Shergar Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 http://www.alamy.com/blog/2015/02/stressing-alamyrank-dont Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paulstw Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Good read thanks for clearign that up Alamy. For some though, it'll be, can, worms, open, everywhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Clemson Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Methinks they protest too much. I can say for certain that since I was demoted to the foot of the BHZ game in the last re-rank, the number of views on my images have crashed correspondingly. The correlation looks pretty strong to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Yates Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Maybe we would all forget BHZ if Alamy put our ranking on the dashboard and an indicator to show if we were moving up or down. Could you do that ALAMY? Regards Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
losdemas Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Good read thanks for clearing that up Alamy. For some though, it'll be, can, worms, open, everywhere. Yuk - messy! Couldn't agree more, though. All that counts for me is seeing my images in the first three pages when doing specific searches. Never took that BHZ game serious. Cheers, Philippe Hear, hear! Though I'd probably adjust that in favour of "damn the position, gimme the sales!" Methinks they protest too much. I can say for certain that since I was demoted to the foot of the BHZ game in the last re-rank, the number of views on my images have crashed correspondingly. The correlation looks pretty strong to me. It's tempting to believe that, but when I played the game, my rise in the BHZ pages corresponded with a fall in zooms/sales (recently recovered somewhat)! I have to say that my views have crashed and dived - especially in the last three months, (awful this month - so far), but I don't associate that with any supposed correlation between BHZ 'rank' and Alamy rank. Maybe we would all forget BHZ if Alamy put our ranking on the dashboard and an indicator to show if we were moving up or down. Could you do that ALAMY? Regards Craig I was tempted to agree and give you a greenie for that...however...I think that Paul's comment applies here (can, worms, etc.). If the BHZ game creates such controversy between so few players on the forum, just think of what that might mean in increased communication/administration costs for Alamy, negative feeling amongst contributors with a low, or falling, rank, etc. All the BHZ threads here would be converted into e-mails for Alamy to manage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 That's one less thing to worry about , not that I did, being on the last page but one and never having moved more than a page in 5 years despite increasing sales. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paulstw Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 I completely agree that if you're selling well etc etc then it's good business sense to rank those accounts higher, however, at least give us the tools so that we can all achieve that mark. I agree with Craig Yates about that point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Yarvin Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 I'm with those of you who see the secrecy as part of the problem. When you have no idea, a clue - any clue - is helpful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin P Wilson Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Maybe we would all forget BHZ if Alamy put our ranking on the dashboard and an indicator to show if we were moving up or down. Could you do that ALAMY? ... Especially as we are told that CTR is only part of the algoritthm - so why show it? Show our ranking warts and all, then we will really know where we stand. It might tell us that we need to do something, unfortunately not what we need to do. From my own stats I get the impression that the the key to not ranking badly is adding new material frequently ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnB Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 I'm guessing member services get a lot of queries about ranking and the BHZ thing. I'm not sure why it's constantly referred to as a "game". It's just a pointer. I don't think anyone regards it as some kind of competition. There certainly seems to be correlation for me. When I was high up the first page in BHZ I had images appearing on the first line of some of my "check searches" and when I dropped a few pages in BHZ my images in those same "check searches" also dropped a little. The fact that people are inconsistent in the way they use "BHZ" in their keywording only really matters if you want an absolute measure of rank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 is adding new material frequently ... Well so you'd think, but my improvement is despite my continuing Q C woes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Rooney Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Just search for a subject of which you have pictures and know that Alamy offers many thousands of similar ones. If I look for "brown bear" and find some of my bears on page 1 of 256 pages (30,681 images) then I'm a very happy camper and know I did a good job (QC / keywording / selling) which results in a good ranking. In my eyes, that is a far better test than looking where your BHZ picture landed among those of a "handful" of individual contributors. Yep, everybody seems to forget that the major players are left out in the BHZ game. Or do you think that the bigger partner agencies also join in? Don't think so But I do know that LOTS of their pictures are among the 30,681 bears ........ Just my two cents. Cheers, Philippe That's what I do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 It's the 80-20 rule . 80% of sales are from the top 20% of search returns. Mine certainly look like that. Unfortunately it probably means that half my uploading is wasted, I just don't know which half. My biggest sales lately have been where I have a near-monopoly. One search led to 2 sales out of 18 returns, 11 of which were mine, and another set of 4 images has had 3 sales. I could do with another few dozen of those through QC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 I believe in the facts I SEE directly Cheers, Philippe The fact$. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Douglas Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 There's an Alamy page "How Customers find your images" in the Contributors section. That gives a more detailed, and useful, explanation of how the Alamy Rank is calculated and used. Basically, to improve your rank you need to Decrease Views Increase Sales Increase Zooms or a combination of all three! As Philippe says, it's pretty easy to get a measure of your rank by doing some real world searches and seeing where your images end up. Do it for a dozen, discard any outliers and take the average. Alamy publishing the rankings wouldn't help and would just create more work for them with contributors querying why they had moved from position 3765 to 4231. