ALAMY stats usage..How do you use them

[sparks]

Good morning.

Most days I check my own stats in ALAMY measures...but when editing pictures, keywords,   I will spend awhile going through ALAMY measures "all of alamy" to see if my keywording can improve . Also what fresh subjects I could give thought to...I usually start page one and work through as many as possible  before  my brain is numbed.. I am wondering what pattern others use to benefit from these stats.

 

I am heading out to do some work the now but look forward to reading replies , if any, when I get back.

 

See later.. 

 

 Best regards

 

 

Sparks!!

[wiskerke]

That depends on your/my settings of AoA. And what you're looking for.

 

Most common is probably to set it for UCO - most first. To see what all those clients are looking for.

Don't bother, it's Alamy; Stockimo; dog; London; v; cat; Donald Trump; Christmas; family; Paris; travel; car; Elvis Presley; Martin Luther King; Princess Diana; Marilyn Monroe; shopping; woman; Facebook; Brexit; food; Meghan Markle; Harry Potter; Theresa May; Game of Thrones.

Sometimes the order is a bit different and Rome and beach pop up. Or someone dies and David Bowie tops the page for a while.

 

If you set it for Search Term - A to Z, you can really see what clients are looking for and what keywords they're using. Don't skip the pages with numbers first.

 

If you set it for Views - least first, you'll have endless pages with subjects that someone could not find a picture for.

Actually some subjects will have images, but not with those keywords. Which may very well have been misspelled/misspelt.

 

Sometimes I alternate one month and longer periods to see if there are changes.

It would be useful to keep a search for something seasonal to shoot it for the next occurrence . Maybe not for Christmas.

 

happy hunting!

wim

[Colin Woods]

I use my own Alamy Measures thus. If I have had lots of zooms and my CTR is high I open a beer to celebrate. If I have had no zooms and my CTR is low I open a beer to commiserate. 

[spacecadet]

I photograph the bottle first.

[Reimar]

6 hours ago, wiskerke said:

That depends on your/my settings of AoA. And what you're looking for.

 

Most common is probably to set it for UCO - most first. To see what all those clients are looking for.

Don't bother, it's Alamy; Stockimo; dog; London; v; cat; Donald Trump; Christmas; family; Paris; travel; car; Elvis Presley; Martin Luther King; Princess Diana; Marilyn Monroe; shopping; woman; Facebook; Brexit; food; Meghan Markle; Harry Potter; Theresa May; Game of Thrones.

Sometimes the order is a bit different and Rome and beach pop up. Or someone dies and David Bowie tops the page for a while.

 

If you set it for Search Term - A to Z, you can really see what clients are looking for and what keywords they're using. Don't skip the pages with numbers first.

 

If you set it for Views - least first, you'll have endless pages with subjects that someone could not find a picture for.

Actually some subjects will have images, but not with those keywords. Which may very well have been misspelled/misspelt.

 

Sometimes I alternate one month and longer periods to see if there are changes.

It would be useful to keep a search for something seasonal to shoot it for the next occurrence . Maybe not for Christmas.

 

happy hunting!

wim

I've never understood how to use AoA.  There seems to be a code here I don't get.

By UCO, I take it you mean results sorted by UCO, sales, zooms or views.  For example, who is jane krakowski and why should I care?

But the "wizard" seems to use Search Term.  How?  Searching for A-Z doesn't work.  "Don't skip the pages with numbers first"? I'm not getting any pages.

Could you give a few more clues for luddites like me?

Thanks

[ReeRay]

I use AOA daily to firstly research what's sought and secondly where I may have such an image minus the keywords (which I add). It's amazing how often, in my case, I miss appropriate keywords. I may also amend phrases and captions to improve the image position based on the customer search language. 

 

 

[wiskerke]

43 minutes ago, Reimar said:

I've never understood how to use AoA.  There seems to be a code here I don't get.

By UCO, I take it you mean results sorted by UCO, sales, zooms or views.  For example, who is jane krakowski and why should I care?

But the "wizard" seems to use Search Term.  How?  Searching for A-Z doesn't work.  "Don't skip the pages with numbers first"? I'm not getting any pages.

Could you give a few more clues for luddites like me?

Thanks

 

I'm not aware of a wizard.

The columns work like any other column: click on the title bar to sort A-Z or Z-A.

Then there's the date: if you open AoA it will give you the rolling month. You can alter this to the rolling year at the max.

 

The search box works like any other search box, with a little caveat: if you search for London, it will only give you results where London is the first word.

For a more natural result use %London or even %London%.

 

The yellow box to the right explains all terms well enough.

