Sultanpepa Posted August 8, 2015 Share Posted August 8, 2015 OK, my keywording isn't the best and it may be argued neither are my images but I've noticed over the last few weeks and months a drop off in views. The count for Thursday was 37 from 3525 images. Is it a holiday in the south of Britain this week? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armstrong Posted August 8, 2015 Share Posted August 8, 2015 I've just checked measures for the past Mon - Fri. I averaged 30 views per day from under 750 images. Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Clemson Posted August 8, 2015 Share Posted August 8, 2015 In my experience it is perfectly normal for views to halve during August in the UK (and in the northern hemisphere in general?) as photo buyers and THEIR clients take annual leave, putting projects on hold or at least on the back burner until September. Newspapers and suchlike scratch around for items to publish so there is still some activity there, but slow views and sales are likely to be the norm. Having said that, over the last 30 days I'm running at 53 views per day on 2300 images. Your portfolio is similar in style to mine so it would not be unreasonable to expect similar stats. I notice you have fewer keywords per image than I typically use, which may help explain the fewer views BUT if you are getting better CTR (mine is 0.30 for July) and are getting better sales (I average one per month) then I think you have less cause to be worried. The one thing I have changed in my workflow in recent months is to add slightly more contrast and saturation to my images in an attempt to make them stand out more as thumbnails and thereby garner more zooms. I'm not sure it's having a major effect, but I think it is the right thing to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jill Morgan Posted August 8, 2015 Share Posted August 8, 2015 My views are down as well, but zooms are non-existent all of a sudden. Haven't had a zoom since the beginning of July. Same as you Josepgh, I have begun improving photos as my skills are better, so it seems the intelligent thing to do. Jill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted August 8, 2015 Share Posted August 8, 2015 I know many of you think of BHZ as a waste of time, but have any of you used it? We did have a couple of re-ranks and algorithm changes in the last 10 weeks or so. Algorithm = the way keywords; sales history and some other data like ranking are weighed. Maybe do something like this: Jan 2014 Jan 2015Total Views: 8,429 Total Views: 7,185Total Zooms: 29 Total Zooms: 32Feb 2014 Feb 2015Total Views: 8,820 Total Views: 7,787Total Zooms: 39 Total Zooms: 51Mar 2014 Mar 2015Total Views: 8,018 Total Views: 9,533Total Zooms: 51 Total Zooms: 61Apr 2014 Apr 2015Total Views: 8,038 Total Views: 8,737Total Zooms: 42 Total Zooms: 59May 2014 May 2015Total Views: 8,242 Total Views: 6,822Total Zooms: 22 Total Zooms: 60Jun 2014 Jun 2015Total Views: 9,025 Total Views: 8,604Total Zooms: 45 Total Zooms: 60Jul 2014 Jul 2015Total Views: 9,239 Total Views: 9,610Total Zooms: 64 Total Zooms: 73 These are totals. Numbers for individual pseudos would probably be more meaningful. wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jill Morgan Posted August 8, 2015 Share Posted August 8, 2015 I do the BHZ game and it seems when my bhz rating went from page 28 to page 5, that is when the vies and zooms went way down. Didn't seem to make sense. I would do searches on my image subjects and I would be on page 1-3 on almost all of them, but somehow the views weren't there. Now, when I would check A0oA to see what searches were being applied, I have to say most of them did not apply to my images, so that probably accounts for a lot of it. Are you getting that many views a month on just over 2,000 images? Fantastic! Jill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted August 8, 2015 Share Posted August 8, 2015 I do the BHZ game and it seems when my bhz rating went from page 28 to page 5, that is when the vies and zooms went way down. Didn't seem to make sense. I would do searches on my image subjects and I would be on page 1-3 on almost all of them, but somehow the views weren't there. Now, when I would check A0oA to see what searches were being applied, I have to say most of them did not apply to my images, so that probably accounts for a lot of it. Are you getting that many views a month on just over 2,000 images? Fantastic! Jill More like on just 1600 images. The rest is more or less sitting there. So it's about 3500 this month for the pseudo of 360 and 4800 for the pseudo of 1250. My best CTR is of course for the pseudo deleted ;-) There must be a healthy ratio sales vs views though. Otherwise the pseudo will sink very soon. At least that was the case until very recently. Some of the last re-rankings (probably no real re-rank, but a shift in BHZ nonetheless) suggested an ease of