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 There's an Alamy page "How Customers find your images" in the Contributors section. That gives a more detailed, and useful, explanation of how the Alamy Rank is calculated and used. Basically, to improve your rank you need to Decrease Views Increase Sales Increase Zooms or a combination of all three! As Philippe says, it's pretty easy to get a measure of your rank by doing some real world searches and seeing where your images end up. Do it for a dozen, discard any outliers and take the average. Alamy publishing the rankings wouldn't help and would just create more work for them with contributors querying why they had moved from position 3765 to 4231. BHZ can be a valuable tool if you want to achieve all that. A controlled environment and a baseline is always useful if you're testing something. If not necessary. A lot of the knowledge that's being passed on in this forum, comes from experiments within the BHZ population. I totally agree with: Basically, to improve your rank you need to Decrease Views Increase Sales Increase Zooms or a combination of all three! So how do I go about that? wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Yarvin Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 I think Alamy has to give the answer. Anyone else who says anything will just fuel speculation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 I think Alamy has to give the answer. Anyone else who says anything will just fuel speculation. They have already in that blog post. That is what started the discussion this time. we’re constantly tweaking how search works and trying new things out – so what might give your ‘BHZ’ image a boost one day, might change the next and sometimes your location may affect the search results you get. Meaning if your images are visible one day they may not be the next and you may never find out. Only 3 to 6 months later you have no sales that's all. And we already know what we should do about it: Send us your best work. So it's easy: if we have sent our best work and we are not selling, that must mean our work is not good enough. Fair enough. I can live with that. Somehow however my guess is that some people who are better sellers than I am, have a better understanding of the Alamy game than I have. Not that they are all better photographers. wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin P Wilson Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 I agree Wim, but hw will your best work be found if it is languishing on page 300? Only if it is highly specific, and hits a once in a blue moon search. If it is at all generic, however good, if you have a poor CTR/Rank no one will ever see it as search results could be hundreds of pages deep. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedSnapper Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Searching for : girl uk 70k+ results 43 out of the first 90 are mine I'm happy with that km Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnnie5 Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Searching for : girl uk 70k+ results 43 out of the first 90 are mine I'm happy with that km So much for the alleged diversity algorithm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin P Wilson Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Searching for : girl uk 70k+ results 43 out of the first 90 are mine I'm happy with that km So much for the alleged diversity algorithm. My point exactly; once you fall out of the top half you better have something highly specific if you hope to get back in good standing. Only problem is will there be enough demand for the very niche to get enough zooms/sales to make a difference? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Douglas Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Not so about the diversity algorithm. Read the "How Customers find your images" page and all will be clear. Redsnapper probably has a very high ranking, and the ranking falls into a band that includes only a small number of others. I've been looking at where my images fall based on real searches. I've not seen much variation each time I've checked. I suspect that the Alamy tweaks are no more than tweaks, and they're not suddenly going to move you from page 3 to page 30 or vice versa. wim: "So how do I go about that?" Well that's down to the individual contributor. People who are more successful are better at producing work that catches the eye of buyers (zooms) and persuades them to buy(sales). Whether that correlates with being better photographers depends on how you define 'better photographers'. If you define it as producing work that customers want to buy then clearly they are better photographers in this context! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Redsnapper is a very good example of someone who had his behind saved big time by using BHZ. wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin P Wilson Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Not so about the diversity algorithm. Read the "How Customers find your images" page and all will be clear. Redsnapper probably has a very high ranking, and the ranking falls into a band that includes only a small number of others. I've been looking at where my images fall based on real searches. I've not seen much variation each time I've checked. I suspect that the Alamy tweaks are no more than tweaks, and they're not suddenly going to move you from page 3 to page 30 or vice versa. wim: "So how do I go about that?" Well that's down to the individual contributor. People who are more successful are better at producing work that catches the eye of buyers (zooms) and persuades them to buy(sales). Whether that correlates with being better photographers depends on how you define 'better photographers'. If you define it as producing work that customers want to buy then clearly they are better photographers! Keith I believe that is right in the main. However you cannot catch the eye however fabulous any new work might be, or well keyworded, if you are on page 50+. If the new stuff is very niche perhaps, but then there won't be many searches. I have been reflecting, long and hard, on this for a good while. I have slipped to a low ranking, well down amongst the hoi-polloi, so I would expect any meaningful diversity algorithm to move my results around quite significantly for exactly the opposite reason (there are a lot of us!). I would expect perhaps only a page or so. But that is not the case, they appear in the same place on the same page on my test searches (not BHZ - I agree it is a nonsense) - I can pretty well predict the images that will be around my pictures. And the first of my pictures for each pseudonym is the same each time I do the test search. Once you have slipped well down the ranking (I believe I know why i have) I don't see how you get back. For example I have put all my sellers (including repeat sellers) and a few others, which I feel have something special to offer into a small collection, and that pseudonym continues to decline. I will see what it looks like this summer when it has had over a year (I am especially interested what the next rerank brings) but I do not hold out great hopes. The only way I can imagine to get back is to start over completely afresh with a tightly focussed and niche collection that initially doesn't get many views so the odd zoom, or if lucky sale, make a disproportionate impact on ranking. Then it might be possible to build out from that with slightly more mainstream work (if you don't have a quiet period between reranks). I have an idea I am going to try during the rest of 2015 and I will report back in the autumn. As an aside, I believe juggling pseudonyms usually does more harm than good, at least for the first 6-12months after the changes. Has anyone who had fallen into the doldrums ever managed to climb back to a decent ranking and sales performance? Anyone at all? The ones who make more sales here are certainly better "Alamy" photographers and have found an approach that works for them through Alamy. I suspect there are other, equally capable, photographers who have a higher success rate through other channels but can't make Alamy work for them; I have had a glimpse of that myself. The key is finding the route to market that is right for each photographer, to find a channel that properly rewards the effort involved; it might not be an easy option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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