Blank and white vs. colour in search results

[John Mitchell]

I sometimes upload both colour and black and white versions of the same image, and inevitably the black and white one shows up ahead (sometimes way ahead) of the colour one in search results. Anyone else notice this? It almost seems that the search engine is giving priority to black and white because it is less common than colour. I use the same keywords in both images, adding only "black and white" and "monochrome" to the black and white one. Strange...

[Colblimp]

That is strange. When I first started with Alamy I was told to always upload in Colour - if the buyer wants B&W they'd change it themselves. Additionally, my few B&W pictures on here are low in the search results.

[John Mitchell]

I get the impression that when there are a lot of search results, the search engine is now looking for images that have something different (e.g. "black and white") in the keywords that might distinguish them from the others -- i.e. the engine is trying to add variety to the results, especially with general and common searches. This might partially explain why we sometimes see some unexpected and even strange images showing up high in search pages. It also seems that these types of images get shuffled around quite a bit.

 

Regarding B&W, I only upload a B&W version if I think an image looks especially good or might sell in B&W. No sales of B&W here, but I have had zooms. Hope springs eternal...

[Bryan]

I see B&W images often used by interior decorators in pubs, restaurants etc, so there is a market for this medium. 

 

I would have thought that a buyer might be tempted by a good monochrome image as it shows what can be done with light and shade, and this might not be obvious from the colour image.

 

I've sold a few B&W shots but they started life in that way and were of buildings etc that are no longer to be seen. I have one or maybe two B&W versions of colour shots available, but they have never been zoomed.

 

I've also thought of trying to see things in B&W - something I was once reasonably good at - and taking some local city shots with that in mind, but I've not done so. It's worth a punt I guess. Research in pubs, coffee shops etc to see what kind of things are used would not be too onerous.

 

The obvious thing to do is to see if there have been any relevant searches in the past year.