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I got the "Our Customers want your US images" email, which reminded me of this keywording question.

 

All my images are from the US. I usually do not put any country identification in my keywords (and stopped using the "Location" field long ago). I figure that someone looking for an image in the US will search for a more specific location, but I've concluded that I need to add country ID.

 

So what to add?:  US, USA, United States, America, all of the preceding? How about the location field?

 

 

 

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I recently asked for a Portfolio Critique from the Forum. One of the pieces of advice Kumar gave me was to do with location.

 

Here is what Kumar wrote: I had a look through your images and their keywords. Remember customers buying from Alamy come from all over the world, but in very few of them do you keyword the country in which the images were taken. I would seriously look at adding this information to all your images keywords.

 

I've since been re-keywording mine and adding this information. I would add all of the variations you can think of in the Main Keywords unless it there is a reason for it go to Essential and then use Comprehensive as overflow. 

 

I would add all the logical variations you can. Maybe look at news websites to see how the US is referred to around the world. The most common would be the one I would put in the location field.

 

Michael

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Maybe look at news websites to see how the US is referred to around the world.

 

The Great Satan?

 

 

LOL!

I prefer All of Alamy as my source. So I have added U.S.A. and U.S. But that gave me loads of false positives for U Street. ;-)  American is another.

Haven't looked at it for ages, may have to update my list.

I have looked up Great satan, and can confirm: not been searched. I think we can declare this myth...

 

wim

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I have many images taken in the USA, and I put the following in the keywords:  USA, United States of America,  American

 

I dont tend to put in "US" - difficult to know if one should, and All of Alamy is of no help as it wont accept search words of <3 letters. Having said that I always put UK in my images taken in the UK

 

Kumar

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Thanks all, good food for thought.

 

Does anyone know what happens to anything we fill into the "Location" field? I'm suspecting the contents of "Location" are just thrown into the keyword search.

 

On the buyer end, I see that in the Advanced Search, there is a "Location" dropdown, but it just has three choices:  USA, UK, and Europe.

 

Odd that the All of Alamy search won't accept search words < 3 letters--the general buyer search certainly does.

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I usually do U.S.,USA,United States, and sometimes, North America since I doubt they would be searching North and South in one search. I never just do America. Maybe I should. I do use the keyword American, not as a noun.

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I think it's a good idea to always put something the location field.

 

I put "USA" when appropriate, rather than United States of America.

 

In my atlas, all countries in the Americas are in "America." And then there is that other United States, the Estados Unidos Mexicanos.

 

The USA needs to come up with a distinctive name.

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Thanks all, good food for thought.

 

Does anyone know what happens to anything we fill into the "Location" field? I'm suspecting the contents of "Location" are just thrown into the keyword search.

 

On the buyer end, I see that in the Advanced Search, there is a "Location" dropdown, but it just has three choices:  USA, UK, and Europe.

 

Odd that the All of Alamy search won't accept search words < 3 letters--the general buyer search certainly does.

 

The location field is not supposed to be searchable. I always put it in so the buyer can see it if they are interested. I usually also put it in the caption where it is searchable.

 

Paulette

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I spot checked, and I think I have a location in the cap and keywords of almost all my images; I don't use the location field anymore -- it is no longer functioning, right? 

 

Since I'm living and shooting in New York City now, and I have no plans to travel, you might assume that I add USA, America, United States and so on . . . but I don't. 

 

I put just New York City and NYC in the cap and keywords.  Why?  I don't want to do business with anyone who does not know where New York City is.  Similarly,  I don't want to do business with anyone who's been hired to be a researcher/buyer but doesn't know how to spell "graffiti" correctly.  At the very least, they could turn their spellchecker on. Alternate spellings I try to include. 

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:) The location field is not searchable: http://www.alamy.com/contributor/help/captions-keywords-descriptions.asp

 

I personally find the the location field very important for the specific place the image has been taken and always fill in / out carefully. (Unless it is completely irrelevant to / for the image, but it won't be for most of my images). The relevant toponyms will also be added in the key words / keywords.....  :)

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It would be helpful to hear from Alamy of their current view on the Location field, and whether they have any plans for it.

 

I can imagine putting the Location field data through a program to sort it all out, then create a hierarchical dropdown of locations for buyers. Such a thing is difficult and messy to do, but possible.

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I don't want to do business with anyone who does not know where New York City is.  Similarly,  I don't want to do business with anyone who's been hired to be a researcher/buyer but doesn't know how to spell "graffiti" correctly. 

