Tags and keywords

[Brian Vickers]

I visited the stand at the Photography Show - NEC Birmingham - I had a chat at the Alamy stand about the best strategy for tagging. I've been making sure of maximum visibility with 50 tags and 10 supertags etc.....but now I'm advised to stick with relevant tags and not to worry about making up 50.....I've been adding location village, town, county, region, country, continent etc to make up the word count.

 

Does anyone have an opinion or can corroborate this being a good approach?

Thanks

[Michael Ventura]

Just put in every relevant tag you can think of, with an emphasis on relevant.  Don’t add irrelevant tags just to reach 50.  I have relatively few images with 50+ tags and I make sales regularly.

[Brian Vickers]

Thanks Micheal.....I have only six sales this year with 4K images so I'm lookin to improve on that.

[Mr Standfast]

Brian there are many posts on the subject of discoverability, captions and key words in the forum. Have a search.

[Harry Harrison]

My opinion would be that if they don’t think much of the Discoverability Bar and we certainly don’t why don’t they either refine it or get rid of it altogether.

 

Did they say anything about the Optional tab? You should be answering the Models and Property questions even if you have no releases, behind the scenes it can matter. 

[Brian Vickers]

Yes I'm completing the optional tag...even with 50 tags I dont think the image is 'optimized' without these.

I've been diligently adding 50 tags...but from what I'm reading quality is better than quantity....I dont think my tags are ever irrellevent but they may be not so closely related to the specific subject of the image

[Brian Vickers]

41 minutes ago, Mr Standfast said:

Brian there are many posts on the subject of discoverability, captions and key words in the forum. Have a search.

Thanks...I'm reading through these now.

[Steve F]

Hi Brian,

Yes, not sure why Alamy persists with the 'optimised' thing on AIM when they also say directly that you shouldn't keyword spam. Thanks for sharing their answer when you asked them directly.

 

You've got some nice photos. Need to work on your captions a bit more - these are also searchable clients. You're wasting words in your captions - "images of" is useless.

 

We all do typos, but something else to look out for:

South peir and Harbour at Bridlington, Yorkshire- Image ID: 2WPPBCP

 

Discoverability and captions:

https://discussion.alamy.com/topic/17553-keywords-poor-discoverability/#comment-358624

 

I would also suggest looking at a few portfolio critiques; there's a lot of advice there that should help with sales.

Steve

 

 

[spacecadet]

Another consideration is that keeping below 50 enables adding extra keywords in the future, but this probably only helps if you have a lot of legacy images from the old MI with more than 50 tags.

I rarely go over 25 these days unless I have a batch copy for a certain category of image.

[Harry Harrison]

I seem to remember that you need to reach 40 keywords to win prizes in the Discoverability game but I often regret adding 10 Supertags straight off because batch adding to them gets to be a real pain.

[Michael Ventura]

11 hours ago, Steve F said:

Hi Brian,

Yes, not sure why Alamy persists with the 'optimised' thing on AIM when they also say directly that you shouldn't keyword spam. Thanks for sharing their answer when you asked them directly.

 

You've got some nice photos. Need to work on your captions a bit more - these are also searchable clients. You're wasting words in your captions - "images of" is useless.

 

We all do typos, but something else to look out for:

South peir and Harbour at Bridlington, Yorkshire- Image ID: 2WPPBCP

 

Discoverability and captions:

https://discussion.alamy.com/topic/17553-keywords-poor-discoverability/#comment-358624

 

I would also suggest looking at a few portfolio critiques; there's a lot of advice there that should help with sales.

Steve

 

 

 

I have to say that I am done trying to explain the discoverability problem that Alamy created in the AIM.  This issue comes up very regularly and it is not fair that we have to keep educating the new contributors.

[Harry Harrison]

Have you tried downloading your data? It's simple and despite what the text says it will be available for download in seconds not days, just refresh the page a couple of times. If you're handy with a spreadsheet you can create columns to count how many tags and supertags you have entered (based on counting for commas) and also use a spell checker to check for typos.

[Steve F]

3 minutes ago, Michael Ventura said:

 

I have to say that I am done trying to explain the discoverability problem that Alamy created in the AIM.  This issue comes up very regularly and it is not fair that we have to keep educating the new contributors.

 

Minded to agree. I'm sure everyone has noticed I'm doing a lot of copy pasta...

[NYCat]

3 minutes ago, Steve F said:

 

Minded to agree. I'm sure everyone has noticed I'm doing a lot of copy pasta...

 

You are amazingly patient, Steve. Kudos to you for helping so many. I sometimes copy one of your replies to paste.

 

Paulette

[Steve F]

8 minutes ago, NYCat said:

 

You are amazingly patient, Steve. Kudos to you for helping so many. I sometimes copy one of your replies to paste.

 

Paulette

 

Thanks Paulette. I find it relaxing to an extent, although I wish it wasn't the same queries coming up over and over. I also wish newbies did a search on the Forum before asking questions, but pretty sure I wouldn't have if I was coming onto it as new myself...

[Brian Vickers]

17 hours ago, Steve F said:

Hi Brian,

Yes, not sure why Alamy persists with the 'optimised' thing on AIM when they also say directly that you shouldn't keyword spam. Thanks for sharing their answer when you asked them directly.

 

You've got some nice photos. Need to work on your captions a bit more - these are also searchable clients. You're wasting words in your captions - "images of" is useless.

 

We all do typos, but something else to look out for:

South peir and Harbour at Bridlington, Yorkshire- Image ID: 2WPPBCP

 

Discoverability and captions:

https://discussion.alamy.com/topic/17553-keywords-poor-discoverability/#comment-358624

 

I would also suggest looking at a few portfolio critiques; there's a lot of advice there that should help with sales.

