Keywords and Caption in Multiple Languages.

[Marco Lanciani 0]

Does this really help in your experience?

Is this allowed?

 

I could write in Italian, german and english. Google might help with other languages if they were relevant.

Would I see any raise in sales using all of them, if not for all, at least for the most meaningful words?

[wiskerke 2,649]

Does this really help in your experience?

Is this allowed?

 

I could write in Italian, german and english. Google might help with other languages if they were relevant.

Would I see any raise in sales using all of them, if not for all, at least for the most meaningful words?

 

You can only find out by trying. Some German agencies have mainly German keywords and only very few English ones. I have noticed the same for some individual Dutch contributors. (Dutch keywords there, not German ones.)

 

You can research what keywords clients are using, when you look through the actual searches called All of Alamy.

If you go to your Dashboard page, click on the Alamy Measures bar and then on the All of Alamy button. Set the date as far back as possible, which is 12 months backwards from the first of the month we're in. Now: 1st of February 2015 - the rest is greyed-out. In the Search Term box, use % before and after the keyword you're looking for. Like: %rheinfall% so that it will find Rheinfallbrücke and alte Rheinfallbrücke. It's a database thing. Try Roma and Rome.

 

wim

 

edit: you can use %br%cke% to find out if people write Brücke Bruecke or Brucke. Surprise: all of the above ;-)

Edited February 17, 2016 by wiskerke

[spacecadet 2,598]

It's probably worth it for the odd relevant word, but I had searches recently for "terroir wein" and "terroir wine".

[Alexandre Fagundes 55]

In my experience the name of the place you should write in english and in the original version, like Bruges and Brugge, Munich and Munchen but still 90% at least are searched in the english version.

Does Alamy keywords care for special characters like München?

[Guest]

People searching/buying in langauges other than English are probably mostly likely to be using third party sites in their own country anyway, so translation is not needed (outside of obvious mentioned location translations ......... like Paris )

[SFL 145]

 

In my experience the name of the place you should write in english and in the original version, like Bruges and Brugge, Munich and Munchen but still 90% at least are searched in the english version.

Does Alamy keywords care for special characters like München?

 

 

I don't think so. You can try searching both words and check the results.

[spacecadet 2,598]

IMO umlauts and accents are simply ignored. So use munchen, koln, alencon, crecy, chateauneuf. I try to put accents on in captions, it's just polite.

I still add ae, ue, oe alternatives in German.

Edited February 17, 2016 by spacecadet

[Marco Lanciani 0]

Thank you all for your answers.

 

People searching/buying in langauges other than English are probably mostly likely to be using third party sites in their own country anyway, so translation is not needed (outside of obvious mentioned location translations ......... like Paris )

 

Third party sites is exactly what I'd like to avoid, or there is more than just "keywords translation" behind the work of these third party sites?

[Guest]

Thank you all for your answers.

 

People searching/buying in langauges other than English are probably mostly likely to be using third party sites in their own country anyway, so translation is not needed (outside of obvious mentioned location translations ......... like Paris )

 

Third party sites is exactly what I'd like to avoid, or there is more than just "keywords translation" behind the work of these third party sites?

 

Most overseas sales to non-English speaking countries are going to be off third party i.e. distributors.  It's the nature of the stock business. Very few buyers in Korea, China etc go to Alamy, Getty etc.... they tend to use their delegate or distribution partners for sourcing imagery.

 

If I translated for my best selling images from overseas sales (in all stock, not here), I would be working on Korean and Mandarin.... which is exactly why I don't bother. I let the distribution sites do the work, after all...... they are taking a cut of the monies.

[Ed Rooney 2,116]

Does this really help in your experience?

Is this allowed?

 

I could write in Italian, german and english. Google might help with other languages if they were relevant.

Would I see any raise in sales using all of them, if not for all, at least for the most meaningful words?

 

 

Marco . . . There is no absolutely correct way to keyword; every image involves a number of judgement calls. Forum members have given you a lot of good suggestions in this post. Wim suggests making use of "All of Alamy" and he seems to know a lot about this stuff. I always include proper nouns in the original language and in English, if they are different: Milan and Milano, across the Tiber and Trastevere, Vatican City and Vaticano.

 

Ciao, Edo 

[Marco Lanciani 0]

Thank you Edo.

 

Yes, Wim suggestion is great. I already tried it. It gives a clear Idea of what's going on with words and their corresponding translation.

 

It looks like keywording is a never ending job and must be refined by the time.

[Marco Lanciani 0]

I did a search with the italian word "stormo" - flock in english and found this. Then I picked this image: there's no hint of the word "stormo" here. Any idea how is this possible?

[Ed Rooney 2,116]

Marco, I find myself in the ridiculous position of explaining Italian to a Roman. (Ma ho vissuto a Roma e parlo italiano.) Your English seems a lot better than my Italian, but "stormo" means "flight" as well as "flock," right?  I suspect that is the reason all those Italian jets showed up in your search. I will not be trying to explain Alamy's search engine or algorithm -- not a possibility. 

 

Unfortunately, you seem to be wandering out into a swamp here. You're using far too many irrelative terms in Italian; you do not want lots of pointless views that will not end up becoming zooms or sales. That practice will give you a low CTR and a low placement. This would be a good time for you to do more shooting and grow your collection. Keep your keywords relative and simple. 