 

I do not know who Jane Krakowski is either and have never heard of her nor seen her name in AoA.

 

wim

[Cecile Marion]

This is very interesting to me. I check my images searched daily, but not AoA. When I do have the time to search AoA I find the volume of information there can be absolutely overwhelming. I suppose I need a system for sorting out what is important for me, but so far, I haven’t been able to work one out that will be helpful. I suppose I need to review searches more frequently.

[NYCat]

She's an American actress. Quite good. She's beautiful, sexy and a terrific comedienne. Tony award and all that good stuff. Emmys too I believe but I'm more impressed by her stage triumphs.

 

Paulette

[ReeRay]

There are words that come up in searches that are alien to me until I view them. Realising I have images that fit I add such words. 

[NYCat]

When deciding which images to upload I sometimes do a search on AOA. My search for %tiger showed a request for sleeping tiger so I've uploaded a couple I like that I might not have uploaded right away as they are not my favorite tiger images. Sometimes when looking at my own measures I wonder why a particular image of mine has not appeared so I check the keywords. One thing about that is my older images have many too many keywords and if I want to add something I face a huge amount of time deleting. I thought one of the reasons we were given a new image manager is so we could easily add keywords. So annoying.

 

Paulette

[Matt Ashmore]

I have to admit, I find AoA quite bewildering too. If I have a subject in mind or want to try and improve my keywords, I will search for %<my subject>% to get a feel of how popular the subject is or find other keywords assciated with it. But beyond that, I do tend to be a bit lost too. I did try looking for searches where less than 100 views were returned... but this is a pretty fruitless task.

[Reimar]

34 minutes ago, wiskerke said:

 

I'm not aware of a wizard.

The columns work like any other column: click on the title bar to sort A-Z or Z-A.

Then there's the date: if you open AoA it will give you the rolling month. You can alter this to the rolling year at the max.

 

The search box works like any other search box, with a little caveat: if you search for London, it will only give you results where London is the first word.

For a more natural result use %London or even %London%.

 

The yellow box to the right explains all terms well enough.

 

I do not know who Jane Krakowski is either and have never heard of her nor seen her name in AoA.

 

wim

OK, I do admit I know who Jane Krakowski is (a fine actress). It's just that seeing there were 18 sales and 439 zooms for her image since January in AoA, doesn't really help me.

So it seems what you do is put a location or item of interest in the search box and see what turns up.  I am dismayed to think that this will be a lifetime full-time job to research thoroughly, since I can think of endless interesting items.  In spite of spending 31 years in a career as a scientist, this may just not be for me.

 

[John Mitchell]

52 minutes ago, Cecile Marion said:

This is very interesting to me. I check my images searched daily, but not AoA. When I do have the time to search AoA I find the volume of information there can be absolutely overwhelming. I suppose I need a system for sorting out what is important for me, but so far, I haven’t been able to work one out that will be helpful. I suppose I need to review searches more frequently.

 

Same here. I get overwhelmed by AoA and tend to use it mainly for specific %...% searches. I do check my own stats every day, though, to see which of my images are being zoomed and what keywords searchers are using. No doubt I could be making a lot better use of all this data...

[Bryan]

29 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

 

Same here. I get overwhelmed by AoA and tend to use it mainly for specific %...% searches. I do check my own stats every day, though, to see which of my images are being zoomed and what keywords searchers are using. No doubt I could be making a lot better use of all this data...

 

What's this mysterious  %...% searches John, I know of a % search, but am I missing something here?

 

To get back to the original question I scour my own views every working day and generally identify one or more keywords or phrases that could be used more generally - it helps when you have a more substantial port as there are many possibilities. In addition, for new subjects, I use the % search in AOA, to see how people are finding what they want. 

 

I used to use AOA before going to a new %location to see what was hot at that place, but, after awhile, you get to know what will be required.  Wouldn't discount this though, still worth an occasional look.

[John Mitchell]

8 minutes ago, Bryan said:

 

What's this mysterious  %...% searches John, I know of a % search, but am I missing something here?

 

 

I often put % signs before and after search terms -- e.g. %vancouver% or "british% %bulldog% -- for reasons I'm not sure of.

[spacecadet]

%x% is wildcard. It's a hangover from the early days, that is, before about 2000.

Wim can probably explain better.

[John Mitchell]

2 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

%x% is wildcard. It's a hangover from the early days, that is, before about 2000.

Wim can probably explain better.

 

Yes, I knew it was a wildcard. No doubt wim the wizard (sorry, wim) can enlighten us.

