Keywording – word order

[Charles Stirling]

In keywords my understanding has been that the sequence of words could be important so that “grey beard” being together was more likely to come up in search for the colour of the beard. I've just looked at a few images and now the keywords seem to be simply alphabetical.

 

Has Alamy changed? Or do most photographers simply put keywords in alphabetical order? Does any of this matter any longer? Are words kept as entered for actual searching but only displayed differently?

 

Can make a difference in what keywording software is used.

[Armstrong]

Yes the word order does matter if I recall. I think that the Keywords are sorted by Alphabetical Order for display only. Probably to stop Copy and Pasting of a persons keywords and seeing how they order them.

 

I expect the Search Engine evaluates them on the order in Manage Images.

[Doc]

Yes the word order does matter if I recall. I think that the Keywords are sorted by Alphabetical Order for display only. Probably to stop Copy and Pasting of a persons keywords and seeing how they order them.

 

I expect the Search Engine evaluates them on the order in Manage Images.

I am sure that's right.

 

Kumar

[Charles Stirling]

Yes the word order does matter if I recall. I think that the Keywords are sorted by Alphabetical Order for display only. Probably to stop Copy and Pasting of a persons keywords and seeing how they order them.

 

I expect the Search Engine evaluates them on the order in Manage Images.

That's what what I was expecting, but just wasn't sure. One of my ways of handling photos (IMatch) puts them alphabetically so I don't use it for the keywords, but wondered it this had become so common that the order had lost relevance just leaving it to the 3 essential, main and comprehensive.