 

Ciao, Edo

[Marco Lanciani 0]

Marco, I find myself in the ridiculous position of explaining Italian to a Roman. (Ma ho vissuto a Roma e parlo italiano.) Your English seems a lot better than my Italian, but "stormo" means "flight" as well as "flock," right?  I suspect that is the reason all those Italian jets showed up in your search. I will not be trying to explain Alamy's search engine or algorithm -- not a possibility. 

 

Unfortunately, you seem to be wandering out into a swamp here. You're using far too many irrelative terms in Italian; you do not want lots of pointless views that will not end up becoming zooms or sales. That practice will give you a low CTR and a low placement. This would be a good time for you to do more shooting and grow your collection. Keep your keywords relative and simple. 

 

Ciao, Edo

 

The image is not mine, I used those links just as an example... but I got what you mean.

I shouldn't bother too much about keywords in foreign languages and just add a few if they're really relevant.

I usually keyword in english and the local language, at least the local name of the place and some other relevant words when possible. Is this useless, also for places? Maybe I'll get more views, which is not necessarily more sales...

 

Yes, you're right. I should upload more photos. I'll do that! 

Grazie!

[Ed Rooney 2,116]

 

Marco, I find myself in the ridiculous position of explaining Italian to a Roman. (Ma ho vissuto a Roma e parlo italiano.) Your English seems a lot better than my Italian, but "stormo" means "flight" as well as "flock," right?  I suspect that is the reason all those Italian jets showed up in your search. I will not be trying to explain Alamy's search engine or algorithm -- not a possibility. 

 

Unfortunately, you seem to be wandering out into a swamp here. You're using far too many irrelative terms in Italian; you do not want lots of pointless views that will not end up becoming zooms or sales. That practice will give you a low CTR and a low placement. This would be a good time for you to do more shooting and grow your collection. Keep your keywords relative and simple. 

 

Ciao, Edo

 

The image is not mine, I used those links just as an example... but I got what you mean.

I shouldn't bother too much about keywords in foreign languages and just add a few if they're really relevant.

I usually keyword in english and the local language, at least the local name of the place and some other relevant words when possible. Is this useless, also for places? Maybe I'll get more views, which is not necessarily more sales...

 

Yes, you're right. I should upload more photos. I'll do that! 

Grazie!

 

 

 

Oh! I'm sorry. Guess I didn't read past the M. And a Tuscan! What do they know about anything more recent than Rinascimento. 

Edited February 23, 2016 by Ed Rooney

[Alexandre Fagundes 55]

My experience with some brazilian designers

They dont use the third parties, but go straight to Getty, Fotolia, SS and others

They search in english

Yes, Brazil instead of Brasil and so on, until they find what they want

Here few know what is Alamy, did I choise the wrong partner?

Edited February 22, 2016 by Alexandre Fagundes

[Guest]

My experience with some brazilian designers

They dont use the third parties, but go straight to Getty, Fotolia, SS and others

They search in english

Yes, Brazil instead of Brasil and so on, until they find what they want

Here few know what is Alamy, did I choise the wrong partner?

 

The number of Brazilian distributor sales would suggest  this is not always the case.

[Jansos 548]

Having read all of the above it would seem that there is a healthy difference of opinion on this subject. My question is whether something like this - Britain British British Isles UK United Kingdom England English Europe european EU Londen London Londra Londres angleterre inglaterra bretaña grande-bretagne großbritannien - would help or hinder on the CTR? Any suggestions?

[Jansos 548]

 

Having read all of the above it would seem that there is a healthy difference of opinion on this subject. My question is whether something like this - Britain British British Isles UK United Kingdom England English Europe european EU Londen London Londra Londres angleterre inglaterra bretaña grande-bretagne großbritannien - would help or hinder on the CTR? Any suggestions?

 

 

The only damage it will do as far as I can see is if the same word exists in another language with a different meaning and you then get false positives. E.g.Piazza del San Marco, St Michaels Square, Place St. Michel.  The last French translation could get false positives if someone was searching for some other place.

 

Cheers Funkyworm! :-)

[Wawa 12]

I asked a similar question a few months ago.  I forgot exactly what replies stated but I got the impression that Alamy has some type of translating program that serves whatever country/language is interested in the photograph.  Maybe certain slang terms might be helpful.

[Ed Rooney 2,116]

Marco, only few of us will understand this, which I have boringly explained a number of times in this forum. 

 

If you do a search for "alfresco dining"on Alamy you will get 8,052 hits. If you search for "al fresco dining" you get 12,909 hits -- even though it's wrong. We don't use al fresco to indicate dining outdoors in Italian. (Unless of course Italians have begun doing this???). Alfresco is in English dictionaries, but not in Italian dictionaries. 

 

I mention this (again!) here, because it points up the problems we can get into using various languages in our keyword. 

 

I do keywording and PP one image at a time, making judgement calls as best I can . . .  and then I move on. Basta!

Edited October 21, 2016 by Ed Rooney

[christian58 84]

Alamy keep saying the keywording is so imoportant etc but Im beginning to think its only because they dont want spamming etc and thats good BUT I dont think it has the slightest impact on sales?  myself and a few friends here and two of them have got more then 10K files in portfolios and frankly none have seen the slightest increase in sales.

Of course keywording should be done properly anyway but I seriously doubt they have any effect on sales.