that: some contributors that had slipped a lot over the running year have noted a recovery like you. Your overall views going down when your bhz goes up is very counter-intuitive indeed. wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jill Morgan Posted August 8, 2015 Share Posted August 8, 2015 I do the BHZ game and it seems when my bhz rating went from page 28 to page 5, that is when the vies and zooms went way down. Didn't seem to make sense. I would do searches on my image subjects and I would be on page 1-3 on almost all of them, but somehow the views weren't there. Now, when I would check A0oA to see what searches were being applied, I have to say most of them did not apply to my images, so that probably accounts for a lot of it. Are you getting that many views a month on just over 2,000 images? Fantastic! Jill More like on just 1600 images. The rest is more or less sitting there. So it's about 3500 this month for the pseudo of 360 and 4800 for the pseudo of 1250. My best CTR is of course for the pseudo deleted ;-) There must be a healthy ratio sales vs views though. Otherwise the pseudo will sink very soon. At least that was the case until very recently. Some of the last re-rankings (probably no real re-rank, but a shift in BHZ nonetheless) suggested an ease of that: some contributors that had slipped a lot over the running year have noted a recovery like you. Your overall views going down when your bhz goes up is very counter-intuitive indeed. wim wim: As I mentioned, I did go over AoA and I didn't seem to have what people were looking for over the past month. I did notice that I didn't include Canada in many of my images when I came across a search for "snow ontario canada". So I did a complete search over the past year for %ontario% and discovered how often Canada was added to the end. So I have been plowing through the images adding Canada where I didn't have it before. Images you wouldn't think that the country would matter, but obviously does. I guess if someone is writing an article about specific subjects in Canada so only wants to be sure to get images that are taken there. Dumb me. And since there aren't tons of Canadian searches, gotta grab every one going. Always an ever learning process. Jill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted August 8, 2015 Share Posted August 8, 2015 Summer slowdown: 5362 views in June, 24 zooms 4402 views in July, 16 zooms 749 views and 5 zooms so far in August Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted August 8, 2015 Share Posted August 8, 2015 Jill. The country always matters. Kumar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Kuta Posted August 8, 2015 Share Posted August 8, 2015 My doc said I had low view count, but he gave me something for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Betty LaRue Posted August 8, 2015 Share Posted August 8, 2015 291 views for Friday. 1 zoom. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Rooney Posted August 8, 2015 Share Posted August 8, 2015 My doc said I had low view count, but he gave me something for it. Yeah, there's Viagra and Alprazolam. One of them has something to do with memory, but I forget which one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lastrega Posted August 8, 2015 Share Posted August 8, 2015 My doc said I had low view count, but he gave me something for it. Yeah, there's Viagra and Alprazolam. One of them has something to do with memory, but I forget which one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sultanpepa Posted August 8, 2015 Author Share Posted August 8, 2015 Wim, to be fair, you are I would think, an exception in that you seem to know which images to cull. The best in any business always make things look simple and you certainly do that. Joseph, For Aug I've had 317 views and I've had two zooms My total CTR is sitting at 0.63 Averaging 3 sales per month since Jan 1st Michael, when I read 750 images I could have chucked it all in there and then. I don't think over saturated images will attract experienced buyers, but I shoot RAW anyway so saturation gets my best judgement anyway. I did drop a few pages in the BHZ game after the last rerank and that coincidentally followed my opening a second pseudo for prospective deletions. Needless to say one of those images sold and I haven't had the guts to delete any. I wouldn't have thought that would have had any adverse effect, could it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dov makabaw Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 Interesting exercise - thanks Dougie. My average figures across all pseudos are as follows:- Month CTR Views Total views 2014 Aug 0.52 36 9,556 Sep 0.26 31 12,061 Oct 0.34 38 11,069 Nov 0.29 29 9,938 Dec 0.17 17 7.960 2015 Jan 0.21 17 8,464 Feb 0.40 39 9,690 Mar 0.46 44 9,620 Apr 0.26 22 8,619 May 0.40 37 9,144 Jun 0.49 42 8,634 Jul 0.34 29 8,570 Difficult to draw a conclusion on my figures. CTR strengthening while total views are weakening. I guess that's better than the opposite. dov Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marianne Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 For the past 31 days I averaged 43 views/day for 750+ images, if I just look at August it drops to 25/day. Zooms have been up since June and still strong in August ("strong" meaning above average for me). