Discoverability

[noddy1244]

 

 Hi, im new to the forum.. I am getting poor discoverability on my submitted images. can any one clue me in as the best way to correct this situation ?  Noddy1244

[Inchiquin]

As a new member to any forum it's generally considered a good idea (and by some, good manners) to search first to see if your question has already been answered a thousand times.

 

Alan

 

[spacecadet]

2 minutes ago, Inchiquin said:

As a new member to any forum it's generally considered a good idea (and by some, good manners) to search first to see if your question has already been answered a thousand times.

 

Alan

 

FOUND 374 RESULTS

[Allan Bell]

Oppps!! Don't know what happened. Was not intending to post a comment.

 

SORRY.

 

Allan

 

 

[Craig Yates]

Hi Noddy,

 

Before worrying about poor discoverability i would have a careful look at your key wording for example KMDB7T has

the caption microphone (wrong spelling), however the image is a steam locomotive taken in Pickering North Yorkshire a LMS Stanier Class 5 4-6-0 5407  to be exact.

you also have the words open mike, kareoke (wrong spelling),recording,singing, and studio in your keywords. This will not help picture buyers find your images.

I would go through all your images and make your captioning and key wording more accurate before adding more images.

 

Craig

 

[Jill Morgan]

10 minutes ago, Craig Yates said:

Hi Noddy,

 

Before worrying about poor discoverability i would have a careful look at your key wording for example KMDB7T has

the caption microphone (wrong spelling), however the image is a steam locomotive taken in Pickering North Yorkshire a LMS Stanier Class 5 4-6-0 5407  to be exact.

you also have the words open mike, kareoke (wrong spelling),recording,singing, and studio in your keywords. This will not help picture buyers find your images.

I would go through all your images and make your captioning and key wording more accurate before adding more images.

 

Craig

 

 

 

This has probably been caused by forgetting to deselect one image before starting to keyword another.  You must have had the locomotive selected when you also selected the microphone, so the caption changed and your microphone keywords were also added to the train image.  You have to watch that, it's an easy mistake to make when keywording.

 

Jill

[NYCat]

I like your images a lot but you definitely need to improve your captions and keywords. One thing you have to watch out for in the Image Manager is that you have to deselect an image when you are finished with it. If you don't do that your next image is going to get the same keywords. It can make a mess of things. One thing that might be useful for you is to search on Alamy for your subject and take a look at the keywords for a similar image. You won't want to copy someone else but it is fine to choose some that look appropriate to add to your image. It will give you more of an idea of how to keyword.

 

Paulette

[Futterwithtrees]

Hi noddy,

I suppose that on every forum you will find useless comments such as the one I am making now plus questions,  such as the one you asked, that have been asked a thousand (err...374 times) before. Unfortunately you can also find grumpy old wiseacres who, from the giddy heights of their acquired wisdom, cant disguise their impatience with others and while lecturing such on the virtues of etiquette and good manners they cannot resist the temptation to be rude.

Thankfully however, as you can see from other comments) there are always others who just want to be as helpful as they can. 

BTW Welcome and happy snapping.

Sorry I didn't mean to snap.

[Inchiquin]

6 hours ago, Futterwithtrees said:

Unfortunately you can also find grumpy old wiseacres who, from the giddy heights of their acquired wisdom, cant disguise their impatience with others

 

 

When I join a new forum, as a matter of courtesy I check to see whether my question has been answered recently. Particularly when there is already a topic asking exactly the same question only halfway down the first page.

 

Alan

[Alamy]

Hi everyone and welcome to the forum Noddy1244

 

Asking questions and seeking advice is exactly what this forum is for, even if the questions have been asked before. Please point new members in the right direction by for example including a link to a similar thread, rather than just pointing out that this is a well discussed topic. If you still have unanswered questions about the Discoverability bar, get in touch with our Contributor Relations team (contributors@alamy.com) and they can share some more insight to how it works. 

 

Good luck!

 

Alamy

[noddy1244]

On 1/16/2018 at 16:52, NYCat said:

I like your images a lot but you definitely need to improve your captions and keywords. One thing you have to watch out for in the Image Manager is that you have to deselect an image when you are finished with it. If you don't do that your next image is going to get the same keywords. It can make a mess of things. One thing that might be useful for you is to search on Alamy for your subject and take a look at the keywords for a similar image. You won't want to copy someone else but it is fine to choose some that look appropriate to add to your image. It will give you more of an idea of how to keyword.

