High discoverability

[wiskerke]

Dont forget that adding the s in English can have other implication other than making it plural, e.g. making the subject a possession. My guess is that many, like me, took their "o" level English a long time ago, and would tend to forget the apostrophe.

 

The only example I can think of off the top of my head is "a dog's life." One dog, but dogs. 

 

That includes the developers of this tool because that apostrophe flew out of the window.

 

wim

[spacecadet]

 

Dont forget that adding the s in English can have other implication other than making it plural, e.g. making the subject a possession. My guess is that many, like me, took their "o" level English a long time ago, and would tend to forget the apostrophe.

 

The only example I can think of off the top of my head is "a dog's life." One dog, but dogs. 

 

That includes the developers of this tool because that apostrophe flew out of the window.

 

wim

 

Fortunately it appears that the apostrophe is now ignored in searches. So you get the same results for "dogs" and "dog's". I hope so anyway.

Edit : it's apparently  the same for dog's dinner as dogs dinner- 1,490.

Now you just have to remember to omit it from the tag or it cuts off the "s".

Edited February 1, 2017 by spacecadet

[vpics]

I've worked through my oldest images from 2003 and found that I thought buyers were mind-readers. So I put pics up taken in Spain without putting Spain into the keywords. Ah well. 

 

And yes, I also keyword both dog and dogs every time. 

[wiskerke]

 

 

Dont forget that adding the s in English can have other implication other than making it plural, e.g. making the subject a possession. My guess is that many, like me, took their "o" level English a long time ago, and would tend to forget the apostrophe.

 

The only example I can think of off the top of my head is "a dog's life." One dog, but dogs. 

 

That includes the developers of this tool because that apostrophe flew out of the window.

 

wim

 

Fortunately it appears that the apostrophe is now ignored in searches. So you get the same results for "dogs" and "dog's". I hope so anyway.

Edit : it's apparently  the same for dog's dinner as dogs dinner- 1,490.

Now you just have to remember to omit it from the tag or it cuts off the "s".

 

 

Until someone finds out that Google actually does care.

And the competition as well.

 

wim

[spacecadet]

Oh dear.

[wiskerke]

Oh dear.

 

Don't despair: those are tiny companies, who have been on the wrong track before.

 

wim

[Jill Morgan]

 

 

In an attempt to see how I can best use keywords to help my images surface near the top, I've been carrying out random searches and looking at the keywords of images that appear first. The result is quite surprising. For example, a search for "tate modern" returns a picture in first place where the word "modern" appears only once, not as a keyword but in the caption. There are only eight tags in total - and they are all single words. So much for poor discoverability. I'm in no hurry to flesh out my keywords - in fact it's more likely that I will start a wholesale purge.

 

 

you can't see all the keywords

I see all mine in the same search - all 39 of them.

Can someone give Peter a greenie, hit the red by mistake on my tablet.

 

Jill

[David Eco]

I was also struggling to get my images into the green high discoverability group but then I went back and compared my images in the green with those that were not. I filled out all the information-required and optional and had 10 supertags.... I think the little burp that propels you into the green occurs when you hit 40 keywords(not 50)... as for "optimized"......  I haven't accidentally stumbled into that one yet!!...... PS- "discoverability" and "supertags" don't pass the spell check in the forum......hmmmmmm...... so not only can't we enter into the realm of high discoverability, we can't even spell it right!

Edited March 28, 2018 by David Eco

[Cryptoprocta]

On 28/03/2018 at 03:27, David Eco said:

I was also struggling to get my images into the green high discoverability group

Whenever I read this, it sets off red warning lights ... so I looked at your images and clicked on M91T9Y. It's a photo of a Canada Goose in a pond. But you have tagged it as Mallard, duck, ducks ... there is NO use in being discoverable on a search for Mallard if you don't have a mallard in your image. Other unnecessary keywords are: female (unless you are an expert in sexing Canada Geese, which I doubt), white (there's a bit of white on the goose, but really not enough to bother about) and blue (I don't see any). You need Canada Goose, Canadian Goose (wrong, but the term might be used by a less savvy buyer), Branta canadensis, copy space, copyspace.

This may well apply to your other Canada Geese pics, but I didn't check them out.

 

I then clicked on M8YJKW which is a Tricolored Heron, but you have labelled it as a Blue Crane, which is an endangered species of Southern Africa.

