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I've been away for a week and come back to all this !

Threads everywhere, hundreds of comments on the new system and an overriding sense of confusion.

Is there I wonder a synopsis of 'what we know for sure' anywhere ? 'Cos I can't face reading all the threads.

I'm going to process and submit but am not going anywhere near MI for the foreseeable future or at least until I start seeing

smiley, happy people making satisfied,cooing comments.

A synopsis is definitely needed. The bottom line is that there are some bugs but the new interface itself is (in my opinion and that of a number of other contibutors) poorly designed, difficult to use even when you get used to it and will not be made right by bug fixes, so I think happy faces are going to be few and far between. Somebody mentioned being happy that they could do keywording on an iPad in front of the telly so, if that is what you like, then your luck is in.

If you have been transferred to the new system, then you may as well get on with keywording new submissions as it's unlikely to change fundamentally but it is probably unwise to start redoing older images. You should probably not get caught up in the discoverability panic as it may mean very little as far as I understand - discoverability is directly proporptional to the number of tags it seems and may have not have much signficance in searches (the jury is out on that one I think).

I disagree on redoing older images. Deleting bad images, fixing captions, assigning marginal images to a junk pseudo can't hurt and if you ask Geoff S, helps. He did what I'm doing and began making more sales.

I can't see a thing wrong with that.

To each, his own. And I'm not adding tags to increase discoverability, but it seems when I fix a bad caption, it happens.

Betty, how do you measure that he began making more sales, this thing hasn't been in the wild long enough.

Geoff, you need to weigh in, here. I distinctly remember threads in the past months where Geoff discussed some of the things I mentioned, and how making those changes helped sales. He deleted images and made more sales with a smaller port.

I don't think I'm dreaming.

I'm talking in the past, not since the new MI.

 

 

Ohh, that's a different story.  I'm talking about making changes now, since the new search algorithm.  Making my separated tags into one multiword tag pushes my images lower on the page search results, so I'm afraid to touch my older images. 

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I've been away for a week and come back to all this !

Threads everywhere, hundreds of comments on the new system and an overriding sense of confusion.

Is there I wonder a synopsis of 'what we know for sure' anywhere ? 'Cos I can't face reading all the threads.

I'm going to process and submit but am not going anywhere near MI for the foreseeable future or at least until I start seeing

smiley, happy people making satisfied,cooing comments.

 

A synopsis is definitely needed. The bottom line is that there are some bugs but the new interface itself is (in my opinion and that of a number of other contibutors) poorly designed, difficult to use even when you get used to it and will not be made right by bug fixes, so I think happy faces are going to be few and far between. Somebody mentioned being happy that they could do keywording on an iPad in front of the telly so, if that is what you like, then your luck is in.

If you have been transferred to the new system, then you may as well get on with keywording new submissions as it's unlikely to change fundamentally but it is probably unwise to start redoing older images. You should probably not get caught up in the discoverability panic as it may mean very little as far as I understand - discoverability is directly proporptional to the number of tags it seems and may have not have much signficance in searches (the jury is out on that one I think).

I disagree on redoing older images. Deleting bad images, fixing captions, assigning marginal images to a junk pseudo can't hurt and if you ask Geoff S, helps. He did what I'm doing and began making more sales.

I can't see a thing wrong with that.

To each, his own. And I'm not adding tags to increase discoverability, but it seems when I fix a bad caption, it happens.

Betty, how do you measure that he began making more sales, this thing hasn't been in the wild long enough.
Geoff, you need to weigh in, here. I distinctly remember threads in the past months where Geoff discussed some of the things I mentioned, and how making those changes helped sales. He deleted images and made more sales with a smaller port.

I don't think I'm dreaming.

I'm talking in the past, not since the new MI.

Sure you have the right Geoff? Not this one by any chance: http://discussion.alamy.com/index.php?/user/549-gs-images/

Yes this Geoff. The eye has it. :D edit typo
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Geoff, you need to weigh in, here. I distinctly remember threads in the past months where Geoff discussed some of the things I mentioned, and how making those changes helped sales. He deleted images and made more sales with a smaller port.

I don't think I'm dreaming.

 

 

Yes this is true, at least with the old search engine. I have less images for sale now as I had a year ago, yet in 2016 had 4 times as many sales compared to 2015. It used to be all about only having a few of each subject, with different keywords for each in what used to be the Essentials box, to cover various possible searches. Then you'd also get a higher CTR which led to a higher rank, so more visibility and greater sales. However, with the new search engine, I'm no longer too sure how that's all working. I do still have some images very high in results, but more often that not my placement is a lot worse than it used to be. At the moment my number of views is sometimes similar to before, but which images are showing first is still a worry.

 

Re-tagging has so far only caused problems rather than helped, so I haven't done many yet. I've not honestly had much chance lately anyway.

 

Geoff.

Thank you for chiming in. I'm not crazy, after all.

What you said made an impression on me. Because image selection and good keywording can be as important as numbers.

Of course, if you have a large port of great images, keyworded (tagged) well, not many similars padding those numbers, you are in the best place of all.

Of course the new search engine algorithms makes everything a toss up.

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Out of 5015 images, I have 678 done of my legacy images.  

 

The worst for me. 

 

Broken tags.

 

a tag with a single letter, usually s.

 

Some tags had periods after them.

 

Some tags showed the commas.

 

Some I know darn well I had a comma after every tag, showed three unrelated tags together.

 

Some of my comma surrounded phrases were broken into single tags.

 

Had I not had to deal with that mess, I could have done 1000.

