Where have my 'Zooms' gone?

[John Walker]

For the past years, I've always had a healthy number of zooms (between 20 and 40) recorded at any one time, but over the last couple of months, they have gradually dropped. 

They are now down to just 4!  I appreciate this could be a seasonal thing but never this low.

 

So, who has stolen my zooms?  😁

[David eastley]

I don't have them John mine are down to single figures as well. Should we contact the police ?

[Aggers]

1 hour ago, John Walker said:

For the past years, I've always had a healthy number of zooms (between 20 and 40) recorded at any one time, but over the last couple of months, they have gradually dropped. 

They are now down to just 4!  I appreciate this could be a seasonal thing but never this low.

 

So, who has stolen my zooms?  😁

Mine too are unexpectedly low - zero in fact for the past few months - Sept to date - ZERO.  (I mentioned this in a previous topic).

 

I asked CS to chase this up which they did and came back with the response that IT had not found any problems. 

 

I tried a "Customer" approach, found one of my images, Zoomed in to it and then waited to see if my Zoom graph would respond - it never did! (I gave it a few days, now over a week, in case there was some "Time Lag" built into the system. 

 

Something not right and I'm not fully convinced it is just a seasonal thing - surely???? Anyone else apart from me and John experiencing this, any viable reasons this is happening (CS reply please?).

[Alexander Hogg]

I've never had high zooms either zero for most of the year or up to 3 at any one time

[Aggers]

3 minutes ago, Aggers said:

Mine too are unexpectedly low - zero in fact for the past few months - Sept to date - ZERO.  (I mentioned this in a previous topic).

 

I asked CS to chase this up which they did and came back with the response that IT had not found any problems. 

 

I tried a "Customer" approach, found one of my images, Zoomed in to it and then waited to see if my Zoom graph would respond - it never did! (I gave it a few days, now over a week, in case there was some "Time Lag" built into the system. 

 

Something not right and I'm not fully convinced it is just a seasonal thing - surely???? Anyone else apart from me and John experiencing this, any viable reasons this is happening (CS reply please?).

I should add that my "Customer" approach was via a friends Laptop which negates the response that a view/zoom will not register when using one's own device.

[DJ Myford]

9 minutes ago, Aggers said:

I should add that my "Customer" approach was via a friends Laptop which negates the response that a view/zoom will not register when using one's own device.

Zooms are only registered from selected customers, so unless your friend is one of Alamy's regular clients, the zoom will not appear.

[Doc]

1 hour ago, John Walker said:

For the past years, I've always had a healthy number of zooms (between 20 and 40) recorded at any one time, but over the last couple of months, they have gradually dropped. 

They are now down to just 4!  I appreciate this could be a seasonal thing but never this low.

 

So, who has stolen my zooms?  😁

John - My zooms have also reduced to between 1/3 and 1/2 of what they used to be, 18 mths+. ago. My CTR has only dropped marginally, so I think in my case its because views have also dropped - has the same happened to your views or has your CTR just bottomed out?

 

Kumar

[wiskerke]

56 minutes ago, DJ Myford said:

Zooms are only registered from selected customers, so unless your friend is one of Alamy's regular clients, the zoom will not appear.

For selected read: paying.

 

wim

[Broad Norfolk]

Very similar situation in the time period Kumar mentioned. My zooms fell into single figures last month and views have also dropped off. The fall off in views seems to have helped to keep CTR up a bit! 

Jim.

[Aggers]

1 hour ago, Broad Norfolk said:

Very similar situation in the time period Kumar mentioned. My zooms fell into single figures last month and views have also dropped off. The fall off in views seems to have helped to keep CTR up a bit! 

Jim.

Just had another look at my CTR.  Period 3rd Dec 23 to 2nd Jan 24 - 221 views nil Zooms CTR is now 0.00 (nil zooms since Sept 23 as mentioned previously).  Oddly enough (surprise surprise!) I had one Sale in the same time frame -  but my CTR doesn't change as sales are not included in the formulae!   Might all come to light one day maybe!!

