Broad Norfolk Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 Just to add my observations, my zooms have all but vanished - just a couple in the last two months or so. Now views are on a dramatic decline and are around 25 per cent of what I would normally expect. Not good. Jim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Betty LaRue Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 My zooms are down by half. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnB Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 Just to add my observations, my zooms have all but vanished - just a couple in the last two months or so. Now views are on a dramatic decline and are around 25 per cent of what I would normally expect. Not good. Jim. Ditto. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin P Wilson Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 I thought it was just me, troubling when I am actively seeking to rebuild my photography business! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TABan Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 Mine have evaporated as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pearl Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 Views and zooms both down for me since the change. The former is actually the most worrying as it may mean buyers are going elsewhere. I can't believe Alamy has made this change as it is very inconvenient all round. Pearl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 The change was probably made for Google. When I used Alamy for searches, I would swipe the pop-up windows to my right hand monitor and view them side by side. With a little care I could have 12 images open as a bigger lightbox. The only thing missing was an instruction how to (or better a button to) allow pop-ups for Alamy. That may even have been there of course, I am not a client. Now there is no possibility any more to easily view images side by side. II wish there was a lightbox column or bar to the right side of the window. Where a client could swipe an image to. It would work on a phone too. Swiping to the right of course, meaning yes; keep. To the left means no. Such a lightbox would fill the screen on demand and show images side by side or an image full screen or anything in between. Hovering over an image would reveal the caption, description and the photographer with a link to more by this photographer. There would be a button buy everything in my lightbox now. And an automatic counter that would calculate a discount for larger quantities. Ah such dreams. Yes almost no zooms this week, but views seem to be normal or only slightly down. wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TABan Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 The change was probably made for Google. When I used Alamy for searches, I would swipe the pop-up windows to my right hand monitor and view them side by side. With a little care I could have 12 images open as a bigger lightbox. The only thing missing was an instruction how to (or better a button to) allow pop-ups for Alamy. That may even have been there of course, I am not a client. Now there is no possibility any more to easily view images side by side. II wish there was a lightbox column or bar to the right side of the window. Where a client could swipe an image to. It would work on a phone too. Swiping to the right of course, meaning yes; keep. To the left means no. Such a lightbox would fill the screen on demand and show images side by side or an image full screen or anything in between. Hovering over an image would reveal the caption, description and the photographer with a link to more by this photographer. There would be a button buy everything in my lightbox now. And an automatic counter that would calculate a discount for larger quantities. Ah such dreams. Yes almost no zooms this week, but views seem to be normal or only slightly down. wim If the change was made for Google and it ends up alienating existing customers, it will be a net negative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IDP Posted October 2, 2014 Author Share Posted October 2, 2014 Views and zooms both down for me since the change. The former is actually the most worrying as it may mean buyers are going elsewhere. I can't believe Alamy has made this change as it is very inconvenient all round. Pearl Totally agree, Pearl. If there's a change in the number of zooms then it will affect all contributors equally - although with fewer zooms, sales will probably become even more important for ranking than previously (meaning lower ranked contributors will have a harder time climbing the greasy pole!). The more worrying aspect is the reduction in searches and views, which points to a more malign problem. Wim's point about Google makes sense but, as I recall, individual images were coming up in Google searches even before the new layout? Ian D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 Not sure if I have noticed a reduction in views - maybe too early to tell; but certainly zooms down on average. Would be nice to hear from Alamy (Please) Kumar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IDP Posted October 2, 2014 Author Share Posted October 2, 2014 Not sure if I have noticed a reduction in views - maybe too early to tell; but certainly zooms down on average. Would be nice to hear from Alamy (Please) Kumar Kumar, I think it can be quite difficult to tell from one's own figures, as there's obviously more daily variation in views on a small sample. That's why I used the All of Alamy figures in my analysis which, if accurate, shows a very substantial drop. Ian D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYCat Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 The change was probably made for Google. When I used Alamy for searches, I would swipe the pop-up windows to my right hand monitor and view them side by side. With a little care I could have 12 images open as a bigger lightbox. The only thing missing was an instruction how to (or better a button to) allow pop-ups for Alamy. That may even have been there of course, I am not a client. Now there is no possibility any more to easily view images side by side. II wish there was a lightbox column or bar to the right side of the window. Where a client could swipe an image to. It would work on a phone too. Swiping to the right of course, meaning yes; keep. To the left means no. Such a lightbox would fill the screen on demand and show images side by side or an image full screen or anything in between. Hovering over an image would reveal the caption, description and the photographer with a link to more by this photographer. There would be a button buy everything in my lightbox now. And an automatic counter that would calculate a discount for larger quantities. Ah such dreams. Yes almost no zooms this week, but views seem to be normal or only slightly down. wim The posts that people have made in the Alamy section of the forum have been answered. Perhaps a good place to put suggestions... Paulette Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alamy Posted October 3, 2014 Share Posted October 3, 2014 We've made changes to the comp based on, how can we put this, ABSOLUTELY LOADS of testing and performance analysis. We use both internal and external testing resources and monitor a huge amount of data. We know what users click on, what they ignore and if anything confuses them. We can't list everything we do to