Steve

 

 

Thanks Steve....noted typo....I'll definitely work on the captions.

[Brian Vickers]

6 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

Have you tried downloading your data? It's simple and despite what the text says it will be available for download in seconds not days, just refresh the page a couple of times. If you're handy with a spreadsheet you can create columns to count how many tags and supertags you have entered (based on counting for commas) and also use a spell checker to check for typos.

No I've not tried that.....sounds like I should....thanks

[Brian Vickers]

6 hours ago, spacecadet said:

Another consideration is that keeping below 50 enables adding extra keywords in the future, but this probably only helps if you have a lot of legacy images from the old MI with more than 50 tags.

I rarely go over 25 these days unless I have a batch copy for a certain category of image.

Thanks for this....maybe I'll go through mine and take less relevant tags off...then I'll have capacity to enhance them later

[Stokie]

As has been mentioned, don't try and religiously get to 50 tags.

 

Your captions definitely need some work if your images are to be found.

 

Take image 2WPERMF of a statue of a woman. You haven't got 'statue', 'sculpture' or 'woman' or her name as tags - but you do have 'accommodation', 'boats', 'bird', 'fishing', fishing boats', 'funfair', 'groynes', 'national cycle route 111', 'pubs', 'restaurant', 'rnli' ,'rnli visitor centre', 'sand', 'sands', sandy beaches', none of which are in that image! You also have 'north pier' and 'south pier' - but it can't be both.

 

Adding irrelevant tags will hurt your ranking as someone looking for a fun fair doesn't want to see a close up picture of a woman's statue!

 

Don't take the criticism personally, we are only trying to help you gain more sales!

 

From a fellow Staffordshire resident.

 

Edit: a bit of googling has found; 'Gansey Girl' is a bronze sculpture by Stephen Carvill which can be found on Bridlington Harbour's north pier.

 

That should be your caption, plus possibly Yorkshire, England, UK. plus all those words should be in your tags and those in bold should be super tags.

 

John.

Edited March 23 by Stokie

[spacecadet]

35 minutes ago, Stokie said:

As has been mentioned, don't try and religiously get to 50 tags.

 

Your captions definitely need some work if your images are to be found.

 

Take image 2WPERMF of a statue of a woman. You haven't got 'statue' or 'woman' or her name as tags - but you do have 'accommodation', 'boats', 'bird', 'fishing', fishing boats', 'funfair', 'groynes', 'national cycle route 111', 'pubs', 'restaurant', 'rnli' ,'rnli visitor centre', 'sand', 'sands', sandy beaches', none of which are in that image! You also have 'north pier' and 'south pier' - but it can't be both.

 

Adding irrelevant tags will hurt your ranking as someone looking for a fun fair doesn't want to see a close up picture of a woman's statue!

 

Don't take the criticism personally, we are only trying to help you gain more sales!

 

From a fellow Staffordshire resident.

Yes, batch tagging can be handy but it can also be a curse. I have irrelevant searches years later and because the tags came over from the legacy system they're tricky to weed out.

[Stokie]

27 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

Yes, batch tagging can be handy but it can also be a curse. I have irrelevant searches years later and because the tags came over from the legacy system they're tricky to weed out.

Exactly! It's better to get a correct system from the start than to have to go back and amend them later.

[Brian Vickers]

4 hours ago, Stokie said:

As has been mentioned, don't try and religiously get to 50 tags.

 

Your captions definitely need some work if your images are to be found.

 

Take image 2WPERMF of a statue of a woman. You haven't got 'statue', 'sculpture' or 'woman' or her name as tags - but you do have 'accommodation', 'boats', 'bird', 'fishing', fishing boats', 'funfair', 'groynes', 'national cycle route 111', 'pubs', 'restaurant', 'rnli' ,'rnli visitor centre', 'sand', 'sands', sandy beaches', none of which are in that image! You also have 'north pier' and 'south pier' - but it can't be both.

 

Adding irrelevant tags will hurt your ranking as someone looking for a fun fair doesn't want to see a close up picture of a woman's statue!

 

Don't take the criticism personally, we are only trying to help you gain more sales!

 

From a fellow Staffordshire resident.

 

Edit: a bit of googling has found; 'Gansey Girl' is a bronze sculpture by Stephen Carvill which can be found on Bridlington Harbour's north pier.

 

That should be your caption, plus possibly Yorkshire, England, UK. plus all those words should be in your tags and those in bold should be super tags.

 

John.

Thanks….yes batch tagging ….Ill abandon that….thought I was being expedient…not taken personally at all…thanks!

[spacecadet]

4 minutes ago, Brian Vickers said:

Thanks….yes batch tagging ….Ill abandon that….thought I was being expedient…not taken personally at all…thanks!

It has its place for groups of images in the same category- just keep it in its place, as it were.

Edited March 23 by spacecadet

[Brian Vickers]

I’ve started to go back through my uploads to delete any excessive tags….I hope my reputation within the algorithm is recoverable.  I still have *** QC ranking.

[spacecadet]

13 hours ago, Brian Vickers said:

I’ve started to go back through my uploads to delete any excessive tags….I hope my reputation within the algorithm is recoverable.  I still have *** QC ranking.

I only do this if I get a large number of irrelevant results in a search. Otherwise it's not a very good use of time. You've been her a while, so assuming your sales aren't bad, your rank should be pretty reasonable and you won't be suffering much. That's my excuse anyway😉

Edited March 24 by spacecadet