So you need Tricolored Heron, Egretta tricolor, maybe it's preveious vernacular name, Lousiana Heron, Heron, I'd also put reeds, habitat, environment, wading bird, North Carolina, USA, North America, American bird

and you don't need

Crane, egret, fly (if there is one, it's far too small to be significant), wing, feather (yes, it's a bird so has wings and feathers, that's a given; if someone searches 'wing' or 'feather' they probably want a photo of a wing/feather, not on the bird, or showing very clearly, white (insignificant),

 

BTW, I'm not enough of an expert in snakes to know which of the species of Black Snake your photo is of, but none of them is an 'adder' - nor, apparently, an 'asp'. And 'transportation' is not relevant to the image.

[David Eco]

Thanks..... Most of the time I'm shooting landscapes... when these little critters show up it's easy for me to misidentify them.... no wonder those Mallards never showed up again... they were Canadian Geese taking a break from a journey! will update my keywords...

Edited March 29, 2018 by David Eco

[Ed Rooney]

FYI, David:

 

"The vast majority of English speaking people call the goose that is large and has a black head—Branta canadensis—a Canadian Goose. However, its original name was a CANADA Goose. Remember, the official name for any bird is its Latin name. So the “real” name for this creature is Branta canadensis."

[David Eco]

Thanks Ed.... I normally see the mallard ducks here and my sister has some on her farm, but  I didn't look close enough at the ducks... it was really the green algae and the trails that caught my interest.... my thought was that the interest would be in the image... not the "duck"!!.. and now I'm going to add " Branta canadensis " to my "duck" images and watch them go viral!!

Edited March 29, 2018 by David Eco

[the wordsmith uk]

hello. as a keyworder who has worked with Alamy since 2010 and spent many years interrogating keywords for accurate visual relevance

- requirements for full discoverability were identified quite early on in this conversation..

keywords 45+  supertags 10.

'optional fields': people / release info / location / date / primary (and secondary) category

captions also contribute in a small way to search.

 

Regarding the addition of 'loosely related keywords', it may be helpful to consider both hierarchy and synonyms

a chair for example is also furniture and a seat, seating (it will also have been made during a time period and be of a certain material)

a Canada Goose is also a migratory, bird and a wild animal (these birds are known for their co-operation and concern for each other - if the image demonstrates this - keywords reflecting these qualities could be added).

 

In English, there are many ways of saying the same thing, if you can think of relevant alternatives you will be adding synonyms.

Where an object sits within a wider grouping, (chairs also being seating and furniture) these 'umbrella terms' are hierarchy.

It can be helpful to consider why a person would be looking for your image and ensure those terms are applied with variants.

Most websites, stem by one letter for plurals. So an image keyworded 'cat' would usually be returned on a search for 'cats'

Alamy have not enabled this functionality, and as a rule it is advisable to add plural terms to primary searchable objects within your images.

 

[Harry Harrison]

58 minutes ago, the wordsmith uk said:

as a keyworder who has worked with Alamy since 2010

 

Very good information, nice to see it all in one place. You've actually contributed to quite an old thread though (this subject is discussed a lot). This is the latest thread:

 

https://discussion.alamy.com/topic/11883-discoverability-poor-vs-good-vs-optimized/?tab=comments#comment-217303

 

A lot of contributors do their own investigations into what governs the likelihood of your images being discovered on Alamy and actually currently their advice seems to be that the caption plays quite a large part, it seems that Alamy can change their algorithm from time to time and now the caption has more prominence than it did. It's difficult to be sure of course.

 

[gvallee]

1 hour ago, the wordsmith uk said:

Most websites, stem by one letter for plurals. So an image keyworded 'cat' would usually be returned on a search for 'cats'

Alamy have not enabled this functionality, and as a rule it is advisable to add plural terms to primary searchable objects within your images.

 

 

Oh yes it had. Then it disabled it, causing us nightmares. I'm surprised by your statement.

[the wordsmith uk]

38 minutes ago, gvallee said:

 

Oh yes it had. Then it disabled it, causing us nightmares. I'm surprised by your statement.

hello. it may have done in the past, it does not now.

Alamy are (currently) running a 'free text system' so stemming is likely to be one of the few controls they have been able to enforce.

There are some benefits to this restriction...

for example: if you added 'care' as a keyword - with stemming of one letter allowed .. 

and someone searched for  'car' ... your 'care' image would be returned.

Also  'card', 'cart', 'carp', and yes 'cars' would be returned but results could be diluted to the point of irrelevance.

Technology changes a lot.. and so do advancements in functionality..