 

I'll happily deal with poor spellers. And anyone else who may happen to hold the purse strings...

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Bill, if you click the link that Niels has provided, you'll see that Alamy clearly states that the Location Field (and Description Field) have ZERO significance in a search . . . so that is their current view. If you want location to be part of the search, you should put it in the keywords. 

 

John, I'm sure you'll make tons of money selling to bad spellers. Let's hope they are not also bad at accounting. 

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I put just New York City and NYC in the cap and keywords.  Why?  I don't want to do business with anyone who does not know where New York City is.  

 

Ed, I just checked your most recent image of Fraunces Tavern. You have New York City in the caption, but neither New york, city or NYC in the keywords. Haven't you become too much of a minimalist to obtain saies?  :)

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Yeah, I'm not done with that batch. I always revisit the keywording after a few days. Tak.

 

Det var så lidt. Ligner faktisk den måde jeg også arbejder på, når jeg laver nøgleord.

(Don't mention it. Actually very much like my own work flow when keywording)   :)

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I think you've pushed past my Aalborg, open-faced sandwich level, Niels.  :)  I've worked as a magazine copy editor, and found that doing things in stages is helpful.

 

I've had some good times in your city, if rather long ago now. Among the other delights, you have the best coffee in northern Europe. 

 

Edo

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I think you've pushed past my Aalborg, open-faced sandwich level, Niels.  :)  I've worked as a magazine copy editor, and found that doing things in stages is helpful.

 

I've had some good times in your city, if rather long ago now. Among the other delights, you have the best coffee in northern Europe. 

 

Edo

 

Do you mean Red Aalborg, the aquavit / snaps? 

 

Always good to hear positive things about ones surroundings - I agree about the coffee - I need two mugs in the morning...

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That's the stuff, although I don't recall the word "red" being part of it. I used to keep a bottle here in my freezer, prefer it to vodka. But I don't drink spirits anymore, just a little wine or beer, espresso, and water.

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I am afraid that "The Great Satan" is only used by a couple of billion people so that may not be a good name or keyword.  To compound the problem I live in California, but its burdensome to have to type all the words like commie, pinko, liberal, tree hugging,gun hating, governor moonbeams state, to indicate where a photo was taken.  I just use USA in the location field when relevant and sometimes in the keywords.

 

I did a little testing on my own images.  If I have an image without USA as a keyword but with it in the location field and use it in a search then USA as keyword acts as a filter and excludes my images.  If I tick USA in the Location box on the left for the same image which has USA in the location field, but not as a keyword, then my images show up in the search.  To complicate things.  If I tick USA in the location field and use USA in the search it still filters out my images.  I guess you have to be careful how you implement location for your images.

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I did a little testing on my own images.  If I have an image without USA as a keyword but with it in the location field and use it in a search then USA as keyword acts as a filter and excludes my images.  If I tick USA in the Location box on the left for the same image which has USA in the location field, but not as a keyword, then my images show up in the search.  To complicate things.  If I tick USA in the location field and use USA in the search it still filters out my images.  I guess you have to be careful how you implement location for your images.

 

It looks like Alamy is determining that you qualify for the "USA" selection in the buyer's Location dropdown if Alamy finds "US" or "USA" (or probably "United States" or maybe some other geo tags) anywhere they can find it in what you have provided:  keywords, Location field, or maybe even Caption. But if you don't have any US identifier anywhere, then you don't go into the "USA" category (and probably not into any Location category).

 

I just want to make sure I understand how it works and how it is supposed to work (and how Alamy might foresee it working in the future), before I go to work on the thousand or so of my images that don't have any US identifier. Don't want to send myself on a fool's errand.

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Thanks for that clarification Johnnie, the location field comes into play if a buyer chooses USA in the location check box, but this is overridden by the keyword search.

 

This prompted me to do some checking of my own collection when I discovered that Europe and the UK are considered by Alamy to be two separate entities. Hopefully not an accurate crystal ball view of the likely outcome of the proposed UK EEC referendum!

 

Would a USA based purchaser stipulate Europe when searching for images of the UK? Is it therefore prudent to include the word Europe when keywording, or in the location field, for UK images? I typically don't, but always include Europe in non UK European images.

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Just the country here usually. Europe used to end up in keywords when I used a keyword generator but I no longer bother.

I try to include 'uk' because it's a popular search term. But generally not europe for uk images unless there's some international connection.

I would certainly include USA, etc., if I had the images, for the same reason as UK. It's seached on.

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