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 My doc said I had low view count, but he gave me something for it. Yeah, there's Viagra and Alprazolam. One of them has something to do with memory, but I forget which one. Lol But seriously - no real variation here in views through the summer months c/w the others; - perhaps it depends what sort of images the portfolio consists of? Kumar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CLSI Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 I've been keeping track of the number of pages of searches in All of Alamy for several years now, and I don't see any evidence of a drop-off in activity during the summer months. Here are averages for 2009 through 2014: These stats are for All of Alamy, so if your own collection is directed toward some subset of the image-buying crowd, and that subset of buyers happens to take most of August off, you'll see a drop. Chances are, though, that many of the drops reported in this thread are just normal fluctuations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armstrong Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 Dougie, I know you haven't specifically request a portfolio critique so apologies for taking the thread in another direction. I've just had a look at your portfolio and you have plenty of really good photos. Maybe have a look at the keywording would reap benefits? For example: F02HMM I'd add "Police Station"."Police Scotland","Scottish Police Station","Clyde Gateway","Police Station Exterior",Dalmarnock,"Dalmarnock Police HQ","Police Scotland HQ","UK Police","Police Headquarters","Police HQ" As you will probably have some keywords that apply to multiple photos then a mug of tea and some copy and pasting could be a quick win. Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sultanpepa Posted August 10, 2015 Author Share Posted August 10, 2015 So basically what you're saying Michael is that even if I already have those keywords I should still group them together as sets in inverted commas? I wasn't sure that the Alamy searches recognised them? Edit. I see now that I also missed a number of those keywords. I hate keywording and it shows I suppose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armstrong Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 As I understand it from an email exchange I had last week with Member Services.... The " " makes the search engine treat the contents as one keyword. So that if a customer searched for Police Scotland then "Police Scotland" would rank higher than Police Scotland because it's the exact match. Where as Police Scotland are effectively two separate keywords and can be affected by the order in which they appear and where they appear compared to other keywords. Happy to stand corrected if anyone else has any views! Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sultanpepa Posted August 10, 2015 Author Share Posted August 10, 2015 As I understand it from an email exchange I had last week with Member Services.... The " " makes the search engine treat the contents as one keyword. So that if a customer searched for Police Scotland then "Police Scotland" would rank higher than Police Scotland because it's the exact match. Where as Police Scotland are effectively two separate keywords and can be affected by the order in which they appear and where they appear compared to other keywords. Happy to stand corrected if anyone else has any views! Michael Thank you Michael. I'll try to take that on board Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armstrong Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 As I understand it from an email exchange I had last week with Member Services.... The " " makes the search engine treat the contents as one keyword. So that if a customer searched for Police Scotland then "Police Scotland" would rank higher than Police Scotland because it's the exact match. Where as Police Scotland are effectively two separate keywords and can be affected by the order in which they appear and where they appear compared to other keywords. Happy to stand corrected if anyone else has any views! Michael Thank you Michael. I'll try to take that on board No worries! I had some really helpful key-wording advice from the forum last month. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 So they have implemented the quotes feature then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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