Search engine weighted against older pics?

[Marc2]

Hi everyone,

 

Not sure if this has been covered before, but I notice my older images seem to be falling further down the list in searches.

 

As an example I've got about a dozen pictures featuring donkeys in my collection. If I search with the keyword 'donkey' the search engine returns 47,153 images of which my first three, shot in 2015, are on page 3 with one on page 4. All okay so far! If I then trawl for the older donkey pictures shot in 2003, they don't show up until after page 120. I gave up trying to find the exact page!

 

Fair enough that they're spread around, but 120 or so pages seems a bit of a gap. Maybe CTR is irrelevant after a picture reaches a certain age?

 

My next search was with the keyword 'donkeys'. This revealed 13,235 images with my first shot, again taken in 2003, not showing up until page 39.

 

Has anyone else noticed this with their collections?

 

Cheers,

Marc.

 

 

[Inchiquin]

Are some supertagged with 'donkey' and others not?

 

Alan

 

[wiskerke]

It used to be simply like you describe: newer images are placed to the front of a search.

Which makes sense: why upload inferior images when you already have a perfect image?

With time sensitive imagery it's even more straight forward: newer = better. Or just include the date or year or era.

However now sales also play a role in placement.

Which also makes sense: clients know better what a good image is than a photographer. (It's a market here, not a museum.)

So if any of your donkeys has sold, that one should get preferred placement. Probably at least for a search phrase that's similar to the one that has sold the image.

This is the theory anyway. Now and again there are people that report funny results where the least viewed/zoomed/sold image has overtaken the most popular one(s).

(All this provided the keywords are more or less the same in more or less the same order, because small things do matter.)

 

wim

[Marc2]

Thanks for the replies,

 

The first super tag in both these cases are 'donkey' or 'donkeys'.

 

With regard to sales, some of the old donkeys have sold but not the new ones. 

 

Maybe I need to re-upload the old donkeys?

 

Maybe I need to do a quick portrait of myself and upload it tagged 'confused old git!'

 

Cheers.

M.

 

[wiskerke]

15 minutes ago, Marc2 said:

The first super tag in both these cases are 'donkey' or 'donkeys'.

With regard to sales, some of the old donkeys have sold but not the new ones.

 

However maybe not for just the keyword donkey?

We also have no idea how far back (or forward) the influence of a sale goes.

We only know that it has some influence.

 

As for confused old git, the first thing with an idea like that, is to look at AoA if there are any searches at all. Then have a look at the competition.

%confused% - 320 searches for the rolling year. However not many men.

The competition for confused man is 21,611 images.

Confused old man, just 1,249.

Confused old git: zero competition. No searches either.

 

wim

[Marc2]

Cheers Wim, I'll get my camera if I can remember where it is!

[wiskerke]

;-)

 

wim

[Stokie]

Perhaps your old donkeys have been put out to pasture?

 

John.

[Jill Morgan]

I did a search for "horse jumping".  There are 32,000 results and the first page is lots of images that start with A. B amd C.  The top row has 3 A's and a B.

 

Jill