyer. 

[Marianne]

My views have dropped considerably and zooms have increased so my CTR is up.  Was very concerned about the drop in views (about half of what they were a couple years ago). In fact, for the past month it's especially low, when I checked I had exactly 1000 views for the entire past month.

 

But as I analyze my sales and CTR, I'm actually doing better than when my views were higher. This year, I'm averaging 3 sales a month with 1600 images, s so I guess the lack of views isn't really hurting me as I'd thought it would. Last year I averaged just a whisper under 2 sales a month, and my CTR was in the doldrums, well below average for a 4-month stretch and then barely above average when it rebounded, while this year it went as high as 3.0 for a few weeks, and has been above average all year, so maybe having fewer views is a good thing? 

 

I'd been concerned that the drop in views perhaps meant Alamy was getting fewer clients and that my not keeping up with the ever-growing collection since I've only uploaded sporadically was also to blame, but I spent a lot of time late last year editing down my keywords on many older images and these days I'm much more spare with the number I use, though I still get a fair number of false hits, I think cleaning up my keywords has resulted in fewer views, but perhaps fewer false hits, helping improve my CTR?

 

For years most of my sales were never zoomed first and my CTR hovered around average or below, though I got slightly above the average one sale for every thousand images, easier to do when you only have around 1,000 or fewer, which was where my portfolio stood for years. These days nearly all my sales were zoomed first, though I have lots of times when my image is the only one zoomed, and yet it doesn't sell and my zoom to sale ratio is low. Still, I'm guessing that cleaning up my keywords is what helped since when my images show up in a search they are more likely to be relevant.

 

But with such a small portfolio after all these years, I average as many sales in a year as many of you do in a month. I haven't traveled much since 2019, the bulk of my portfolio, so I don't have much new to upload, though I might try uploading more garden images since I've spent a lot more time in my garden lately. I spent hours out there today - the weeds had taken over - I must have put some in my compost by mistake and with vertigo these past couple of months I rarely got outside to clean it up when a mountain of weeds grew up alongside the seeds I'd planted. It's looking much better after a day of hard labor out there, but miles to go before it's looking photographable. Right now, my zinnias and calendula are the only things of interest to photograph. I deadheaded my salvia and hope I'll get a second bloom in September. Hoping I can find some plants at a nearby nursery to fill in all the spots where I got weeds which overtook the seeds I'd planted, 

 

 

 

 

 

[Marianne]

I guess I got a bit off topic there. It's late and I should be sleeping rather than rattling on here. But I know there are a lot of gardeners here who can laugh at my rookie mistakes. Good night!

[Ognyan Yosifov]

Since the "introduction" of the early morning + weekends measures updates the views dropped significantly and something is entirely wrong with AoA - when I click on UCO, Zooms, Views, or CTR(%) columns to try to reorder (low to high or vice versa, you know that), the well known  "Sorry, we've encountered an unexpected error" message pops up. I wonder if this is the case under any browser? Any thoughts?

 

Edited August 22, 2023 by Ognyan Yosifov

[Alexander Hogg]

1 hour ago, Ognyan Yosifov said:

Since the "introduction" of the early morning + weekends measures updates the views dropped significantly and something is entirely wrong with AoA - when I click on UCO, Zooms, Views, or CTR(%) columns to try to reorder (low to high or vice versa, you know that), the well known  "Sorry, we've encountered an unexpected error" message pops up. I wonder if this is the case under any browser? Any thoughts?

 

Unfortunately no idea but it certainly has crashed completely for some reason Doesn't seem to be working as it used too   

[Tony ALS]

Yes, my views have dropped to an extra 5 this morning and only 6 yesterday when it looked like things had improved with 100 or more a day reported on previous days.