[IKuzmin]

2 hours ago, Broad Norfolk said:

Very similar situation in the time period Kumar mentioned. My zooms fell into single figures last month and views have also dropped off. The fall off in views seems to have helped to keep CTR up

I’d say that to me it happened in early 2023. Number of views dropped by 30-40% but zooms dropped proportionally, resulting in the ~same CTR but in a decreased number of sales. This trend is continuous.

 

Perhaps Alamy search engine is involved but also I think of the dilution effect. E.g., 10 years ago, when I was submitting one subject, only 400 images of that subject were present on Alamy, and all 10 my images were at the 1st page. Now there are ~2500 images of that subject, and only 3 my images are at the 1st page. I do not think this situation is easy to avoid, somebody is worse than me but somebody is better. And indeed during 10 years many good images were made and submitted that are present at the 1st search page in front of my ones.

 

BTW, I did not observe anything special/irregular during the most recent months.

[MariaJ]

My zooms have dropped dramatically as well. I used to get about 12-15/mo and last month had only 1!    Views dropped considerably as well, with almost all searches showing only 100 images viewed.  I really don't understand that bit. 

[Rubens Alarcon]

Zooms within my average until September

Drop of 30% in last quarter of the year

No impact on sales so far, but maybe I'll feel the pinch soon...

[NYCat]

1 hour ago, MariaJ said:

My zooms have dropped dramatically as well. I used to get about 12-15/mo and last month had only 1!    Views dropped considerably as well, with almost all searches showing only 100 images viewed.  I really don't understand that bit. 

 

The 100 views seems to be a glitch. If you look in All of Alamy you can see more images were actually viewed. For some reason we all are seeing only 100 views on our personal dashboard.

 

Paulette

[Jansos]

10 hours ago, John Walker said:

For the past years, I've always had a healthy number of zooms (between 20 and 40) recorded at any one time, but over the last couple of months, they have gradually dropped. 

They are now down to just 4!  I appreciate this could be a seasonal thing but never this low.

 

So, who has stolen my zooms?  😁

Same problem here. My zooms are down to single digits for each of my pseudonyms, normally they are pretty healthy. My CTR is also abysmally low. Not sure what is going on. Initially I thought it was down to Christmas holiday period but it started to impact on or about 10th Dec. Let's hope it is a temporary glitch. 

Edited January 2 by Jansos

[John Morrison]

On 02/01/2024 at 13:28, John Walker said:

For the past years, I've always had a healthy number of zooms (between 20 and 40) recorded at any one time, but over the last couple of months, they have gradually dropped.

 

So not just me then...

 

My 2023 sales followed the pattern of 2022, in both total sales and $$$, so my average of zooms (down about 50%) doesn't seem to have affected sales.

 

Still... it would be good to know why these metrics - and others - change without any obvious reason...

[Marianne]

My zooms have continued to drop of late, and my CTR after reaching a high of 1.39 in June has been below the Alamy average since August. Before that, it usually ranged between .60-1.00.  My views have been dropping for the past couple of years and are now about 38% of what they were a couple of years ago so the rop in my CTR should be even more concerning. , however, counterintuitively, my sales volume has increased 50% over that same two-year time period, with most of that growth this past year, and revenue was up significantly this past year too. 

 

So, like you, I've experienced a surprising drop in both my CTR and views. Those metrics are concerning, but the most important metrics, sales volume and revenue, are growing so I try not to worry. 

 

[Sultanpepa]

6 hours ago, Marianne said:

My zooms have continued to drop of late, and my CTR after reaching a high of 1.39 in June has been below the Alamy average since August. Before that, it usually ranged between .60-1.00.  My views have been dropping for the past couple of years and are now about 38% of what they were a couple of years ago so the rop in my CTR should be even more concerning. , however, counterintuitively, my sales volume has increased 50% over that same two-year time period, with most of that growth this past year, and revenue was up significantly this past year too. 

 

So, like you, I've experienced a surprising drop in both my CTR and views. Those metrics are concerning, but the most important metrics, sales volume and revenue, are growing so I try not to worry. 

 

That pretty much echo's what I've experienced too. I've concluded that the drops in figures are due to how they're calculated rather than any actual drop in views/zooms and so altering CTR across the board, because as you say, sales have held up well if not increased, certainly over the last 8 or 9 months or so.