Alamy search box mystery

[John Mitchell]

I thought this might be worth discussing as I imagine others have wondered about it too. When you enter a word in the search box on the Alamy homepage, a drop-down menu with relevant phrases appears. Are these recent or commonly used search terms or just randomly generated gobbledygook? Any theories about this?

[M.Chapman]

6 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

I thought this might be worth discussing as I imagine others have wondered about it too. When you enter a word in the search box on the Alamy homepage, a drop-down menu with relevant phrases appears. Are these recent or commonly used search terms or just randomly generated gobbledygook? Any theories about this?

I thought they were based on matches with keywords / phrases in the subset of images already found based on the search words already entered. ISTR that if I continue entering words that aren't shown in suggestions that no images will be found. But now I try it again, I'm not so sure...

 

Mark

Edited March 16 by M.Chapman

[John Mitchell]

2 hours ago, M.Chapman said:

I thought they were based on matches with keywords / phrases in the subset of images already found based on the search words already entered. ISTR that if I continue entering words that aren't shown in suggestions that no images will be found. But now I try it again, I'm not so sure...

 

Mark

 

Plausible theory. I wonder if everyone sees the same thing. When I enter "vancouver" into the search box, I get a list of very generic suggestions -- vancouver, vancouver island, vancouver skyline, vancouver stanley park, vancouver canada, vancouver aerial - with lots of repetition. All these subjects are highly represented on Alamy. Also, they are very common search terms according to AIM.

[gvallee]

2 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

 

Plausible theory. I wonder if everyone sees the same thing. When I enter "vancouver" into the search box, I get a list of very generic suggestions -- vancouver, vancouver island, vancouver skyline, vancouver stanley park, vancouver canada, vancouver aerial - with lots of repetition. All these subjects are highly represented on Alamy. Also, they are very common search terms according to AIM.

 

Yes John, I see the same. Thank you for raising this, it prompted me to add tags I hadn't thought of before. 

[Allan Bell]

11 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

 

Plausible theory. I wonder if everyone sees the same thing. When I enter "vancouver" into the search box, I get a list of very generic suggestions -- vancouver, vancouver island, vancouver skyline, vancouver stanley park, vancouver canada, vancouver aerial - with lots of repetition. All these subjects are highly represented on Alamy. Also, they are very common search terms according to AIM.

 

Hi John, when I read your post I got the sudden impression that this had been discussed before way back when.

 

When I do not know.

 

Allan

 

 

[gvallee]

53 minutes ago, Allan Bell said:

 

Hi John, when I read your post I got the sudden impression that this had been discussed before way back when.

 

When I do not know.

 

Allan

 

 

 

Yes, I remember Geogphotos asking about it a while back.

 

Gen

 

[Michael Ventura]

I always assumed that they were generated based on other frequent searches.

[John Mitchell]

6 hours ago, Michael Ventura said:

I always assumed that they were generated based on other frequent searches.

 

That has been my assumption as well, but it could be wishful thinking. 🤔

 

Anyway, I guess only Alamy knows for sure...

[John Mitchell]

20 hours ago, gvallee said:

 

Yes John, I see the same. Thank you for raising this, it prompted me to add tags I hadn't thought of before. 

 

De rien. The search box suggestions might be (?) another useful tool. I often check them before keywording.

 

Not as good as AIM, though...

[Johnnie5]

gobbledygook, https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/gobbledygook.html?sortBy=relevant😁