inform our decisions because there is simply far too much of it. Any changes on the site are made based on solid evidence that it will have a positive effect on sales. If there was ever a change we made that had a negative effect we would be aware very quickly and we would make the changes to fix that very quickly. Please trust us to do what is best for your images in this very competitive market. Alamy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted October 3, 2014 Share Posted October 3, 2014 Thank you Alamy! Extensive testing is expected and the norm of course. However it is easy to overlook something in the course of software development. Or even monitoring. Clients may use a site totally different from the intentions of the developer. They may put up with slight inconveniences because the quality of what's on offer; because it's cheap, or just out of habit. It's always possible that there's a tipping point change. - Unless you're Amazon. Clients very seldom do comparative usability tests with competitor sites. Are you a customer or a contributor with your main competitors? (please don't answer, at least not in public ;-) Contributors see or monitor just a tiny fraction of management data, which is exactly why signals may be useful. wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inchiquin Posted October 3, 2014 Share Posted October 3, 2014 Just to be different... I've had more zooms and sales in the last week than in the previous month. Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYCat Posted October 3, 2014 Share Posted October 3, 2014 I have discovered something else that is affecting our views. I wanted to be sure the caption was still searchable so I tested it with my bhz image. I put bhz only in the Caption and it was searchable and showed up 8 pages down from when bhz was only in the Essential field. That was about what I expected but I also tested Comprehensive and Main. Each time was almost the same. All of them 8 pages down and only a change in the position on the page. That is not what used to happen. I don't remember the exact figures but I tested years ago and there was a definite difference between Caption, Comprehensive and Main. Now they are more or less the same and ALL are significantly less important than Essential. Some images probably are almost completely described in Essential but I use a whole lot of words for animals and their behavior. I can't think they really want what is happening now. I certainly don't. Paulette Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IDP Posted October 3, 2014 Author Share Posted October 3, 2014 I have discovered something else that is affecting our views. I wanted to be sure the caption was still searchable so I tested it with my bhz image. I put bhz only in the Caption and it was searchable and showed up 8 pages down from when bhz was only in the Essential field. That was about what I expected but I also tested Comprehensive and Main. Each time was almost the same. All of them 8 pages down and only a change in the position on the page. That is not what used to happen. I don't remember the exact figures but I tested years ago and there was a definite difference between Caption, Comprehensive and Main. Now they are more or less the same and ALL are significantly less important than Essential. Some images probably are almost completely described in Essential but I use a whole lot of words for animals and their behavior. I can't think they really want what is happening now. I certainly don't. Paulette If true, Paulette, that could well affect an individual contributor's number of views - however it shouldn't have any effect on the total number of views in All of Alamy. Ian D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYCat Posted October 3, 2014 Share Posted October 3, 2014 Yes, and I'm sure it affects me more than the folks that have heeded Alamy's advice to only use a few words. I check to see what the "Big Guys" do with their wildlife keywording and they do lots and lots. I am fortunate in not needing to make a living from this. I just need to keep things in perspective and continue to have FUN with my amazing trips. Paulette Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M.Chapman Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 Thank you Alamy! Extensive testing is expected and the norm of course. However it is easy to overlook something in the course of software development. Or even monitoring. Given the mistakes in the handling of quotation marks in contributor keywords (splitting into phrases at the wrong positions) on the new pages demonstrates your point admirably. I've had no zooms since the changes, but that could be just bad luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Betty LaRue Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 I finally had two new zooms. The first new ones in ages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duncan_Andison Posted October 10, 2014 Share Posted October 10, 2014 Thank you Alamy! Extensive testing is expected and the norm of course. However it is easy to overlook something in the course of software development. Or even monitoring. Given the mistakes in the handling of quotation marks in contributor keywords (splitting into phrases at the wrong positions) on the new pages demonstrates your point admirably. I've had no zooms since the changes, but that could be just bad luck! Yeah, I must be having the same bad luck. As you say, it wouldn't be the first time their Extensive Data has let them down. I'm on the same number of zooms per month when I had 1500 images.... zooms seem to be disappearing. There are some prominent contributors saying the same thing here so surely Alamy must look into this, something isn't right somewhere. Whether it is measures reporting or, customers walking but something has changed. I wonder if they used Champion Challenger analysis when implementing these changes and compared the results against a control group. Standard practice when altering scorecards or algorithms to see how small changes alter the results. A "Deepdive" or "Vertical Slice" analysis is also a good way to make sure the changes you make only affect the parts you want them to effect. We used to do this all the time when I worked in Banking.... they wouldn't sanction a change without it. Hopefully though, they didn't just apply the wet finger tip in the air to determine which way the wind was coming from Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alamy Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 We've made a lot of changes recently and we're looking at the effect on activity etc but the good news is the activity that directly correlates with sales, e.g downloads and purchases, are up. So, no need to panic but we are doing further investigations. Alamy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David W Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 Alamy thank for posting that. May well be the case but if so why don't member services just say that when contributors make an inquiry! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sultanpepa Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 I'm wondering if sales are up for the month, quarter, or year to date? I'd also be interested to know whether anyone's had a sale reported today in any form given that measures has thrown a wobbly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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