Jump to content

Using quotes when keywording...


Recommended Posts

 

 

Discussing this is a bit like giving away trade secrets. Quotes, pe se, don't really work. It's keyword relevance that matters including multi-word keywords. But, here is what I understand, though I could easily be wrong.

 

Idea 1

If you Keyword the Eiffel Tower as "Eiffel Tower" and the researcher uses "Eiffel Tower" your image will come up before an equally rated photographer's image that just had Eiffel Tower. That is, the quotes are treated as characters. Your quoted string is more relevant than an unquoted string if the researcher used a quoted string.

 

Idea 2

Keyword order is king. If you have a picture of a pig, in dirt, on a farm and its an organic farm. Farm pig organic dirty may be good keywords but organic pig farm dirty pig dirt organic farm pig farm ... will be better because you stand a better chance of having the best set of relevant word combinations.

I agree with Idea 2, but I suspect idea 1 doesn't work, but currently can't tell for sure.

 

At the moment it just so happens that the images with keywords in quotes appear first by Alamy Ref. When I search for ABHZ BBHZ (without quotes) the images with "ABHZ BBHZ" appear first. This could be because the quotes in the keywords are having some effect (although I don't think so), or just because of their Alamy ref.

 

So I'll swap which image has which keywords to find out. I'll update the keywords now and report back tomorrow.

OK the results are in. Now I've swapped which image has which set of keywords, I can confirm that Idea 1 doesn't work. It makes absolutely no difference to the search results if you put your keywords in quotes. My test shows that images with two matching keywords surrounded with quotes aren't given any higher priority in the results as images with the same two keywords without quotes.

 

If you try searching for "ABHZ BBHZ" (with quotes), then four images come up in the following order.

 

E72K1G which has essential keywords CBHZ ABHZ BBHZ

E72K1H which has essential keywords ABHZ BBHZ CBHZ

E74X17 which has essential keywords CBHZ "ABHZ BBHZ"

E74X1G which has essential keywords "ABHZ BBHZ" CBHZ

 

The quotation marks in the contributor keywords appear to be ignored.

 

NB. The images with keywords in quotes appear later in the sequence simply because they have higher Alamy ref nos. and not because they've been penalised for having quotes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I know we are all feeling our way with this but I thought the point of using quotes in your keywords (as distinct from in your search) was so that when a searcher enters a given phrase and that phrase exactly matches the keywords you have placed in quotes, then your images will be displayed further up the results offered to the searcher. Does that make sense? :)

 

No, that isn't supposed to be the point. Putting keyword phrases in quotes should mean that the entire phrase is treated as a single keyword so that individual words in the phrase are not matched, only multiple words that correspond exactly to the phrase. Using MC's test clearly shows that this DOES NOT work yet. So if any improvements have been made, they've missed the point.

 

Alan

 

 

I'm with you Alan, that is exactly the point . . . and it's been (still) missed.

There is a change now in that, when you look at your keywords, any group of words contained in quotes appears as a phrase, so it looks like it's been treated as a single keyword, but it's not. Bugger!!! For a minute there I thought we'd crossed the Rubicon on this and all was finally as it should be . . . here's hoping it's a sign that the point is about to be . . . unmissed? :-)

 

dd

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

There is a change now in that, when you look at your keywords, any group of words contained in quotes appears as a phrase, so it looks like it's been treated as a single keyword, but it's not.

 

And even that hasn't been done properly! I don't have time to check lots of images, but one of mine is keyworded like this (words have been obscured to prevent identification but left in the same alphabetical order):

 

ttt uuu aaa nnn "sss rrr" ddd eee fff

 

and on the zoom page they appear as:

 

ddd eee fff, sss rrr, ttt uuu aaa nnn

 

In other words, they appear to be made up of three quoted phrases. This is re-inforced by the alphabetical order in which they've been listed, which would be correct if they ARE three phrases but not if they aren't.

 

It looks like a bit of a pig's ear to me, and needs sorting pronto.

 

Alan

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Alan, this implementation of the keywords certainly makes no sense to me.  I read your keyword intention as eight separate keywords (seven words and one quoted phrase) and can't see how this should become three phrases.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yep, exactly.

 

The reason I've left the image unidentified is because it's one of my earlier ones and the keywording is appalling so quite frankly I'm too ashamed to show it. I don't even know why I keyworded it like that! But your interpretation is absolutely correct.

 

Alan

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I still haven't heard back from Rehana. I'll post here when I do. Frankly, I am wondering if the new zooms are going to be at all popular with the buyers. I find them more difficult than the previous ones because you have to go back to get the page of search results. I think people are going to be only using zooms when they are about to buy. Otherwise, for searching the mouseover zooms are much more convenient.

