Searching within tags

[Jill Morgan]

Just did a quick read of the Alamy blog and came on this secion:

 

"Our tagging system does not exclude constituent words of a tag from being searched for e.g. “Banff National Park” will still show up for “banff”,”national park” and “park” searches. This also means that “Rhinoceros Beetle” will show up in “Rhinoceros” searches, but the search engine tries to make sure that the beetle image does not appear too high up.

 

What I would like to know is if someone searches "toronto ontario canada"  will images with the 3 words in one tag have prevalence over images with the words as 3 separate tags. Right now I cover all bases doing the as separate tags as well as a combination of multiple tags.  Generally this isn't a problem unless I hit an image where I really need all my 50 tags.  If I could eliminate all the combos, then this would help.

 

Jill

[Martin P Wilson]

Just did a quick read of the Alamy blog and came on this secion:

 

"Our tagging system does not exclude constituent words of a tag from being searched for e.g. “Banff National Park” will still show up for “banff”,”national park” and “park” searches. This also means that “Rhinoceros Beetle” will show up in “Rhinoceros” searches, but the search engine tries to make sure that the beetle image does not appear too high up.

 

What I would like to know is if someone searches "toronto ontario canada"  will images with the 3 words in one tag have prevalence over images with the words as 3 separate tags. Right now I cover all bases doing the as separate tags as well as a combination of multiple tags.  Generally this isn't a problem unless I hit an image where I really need all my 50 tags.  If I could eliminate all the combos, then this would help.

 

Jill

 

That is good plus comment elsewhere about the benefit of phrases, and individual words, suggest no pressing need to spend hours reworking tags. I think I will just redo supertags on my existing portfolio as and when I have nothing better to do. In any case I want to see how the recent search changes work out as far as sales are concerned so I will watch things for a few months. Instead I will actually go and take some pictures, or better still make some rather than simply relying on easy, found ones.

[Matt Ashmore]

The blog does go on to say:

 

"Try to avoid adding alphabetical lists of tags. Proximity of one tag compared to another used in a multi-word search can have an effect on where it appears in the sort order, which is why we’d recommend adding phrases / multi-word tags where appropriate."

 

So this suggests that using multi-word tags where the words are in the right order within the tag itself might give a slight advantage. Quite how you "avoid adding alphabetical lists of tags" using the new AIM which automatically sorts the tags into alphabetical order, I don't know however.

[Jill Morgan]

 

Just did a quick read of the Alamy blog and came on this secion:

 

"Our tagging system does not exclude constituent words of a tag from being searched for e.g. “Banff National Park” will still show up for “banff”,”national park” and “park” searches. This also means that “Rhinoceros Beetle” will show up in “Rhinoceros” searches, but the search engine tries to make sure that the beetle image does not appear too high up.

 

What I would like to know is if someone searches "toronto ontario canada"  will images with the 3 words in one tag have prevalence over images with the words as 3 separate tags. Right now I cover all bases doing the as separate tags as well as a combination of multiple tags.  Generally this isn't a problem unless I hit an image where I really need all my 50 tags.  If I could eliminate all the combos, then this would help.

 

Jill

 

That is good plus comment elsewhere about the benefit of phrases, and individual words, suggest no pressing need to spend hours reworking tags. I think I will just redo supertags on my existing portfolio as and when I have nothing better to do. In any case I want to see how the recent search changes work out as far as sales are concerned so I will watch things for a few months. Instead I will actually go and take some pictures, or better still make some rather than simply relying on easy, found ones.

 

 

I would just like confirmation that a multi word tag doesn't get better placement in search than separate tags. I like that a multi word tag such as their example would go lower on search as it would keep the photographer from getting useless views. But this also means that if I have "toronto ontario canada" as a multi word, that if someone just searches Toronto, then I move down the list if I don't have Toronto as a single tag.  For me not super problem except for images with lots of tags (of which I don't have many).  Also makes a difference in supertags as I use up 3 for separate tags but only 1 for the multi tag.