 

Paulette

Thank you Paulette much appreciated info

[noddy1244]

On 1/16/2018 at 16:34, Craig Yates said:

Hi Noddy,

 

Before worrying about poor discoverability i would have a careful look at your key wording for example KMDB7T has

the caption microphone (wrong spelling), however the image is a steam locomotive taken in Pickering North Yorkshire a LMS Stanier Class 5 4-6-0 5407  to be exact.

you also have the words open mike, kareoke (wrong spelling),recording,singing, and studio in your keywords. This will not help picture buyers find your images.

I would go through all your images and make your captioning and key wording more accurate before adding more images.

 

Craig.   Cheers Craig good positive info, much wiser now.

 

On 1/16/2018 at 16:34, Craig Yates said:

 

On 1/16/2018 at 23:24, Inchiquin said:

 

When I join a new forum, as a matter of courtesy I check to see whether my question has been answered recently. Particularly when there is already a topic asking exactly the same question only halfway down the first page.

 

Alan    Thanks for nothing..!!

 

 

On 1/16/2018 at 23:24, Inchiquin said:

 

When I join a new forum, as a matter of courtesy I check to see whether my question has been answered recently. Particularly when there is already a topic asking exactly the same question only halfway down the first page.

 

Alan

 

[noddy1244]

On 1/16/2018 at 16:46, Jill Morgan said:

 

 

This has probably been caused by forgetting to deselect one image before starting to keyword another.  You must have had the locomotive selected when you also selected the microphone, so the caption changed and your microphone keywords were also added to the train image.  You have to watch that, it's an easy mistake to make when keywording.

 

Jill. 

        Got that now Jill.. many thanks for you help..

 

[noddy1244]

Thank you Gill

 

[Autumn Sky]

Noddy:  Your images have poor discoverability, but not because of what Alamy engine automatically tells you based on # of keywords.   Instead, captions/tags are very poor.  There are 3 layers indexing engine (discoverability) puts weight on:

 

1)  Title (caption):  Most important

2)  Meta tags (up to 10)

3)  Rest of tags

 

This is an example of terrific image from your port that is extremely poorly described:

 

Your caption (most important part) reads:   "Somewhere else in Liverpool".   This is probably the most vague and overly inadequate caption I've seen

Your tags are:  "art" "evening sky" "lake" "liverpool uk" "photoshop manipulation"  "royal albert dock" "swans" "water"    And that's it.  

 

You need to really expand on caption, and fully describe the image;  you have 150 characters, use at least 100.  Importance of keywording can not be overstated. You are competing against 100s if not 1000s of images and your metadata is what is going to make your image swim out on top.

 

On the other hand, Alamy criteria about poor discoverability can be a trap.  This has been discussed before;   in an effort to get to these 40 keywords temptation is to use words/phrases that don't relate to content.  This is so called "false positive" that lowers your Alamy rank.  Here's an example

 

 

This is an image I took in Sydney, Australia -- wall poster announcing Deep Purple concert.   One of my keywords was "Ritchie Blackmore".  He is Purple legend isn't he, so this surely must be good keyword?  Afraid not.  If someone searches for Ritchie Blackmore, he/she probably needs photo of a man himself playing guitar, not poster of a band - where he was not anymore a member too!   But this image regularly appears in Alamy measures tool for "Ritchie Blackmore" search term & never gets zooms, never mind sale.   So I've only hurt myself

 

Hope this gives you some guidance.  Focus on proper captions / keywords, and don't worry at least for now what Alamy says about discoverability based on # of keywords.

 

 

 

[Robert M Estall]

lots of terrific images in your portfolio, you clearly know your way around a camera and a computer. Don't fret too much about the green/orange discoverability bars, I'm not at all sure they really have much effect on zooms and sales.  But time and effort spent on keywording (tagging) will reward you. Stock platforms like Alamy better reward thoughtful content than artistic photography. More's the pity!

Edited March 23, 2021 by Robert M Estall