 

Paulette

Any news from Rehana yet about quotes not being supported in contributor keywords?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No. Silence from Alamy and nothing has changed. If you use quotation marks it is reflected in the list of keywords in the zoom but it doesn't function to keep irrelevant searches from coming up.

 

Paulette

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All I can see is the quotations only affect how the keywords show up in the list, not how the show up in a search. I assume this is to make it easier for the customer to click on relevant phrases to do more searching.

 

So in turn all it really does is help the customer leave our photo and help keyword thieves know which were the best combinations and proper latin combinations.

 

So do the quotes really help the photograper at all? I can't see it.

 

Jill

I think Jill has hit the nail on the head here.  I have done a bit of experimenting since the changes and the results suggest that it only helps the customer not the contributor who's image is being looked at.

 

Pearl

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, is there a definitive conclusion to the speculation here? Does the fact keywords are alphabetically ordered have no impact on searches, that is, are keywords in a search processed in the exact same order the photographer entered them, or are they processed in the order they now appear (alphabetically)? And if the former, why are they ordered alphabetically when viewed?

 

I really doesn't seem to make a lot of sense . . . well, any sense to be honest.

 

And is there has been a definitive explanation from MS that I've missed, can someone direct me to it please. . .

 

dd

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, is there a definitive conclusion to the speculation here? Does the fact keywords are alphabetically ordered have no impact on searches, that is, are keywords in a search processed in the exact same order the photographer entered them, or are they processed in the order they now appear (alphabetically)? And if the former, why are they ordered alphabetically when viewed?

 

I really doesn't seem to make a lot of sense . . . well, any sense to be honest.

 

And is there has been a definitive explanation from MS that I've missed, can someone direct me to it please. . .

 

dd

Yes there has been an answer from Alamy but I can't recall where I saw it.  Basically they said that the alphabetical order was just seen when zooming the image and has no effect on searches.  I suppose it is intended to help buyers find keywords to click on if they are in a logical order.

 

Pearl

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

So, is there a definitive conclusion to the speculation here? Does the fact keywords are alphabetically ordered have no impact on searches, that is, are keywords in a search processed in the exact same order the photographer entered them, or are they processed in the order they now appear (alphabetically)? And if the former, why are they ordered alphabetically when viewed?

 

I really doesn't seem to make a lot of sense . . . well, any sense to be honest.

 

And is there has been a definitive explanation from MS that I've missed, can someone direct me to it please. . .

 

dd

Yes there has been an answer from Alamy but I can't recall where I saw it.  Basically they said that the alphabetical order was just seen when zooming the image and has no effect on searches.  I suppose it is intended to help buyers find keywords to click on if they are in a logical order.

 

Pearl

 

 

Thanks Pearl, I'll look more deeply.

 

IMO, the ordering of keywords by contributors is more likely to be the logical order, ordering them alphabetically takes no account of that original logic. But hey, what would I know eh? :-)

 

dd

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am actually finding it useful to find which images lack a keyword that they should have. I had a view today for "indigenous" and now I will check that all my Masai images have that keyword. As far as I know there is no way in Manage Images to find missing keywords and I have not been as good as I should be about keywording everything in Lightroom. Now I wish it was easier to move from image to image with the new zooms.

 

Paulette

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wouldn't it be nice if Alamy were to post a complete, detailed guide on how the keywording for their site should be done? After each and every conversation on this subject in this forum, I find I am more confused. And the changes I've recently made could be more harmful than helpful. It is a puzzlement. 

 

Would putting something like "official new york state snack" in quotes and as separate words with no "" cover my back? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oooooh how wonderful. Thank you! A whole new world opens up to me. And it's easy to move to the next image in Manage Images. I certainly could use detailed instructions from Alamy on using Manage Images. Does that exist anywhere?

 

Paulette

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

No. Silence from Alamy and nothing has changed. If you use quotation marks it is reflected in the list of keywords in the zoom but it doesn't function to keep irrelevant searches from coming up.

 

Paulette

 

Paulette,

 

Still no news from Alamy? Any chance of chasing Rehana again?

 

Mark

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think I have had my answer even though I have had no answer. The way things are working now if you use quotation marks the phrase shows up as such in the zoom but you will still get inappropriate views because the words are not tied together in a search. I suggest adding to the requests in the thread that Alamy started asking us what we want in the new Manage Images.

 

Paulette

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think I have had my answer even though I have had no answer. The way things are working now if you use quotation marks the phrase shows up as such in the zoom but you will still get inappropriate views because the words are not tied together in a search. I suggest adding to the requests in the thread that Alamy started asking us what we want in the new Manage Images.

 

Paulette

 

Thanks for posting the latest. It's not a revision to manage images that's required, it's the way Alamy's search engine handles "" and [] that would need changing. I think that I'll submit it as a question next time the "Ask James West" video session comes up.

 

Mark

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.