 

 

The blog does go on to say:

 

"Try to avoid adding alphabetical lists of tags. Proximity of one tag compared to another used in a multi-word search can have an effect on where it appears in the sort order, which is why we’d recommend adding phrases / multi-word tags where appropriate."

 

So this suggests that using multi-word tags where the words are in the right order within the tag itself might give a slight advantage. Quite how you "avoid adding alphabetical lists of tags" using the new AIM which automatically sorts the tags into alphabetical order, I don't know however.

 

Matt, in IM they are in the order you entered them, which is what the search engine sees.  They are only alphabetical on the zoom page for the convenience of the customer.

 

Jill

[IanGibson]

Just did a quick read of the Alamy blog and came on this secion:

 

"Our tagging system does not exclude constituent words of a tag from being searched for e.g. “Banff National Park” will still show up for “banff”,”national park” and “park” searches. This also means that “Rhinoceros Beetle” will show up in “Rhinoceros” searches, but the search engine tries to make sure that the beetle image does not appear too high up.

 

What I would like to know is if someone searches "toronto ontario canada"  will images with the 3 words in one tag have prevalence over images with the words as 3 separate tags. Right now I cover all bases doing the as separate tags as well as a combination of multiple tags.  Generally this isn't a problem unless I hit an image where I really need all my 50 tags.  If I could eliminate all the combos, then this would help.

 

Jill

 

 

Jill,

 

I have about 20 images taken in Jerez de la Frontera in Spain.  2 of them were viewed recently under the search term 'Jerez Spain'

 

I wondered why only two were viewed, and when I looked in the new AIM, I discovered that although all of my Jerez images were tagged 'Jerez' and 'Spain' only the two which were viewed had the tag 'Jerez Spain'

 

I guess that the others were further down the list than the searcher was willing to go.

[tarsierspectral]

So from all of this I gather that it's a good idea to have both, a multiword tag and the words from that tag as separate tags as well.  That way you don't get discriminated either way.   

[RedSnapper]

"Matt, in IM they are in the order you entered them, which is what the search engine sees.  They are only alphabetical on the zoom page for the convenience of the customer."

 

 

There is an issue, for people like me who work on their images and keyword offline in Lightroom before uploading to Alamy (and other agencies)...

 

Lightroom renders the keywords alphabetically , and there's no option to change that behaviour

 

km

[Jill Morgan]

"Matt, in IM they are in the order you entered them, which is what the search engine sees.  They are only alphabetical on the zoom page for the convenience of the customer."

 

 

There is an issue, for people like me who work on their images and keyword offline in Lightroom before uploading to Alamy (and other agencies)...

 

Lightroom renders the keywords alphabetically , and there's no option to change that behaviour

 

km

 

I do mine in Bridge, which leave them in the order I put them.

 

Jill

[Martin P Wilson]

 

"Matt, in IM they are in the order you entered them, which is what the search engine sees.  They are only alphabetical on the zoom page for the convenience of the customer."

 

 

There is an issue, for people like me who work on their images and keyword offline in Lightroom before uploading to Alamy (and other agencies)...

 

Lightroom renders the keywords alphabetically , and there's no option to change that behaviour

 

km

 

I do mine in Bridge, which leave them in the order I put them.

 

Jill

 

 

I use Photomechanic for the same reason. That too maintains my order.

[MariaJ]

Just did a quick read of the Alamy blog and came on this secion:

 

"Our tagging system does not exclude constituent words of a tag from being searched for e.g. “Banff National Park” will still show up for “banff”,”national park” and “park” searches. This also means that “Rhinoceros Beetle” will show up in “Rhinoceros” searches, but the search engine tries to make sure that the beetle image does not appear too high up.

 

 

That's too bad.  I was hoping with the new system I would stop getting views for searches with Columbia and British in them if I just made a single tag "British Columbia".  I went and redid a bunch of my tags, but I guess I didn't need to.

 

Maria

[ReeRay]

"Matt, in IM they are in the order you entered them, which is what the search engine sees. They are only alphabetical on the zoom page for the convenience of the customer."