[wiskerke]

25 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

 

Yes, I knew it was a wildcard. No doubt wim the wizard (sorry, wim) can enlighten us.

 

%London will give you

In London

woman London

shopping London Christmas

and so on.

%London% will also give you

Londonderry

In Londonderry Christmas.

 

It's probably because the one making the interface never thought we would all want to look at it.

Or thought we would all know how to use a wildcard.

There are more wildcards that work btw. It's somewhere on this forum.

 

wim

[wiskerke]

1 hour ago, Reimar said:

OK, I do admit I know who Jane Krakowski is (a fine actress). It's just that seeing there were 18 sales and 439 zooms for her image since January in AoA, doesn't really help me.

So it seems what you do is put a location or item of interest in the search box and see what turns up.  I am dismayed to think that this will be a lifetime full-time job to research thoroughly, since I can think of endless interesting items.  In spite of spending 31 years in a career as a scientist, this may just not be for me.

 

 

If you go back to the OP you'll see that he starts to work through the pages as they appear. Without doing a search nor any sorting.

I would do at least some different sorting for different purposes.

Searches can be very useful too, like when you are planning to go somewhere or even deciding where to go.

 

I will have a look at your celeb who sells like hotcakes here. Sorry rings no bells. I think I have only seen Ice Age from her films. Maybe she's the walnut?

 

wim

[Bryan]

13 hours ago, wiskerke said:

 

%London will give you

In London

woman London

shopping London Christmas

and so on.

%London% will also give you

Londonderry

In Londonderry Christmas.

 

It's probably because the one making the interface never thought we would all want to look at it.

Or thought we would all know how to use a wildcard.

There are more wildcards that work btw. It's somewhere on this forum.

 

wim

 

Thanks Wim, useful to know.

 

I'm  interested to know of these other wildcards.....

[Colblimp]

16 hours ago, Cecile Marion said:

This is very interesting to me. I check my images searched daily, but not AoA. When I do have the time to search AoA I find the volume of information there can be absolutely overwhelming. I suppose I need a system for sorting out what is important for me, but so far, I haven’t been able to work one out that will be helpful. I suppose I need to review searches more frequently.

 

You and me both, Cecile!  It's all just a bit too much info. to process...

[wiskerke]

Some Query Mode characters:

 

b_ll finds ball, bell, and bill.

_ Matches any single alphabetic character.

 

b[ae]ll finds ball and bell, but not bill.

[ ] Matches any single character within the brackets.

 

b[^ae]ll finds bill and bull, but not ball or bell. 

^ Matches any character not in the brackets.

 

b[a-c]d finds bad, bbd, and bcd.
- Matches any one of a range of characters. You must specify the range in ascending order (A to Z, not Z to A).

 

wh% finds what, white, and why, but not awhile or watch.

% Matches any number of characters. It can be used as the first and/or last character in the character string.

 

There are more wildcards, but not all may work in AoA.

There must be a post about all of this somewhere.

 

Disclaimer: I do not even know what it's all called in databases let alone how it works.

 

wim

[Martin P Wilson]

34 minutes ago, wiskerke said:

Some Query Mode characters:

 

b_ll finds ball, bell, and bill.

_ Matches any single alphabetic character.

 

b[ae]ll finds ball and bell, but not bill.

[ ] Matches any single character within the brackets.

 

b[^ae]ll finds bill and bull, but not ball or bell. 

^ Matches any character not in the brackets.

 

b[a-c]d finds bad, bbd, and bcd.
- Matches any one of a range of characters. You must specify the range in ascending order (A to Z, not Z to A).

 

wh% finds what, white, and why, but not awhile or watch.

% Matches any number of characters. It can be used as the first and/or last character in the character string.

 

There are more wildcards, but not all may work in AoA.

There must be a post about all of this somewhere.

 

Disclaimer: I do not even know what it's all called in databases let alone how it works.

 

wim

 

They are called regular expressions and are widely used in computing for text processing (common use is to redirect urls, such as  example.co.uk to example.com so either url will reach the same web site). They are very powerful when used for manipulating text; to learn more try: https://www.regular-expressions.info/ - there is far more there than anyone will ever need to use in AoA! Wim's guide is probably more than sufficient for most purposes.

 

BTW - they don't seem to work in Google searches!

[Phil Robinson]

AoA is useful for finding gaps in your own keywording. I sometimes find searches there that I think should have brought up some of my images and didn't, or search terms that apply to my work that I hadn't thought of. 

There was recently a search for 'Annabel Croft GB' I have some good pix of her but I hadn't added the GB - because I didn't really think it was relevant to the pix -  so they didn't come up.