 

To some degree I have noted a 'weighting' on new and refreshed content, so reviewing your files

and adding plurals where they would enable improved search might also rank them (momentarily) higher in returns.

 

[M.Chapman]

8 hours ago, the wordsmith uk said:

hello. it may have done in the past, it does not now.

Alamy are (currently) running a 'free text system' so stemming is likely to be one of the few controls they have been able to enforce.

There are some benefits to this restriction...

for example: if you added 'care' as a keyword - with stemming of one letter allowed .. 

and someone searched for  'car' ... your 'care' image would be returned.

Also  'card', 'cart', 'carp', and yes 'cars' would be returned but results could be diluted to the point of irrelevance.

Technology changes a lot.. and so do advancements in functionality..

 

To some degree I have noted a 'weighting' on new and refreshed content, so reviewing your files

and adding plurals where they would enable improved search might also rank them (momentarily) higher in returns.

 

 

Surely stemming is more sophisticated than allowing any single letter to be added to the end of a word?

 

Mark

[the wordsmith uk]

1 hour ago, M.Chapman said:

 

Surely stemming is more sophisticated than allowing any single letter to be added to the end of a word?

 

Mark

 

You know what. You're right.. Most sites can now instruct to stem with a letter 's'

I will have to think harder to work out why they disabled plural search.

Not that it makes so much difference. They have and we have to accommodate it.

Interesting nonetheless why they would create 'database noise' - (people adding plurals

to reflect speech and thought patterns) when they could have reduced this..

 

 

 

Edited August 15, 2019 by the wordsmith uk
to clarify my error.

[gvallee]

10 hours ago, the wordsmith uk said:

it may have done in the past, it does not now.

 

 

 

We all know that. I'm not sure why such an old thread is being re-opened, especially when it caused so much upset to have to re-key thousand of images when Alamy decided to turn stemming off. The reason, which Alamy already explained at the time, makes sense. I just wish Alamy had thought about it before holding millions of files on their database.

[M.Chapman]

9 hours ago, the wordsmith uk said:

 

You know what. You're right.. Most sites can now instruct to stem with a letter 's'

I will have to think harder to work out why they disabled plural search.

Not that it makes so much difference. They have and we have to accommodate it.

Interesting nonetheless why they would create 'database noise' - (people adding plurals

to reflect speech and thought patterns) when they could have reduced this..

 

I know that I find it much easier and quicker to keyword on one of the other agencies I use. Not only does it use stemming, it suggests sensible keywords for me, and it doesn't need supertags or most of the other tick boxes etc that Alamy use. So it's much quicker and less tedious to keyword images there, and the revenue generated per image is currently beating Alamy too. Mmmm....

 

Mark

[ChiTownGallery]

Just typed this question in and thanks for a straight up answer Alamy. Cant believe so much negativity about the tags and how to make your discoverability best. Most other places wont tell you one thing to help get you discovered, and this site tells you all, lol. Either do it or don't. Complaining about it is silly.

[M.Chapman]

3 hours ago, ChiTownGallery said:

Complaining about it is silly.

 

Welcome to the forum.

 

If Alamy are still using CTR% to determine a contributor's rank, then the discoverability indicator is misleading. It may seem like a nice feature and will certainly help new contributor's images be seen initially but, in the longer term, many successful contributors here believe it's counter-productive to try to get into the "green" as it will lower their CTR% and then potentially lower their Alamy rank, and all their images will sink in the search results.

 

Mark

Edited December 12, 2019 by M.Chapman

[ChiTownGallery]

Thank you for the info. Can I ask how doing this lowers the CTR eventually. 

 

 

[meanderingemu]

17 minutes ago, ChiTownGallery said:

Thank you for the info. Can I ask how doing this lowers the CTR eventually. 

 

 

 

 

many images don't have 40-50 viable likely search words, so trying to get to that number the additional KW increases the chance of a irrelevant hits, so more views with no zoom.  

 

Here is an example.  The lady is a candidate for the upcoming Croatian Presidential elections

I have about 20 KW that might be reasonable for someone looking for this subject.  To get to High discoverability I would need to add things in background like the tram.  But no one who uses "Tram" in KW is good to zoom this image.  

 

 

[ChiTownGallery]

Thank you for those responses, very much appreciated. Im just an old school photog that hasn't had any luck outside of my own website SEO. To me finally getting looks to begin with is a big plus.  Most of the other sites I have used over the years don't get a look from anyone, unless you're excepted into a special clique, or there long enough to figure out what system is in place to get found.