 

 

There is an issue, for people like me who work on their images and keyword offline in Lightroom before uploading to Alamy (and other agencies)...

 

Lightroom renders the keywords alphabetically , and there's no option to change that behaviour

 

km

I do all my keywording in LR using the large keyword box as opposed to the small space below and my keywords stay exactly in the order I input, WITHOUT USING COMMAS.

[NYCat]

A

 

 

"Matt, in IM they are in the order you entered them, which is what the search engine sees. They are only alphabetical on the zoom page for the convenience of the customer."


There is an issue, for people like me who work on their images and keyword offline in Lightroom before uploading to Alamy (and other agencies)...

Lightroom renders the keywords alphabetically , and there's no option to change that behaviour

km

I do all my keywording in LR using the large keyword box as opposed to the small space below and my keywords stay exactly in the order I input, WITHOUT USING COMMAS.

 

As I understand it, you are creating one big keyword and can't search within Lightroom. Have I misunderstood something?

 

Paulette

[ReeRay]

No, each word is searchable in its own right or a combination of any.

[Jill Morgan]

 

Just did a quick read of the Alamy blog and came on this secion:

 

"Our tagging system does not exclude constituent words of a tag from being searched for e.g. “Banff National Park” will still show up for “banff”,”national park” and “park” searches. This also means that “Rhinoceros Beetle” will show up in “Rhinoceros” searches, but the search engine tries to make sure that the beetle image does not appear too high up.

 

 

That's too bad.  I was hoping with the new system I would stop getting views for searches with Columbia and British in them if I just made a single tag "British Columbia".  I went and redid a bunch of my tags, but I guess I didn't need to.

 

Maria

That will happen, but it will be lower in the search than before.

 

Jill

[Allan Bell]

 

"Matt, in IM they are in the order you entered them, which is what the search engine sees. They are only alphabetical on the zoom page for the convenience of the customer."

 

 

There is an issue, for people like me who work on their images and keyword offline in Lightroom before uploading to Alamy (and other agencies)...

 

Lightroom renders the keywords alphabetically , and there's no option to change that behaviour

 

km

I do all my keywording in LR using the large keyword box as opposed to the small space below and my keywords stay exactly in the order I input, WITHOUT USING COMMAS.

 

 

 

Assume you are using spaces?

 

Allan

[ReeRay]

^ yes

[RedSnapper]

"I do all my keywording in LR using the large keyword box as opposed to the small space below and my keywords stay exactly in the order I input, WITHOUT USING COMMAS."

 

 

and, when they enter the Alamy system how are the multi-phrases within those KW's identified?

 

 

km

[ReeRay]

I use quotes to contain phrases and place single keywords between them (if this makes sense)

[RedSnapper]

In LR?

wow, that's non-standard ...

 

do you supply other agencies with images containing this style of metadata?

 

km

[ReeRay]

No, I only supply Alamy

[IanGibson]

In LR?

 

wow, that's non-standard ...

 

do you supply other agencies with images containing this style of metadata?

 

km

 

 

 

 

I assume you were replying to ReeRay;

 

LR can be set up to separate keywords with commas or spaces.  If you choose spaces, then you use quotation marks to enter phrases.  I wasn't aware that that method would force LR to not alphabetise them, though. 

[RedSnapper]

"LR can be set up to separate keywords with commas or spaces."

 

 

where in LR is that option?

 

km

[IanGibson]

"LR can be set up to separate keywords with commas or spaces."

 

 

where in LR is that option?

 

km

 

 

It's under preferences > Interface.

 

I've just done a very brief test, and the keywords ended up in alphabetical order, separated by commas.  The setting only applies to how you input the keywords.

[ReeRay]

preferences> file handling.

 

I use an old version of LR merely as a DAM tool and simply installed it with its defaults many years back. All my in-putting stays as input and does not alphabetical adjust.

 

I've just typed this in and that's how it stays

 

"Jaguar F type red convertible drop head open top car British a b c d e f g h i"

 

no adjustments to word order

[RedSnapper]

How does it look on the exported file?

 

km