Keyword spam and search

[Cryptoprocta]

What can retrospectively be done about poor keywording, spam and poor search results?

E.g. do a search on Grey Whale sorted by 'new'. See any Grey Whales?

Similarly 'Blue Whale' - not one actual 'Blue Whale' in the most recent 200 uploads.

A huge amount of overlap and nary a whale in the overlapped material.

Surely buyers are really put off by this sort of thing.

(I could give plenty more examples).

 

Or is the idea that if you choose 'new' rather than 'relevant', your search result doesn't actually have to relate at all to the search term?

[dustydingo]

I must be doing something wrong . . . I get nothing but photos of grey whales under "new" . . .

 

dd

[dustydingo]

"Blue Whale" is not so good though. . . although at least the first three are of blue whale skeletons and the next two are blue whale toys :-) . . . after that, not a blue whale within cooee.

 

dd

[Cryptoprocta]

I must be doing something wrong . . . I get nothing but photos of grey whales under "new" . . .

 

dd

Whoops, sorry, the search I did was the American spelling, Gray whale. There is one sketch of a whale in grey/gray at the top, then 135 archival shots from Baja California with AFAICS, not one whale in the lot, though they're clogging up the Gray Whale and Blue Whale searches. Luckily they didn't also use the alterative spelling, though I suspect most buyers will use the US spelling.

Relevant for Grey is pretty much 'relevant', creative has a more 'creative' interpretation of the term.

Blue Whale isn't great on 'creative' due to the various whales and whale sharks in blue water (e.g. five of the top ten aren't Blue Whales).

 

Since Alamy always says they are focussed on buyers, and these sort of search results come up very often due to the 'system', I'm astonished if buyers don't always complain about it. I'm often frustrated by the weird combination of words from all sorts of fields which come up in my measures almost daily.

[dustydingo]

 

I must be doing something wrong . . . I get nothing but photos of grey whales under "new" . . .

 

dd

 

There is one sketch of a whale in grey/gray at the top, then 135 archival shots from Baja California with AFAICS, not one whale in the lot,

Still not with you on this . . . I search for "grey whale" and filter to New and I get nothing but photos of grey whales, a full page of photos of grey whales to be exact, minus a handful of the bloke whose boat was sunk by a whale. What am I doing wrong?

 

dd

[Cryptoprocta]

 

 

I must be doing something wrong . . . I get nothing but photos of grey whales under "new" . . .

 

dd

 

There is one sketch of a whale in grey/gray at the top, then 135 archival shots from Baja California with AFAICS, not one whale in the lot,

 

Still not with you on this . . . I search for "grey whale" and filter to New and I get nothing but photos of grey whales, a full page of photos of grey whales to be exact, minus a handful of the bloke whose boat was sunk by a whale. What am I doing wrong?

 

dd

Did you notice I said I'd made a mistake and reported in my OP that I'd searched on Grey Whale (UK English spelling) and when I saw your reply I checked again and discovered my orginal search was using the American spelling "Gray Whale" with an a in Gray, and that's where the problem lies. I suspect that these images have something like "The seas off Baja California are known for their populations of Gray and Blue Whales" in the caption, and the search is picking this up, even though there are no whales in the 135 images.

Like I said, because of their location off the west coast of the Americas, most buyers will use the American spelling.

Added: this is what I see, and under this, the rest of the 135.

http://www.lizworld.com/GrayW.jpg

[JohnB]

Those words seem to be given low relevancy so in a "relevant" search they appear well down. That's the thing about the "new" search - it's a bit of a lucky dip. If no one has uploaded highly relevant pics recently you are likely to see something that is irrelevant. Unfortunately the creative search has the same flaws.

[Cryptoprocta]

It's a pity if buyers who perhaps have an ongoing need for images in certain subjects deliberately search for New files and get presented with a lot of irrelevant files.

 

I've given up trying to guess why certain files are deemed to be more creative than others; certain buyers may find it useful, who knows? But certainly we're not serving buyers with an ongoing need for fresh images.