 

Betty

 

 

About 50 so far. Same problems. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

 

Out of 5015 images, I have 678 done of my legacy images.  

 

The worst for me. 

 

Broken tags.

 

a tag with a single letter, usually s.

 

Some tags had periods after them.

 

Some tags showed the commas.

 

Some I know darn well I had a comma after every tag, showed three unrelated tags together.

 

Some of my comma surrounded phrases were broken into single tags.

 

Had I not had to deal with that mess, I could have done 1000.

 

Betty

I've managed to turn several hundred green, but I wish I didn't have to. I really liked the old system of 'not on sale - needs more work' because then you knew what had been annotated after upload and what hadn't.

I now have hundreds of images with 'poor discoverability'  that I am perfectly happy with and would like to mark as 'done' so they disappear from the to do list, but they are all lumped together with all the new ones that still need work.

 

We really need a box to tick along the lines of "done as far as I'm concerned even if I couldn't think of 41 relevant tags".

 

Aha! I've worked out how to do it. Create a new pseudo for recently uploaded images, then move them to the relevant one when they are 'finished' (not necessarily 'optimised') Using the pseudo filter will bring up all the unfinished ones.

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Just a handful to try it out. For one who hates keywording anyway and if I live that long, I might get it done by 2020.

 

Think of it as knitting. When you're finished you'll have a nice new scarf, sweater, mitts, and toque.

 

You knit chef's hats in Canada?

photo-of-a-chefs-hat-traditionally-calle

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I still think it's better to leave well alone until Alamy have had chance to fine tune the system.  

 

I agree

 

But in a moment of boredom I have had a fiddle with one or two images to try and get some sense of what is possible. Doing broadly what seemed logical (ignoring most of the noise) and generally tidying up the tags and combining those that need proximity into phrases seems to have moved images from page 15+ (of 63 for a real life search) to half way down page 2.

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Martin, my oldest legacy image positions have been improved for the most part.

 

That said, in the first months of entering the stock world, I joined a micro agency. I soon figured things out and quit. But their keyword choices were way different than the way we do it here. That influence carried over. I was such a newbie who really didn't understand the concept of stock or what buyers might want. I've deleted a good number of those.

I've had to do a lot of work getting the rest on board with Alamy standards. And my captions from early days/months/years make me want to barf. Considering the weight of captions now, I need to keep at it.

Nothing I do to those images can hurt them. Only help.

 

Betty

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I know what you mean Betty. I have been through a similar phase of tightening up in the past.

 

I am reluctant to do much at the moment as there seem to be so many issues and uncertainties with AIM and the search engine. In idle moments I may fiddle with the images that I have considered deleting in the past but did not because I am only too conscious that no one really know what will sell next! I might also play with those that I feel should be ranking higher in searches but are languishing at the bottom of the pile, it can't do them any harm as you say!

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I had a couple hundred images sitting waiting for the new improved IM to arrive... boy, I wish I had KW'd them when I had the old system.

Just about finished doing them now and it has taken way, way longer than it needed to.

I also use Flickr and the tagging system on there is an absolute breeze with drag and drop for individual images or batches and I thought that the new AIM would be similar, but, woe is me, it's a right royal pain!

New images will be keyworded in LR first, which I never used to do because of one of the problems with the old IM.

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Since this thread is about checking/editing legacy images using the new MI, I thought I'd ask the following.

 

Are those contributors who are checking/editing their tags also checking/re-entering the location info and checking that the pin appears in the map at the right place?

 

How long before Alamy allows "Geo-searching". When Google sticks a pin in the map, based on the location we enter, are Alamy capturing the geo-coordinates ready for future searches?

 

If Alamy are capturing the geo-location are then there are going to be some strange clusters of images taken at the geometric centre of the UK, or England (etc.) where the contributor enters just UK or England, etc. as a location.  :wacko:

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Since this thread is about checking/editing legacy images using the new MI, I thought I'd ask the following.

 

Are those contributors who are checking/editing their tags also checking/re-entering the location info and checking that the pin appears in the map at the right place?

 

How long before Alamy allows "Geo-searching". When Google sticks a pin in the map, based on the location we enter, are Alamy capturing the geo-coordinates ready for future searches?

 

If Alamy are capturing the geo-location are then there are going to be some strange clusters of images taken at the geometric centre of the UK, or England (etc.) where the contributor enters just UK or England, etc. as a location.  :wacko:

.

Mark, I made an attempt to do that. My map shows the U.K. in spite of my having USA or United States in the KWs.

 

Living in the middle of the U.S., trying to get there is time consuming. I have to shrink the map or I can't find the US. Once there, I have to enlarge. Then actually getting the pin in the right place is next to impossible.

 

Of all the changes, eliminations and additions to MI, the map feature, as said around these parts, is as worthless as a t** on a boar hog. I can prep a new image in a minute. I'm not spending 10 minutes trying to affix a dumb pin. It might work great for the Brits, but not so much for us in the rest of the world.

Looks like I'll be residing in the U.K. from here on in.

Betty

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Have decided its time to go through captions. Seems to be an appropriate challenge.

Will leave tags and super tags well clear for now.

As I'm away on holiday for one month have not had chance to experience the new update process.

But have to day absolutely loved the old system. Thought I had the system sussed !

May the upload fun begin after 1st March ????

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Just did a count. Out of 5133 images, I have done 1300 front end, 830 back end. Total 2130.

3003 to go.

Tedious, but I'm kind of enjoying revisiting images I forgot I had. At least I'm getting the bad captions repaired, however the rest works. Or doesn't.

Betty

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