Hey all,

I published a short article on my experience of using different Pseudos in Alamy with the aim of improving SE image rankings.

Summary: Alamy offers every contributor the opportunity to effectively create �different sub-accounts� in the form of pseudonyms. One theory is that by using different pseudos, you may ultimately improve your own image search engine rankings.

Anybody have much experience with this method? Any other tips to improve CTRs?

https://brutallyhonestmicrostock.com/2018/02/27/adopting-alamy-pseudos-to-improve-keyword-rankings/

Looking forward to a positive discussion.

Alex

Hey all,

I published a short article on my experience of using different Pseudos in Alamy with the aim of improving SE image rankings.

Summary: Alamy offers every contributor the opportunity to effectively create �different sub-accounts� in the form of pseudonyms. One theory is that by using different pseudos, you may ultimately improve your own image search engine rankings.

Anybody have much experience with this method? Any other tips to improve CTRs?

https://brutallyhonestmicrostock.com/2018/02/27/adopting-alamy-pseudos-to-improve-keyword-rankings/

Looking forward to a positive discussion.

Alex

I have identified a great method, leading to many more sales, but I'm "brutally honest": this is not something I share with my competition 

Is this positive enough? 

I suppose with a lot of research into what buyers search for and effort you could put stuff that has sold and is competing with a lot of other images into one pseudo with a high rank and images with obscure stuff that would only be found with a search with little competition into another and then abandon the rest to a low ctr pseudo.

I suppose another strategy would be to put the sellers into a winning pseudo, but then it would punish all your other work.

Or you could upload good in demand images with good keywording and let it ride.

I have identified a great method, leading to many more sales, but I'm "brutally honest": this is not something I share with my competition 

Is this positive enough? 

These types of comments don't contribute to a (positive) discussion.

Hope your "great method" continues to be successful.

Quote from: pancaketom on February 28, 2018, 12:17

I suppose another strategy would be to put the sellers into a winning pseudo, but then it would punish all your other work.

Or you could upload good in demand images with good keywording and let it ride.

Yes I think that's the same as what I wrote but maybe I didn't say that as well. And the final line is my conclusion as well.

Years ago I'd watch what was being downloaded on Alamy. What searches, what was popular. After weeks and maybe months of keeping track, I discovered that what was showing for popular, by recent downloads, was in effect HISTORY. By the time any of us could upload, what had sold, the interest had changed to something else. Not only that, many times the subjects and locations were very specific. The best selling searches by keywords and downloads were unlikely to be searched or sold like that again.

Unlike Microstock where the same subjects and concepts sell over and over, on Alamy some of the buyers (the ones they track and what we see) seem to be doing feature articles or very specific sets for something. Then the next week, it's all completely different. I don't think that Alamy, the system or it's buyers are anything like Microstock and can't be analyzed in the same manner.

re umberto ii    1   11   16   100   16.00
yuliya levchenko    1   10   10   16   62.50
mall interior    1   9   148   38,400   0.39
middleton place plantation    1   9   9   511   1.76
kesha    2   9   110   6,800   1.62
st tropez    3   9   63   9,793   0.64
avignon    3   8   70   11,900   0.59
Petrovic Njego�    1   8   12   129   9.30
savannah monterey square    1   8   8   66   12.12
Boone Hall Plantation    2   8   8   500   1.60
alamytestimage    1   7   26   156   16.67
drayton hall plantation    1   7   8   178   4.49
robinson crusoe    2   7   22   1,714   1.28
kym marsh red carpet    1   7   20   640   3.13
hurricane Harvey    2   7   112   3,525   3.18
brian laudrup    2   7   15   878   1.71
Strelitzia    1   7   56   7,646   0.73
bob marley Schaefer Festival on June 18, 1975    1   6   10   10   100.00
community people concept    1   6   6   400   1.50
luis alberto    1   6   45   3,155   1.43

Some people here might have some of these, but I'd guess that most of us don't. And in a month, the list will be very different, with many more that most of us don't have.  This was sorted by downloads from most at top.

Couldn't agree more

Yes its all informed guess work at best. Which is why the theory good well keyworded images sell the best is hard to improve on ;-).

.... Also the data they show us is from some unusual group of selected accounts, not the whole place, so it's also unusual.

More and more I'm thinking that's not true - though that's been said ever since I joined at least).
I think it's all searches from registered buyers.
I find sales which weren't zoomed, but in recent months, all have been searched. Via the forum I read that if files are put into a lightbox and bought from there, they don't show up as having been zoomed.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on March 04, 2018, 08:21

.... Also the data they show us is from some unusual group of selected accounts, not the whole place, so it's also unusual.

More and more I'm thinking that's not true - though that's been said ever since I joined at least).
I think it's all searches from registered buyers.
I find sales which weren't zoomed, but in recent months, all have been searched. Via the forum I read that if files are put into a lightbox and bought from there, they don't show up as having been zoomed.

All registered buyers? Look at the words and subjects. That's what sold the most in the last month? Seems pretty strange and unusual requests. "This tool allows you to see all searches from customers who have spent money on Alamy within a specified date range." Now we need to know what spent money means?  But if it's only people who bought something, that's kind of twisted as well?

Yes I've had sales with no zoom, many of them.
"AlamyMeasures can only list a sale on this page when it is sure that the search term led to the sale. For example, if someone searched for �dog on beach� last week, but then asked our sales team to process the sale for them this week, AlamyMeasures would not be able to match that search with that sale. All your sales are still recorded however, and the number of total sales you have made for the selected time period is listed on the previous page, Pseudonym Summary. "

Interesting about the tractors, since I have a big batch of race cars. I was selective, didn't just slop up 200 snaps from a race event. Besides rank, do you remember "diversity"? It's actually interesting and I'd say beneficial for most of us. It means someone popular and ranked higher, doesn't get to be first for pages and pages, in front of someone else, like me for example.

http://www.alamy.com/stock-photography-alamyrank.asp

"The Diversity Algorithm works alongside AlamyRank to show images from a mixture of contributors of a similar rank. This stops the search results from becoming overly dominated by collections with the highest combined scores of AlamyRank and relevancy."

To quote an opinion of former me: "AlamyRank assigns a score to a collection based on the number of times images from a pseudonym have been clicked or purchased in proportion to the number of times they have been viewed by customers.

Rank = Views divided by Clicks plus Sales

If you get many, many views (which is the keyword spam game elsewhere) and few clicks (zooms) or sales, your Alamy rank will drop. Adding irrelevant keywords will diminish your Alamy rank. Less views, but more clicks, your rank will rise. It's a way to reward the Best Matches and accurate keywording."

So I don't know if too many of the same subject will hurt or help? I mean if someone is looking for Dario Franchitti, I have 5 on the first page, not all in a clump, and there are 20 pages for that search = near 2,000 images. If someone types in "Dario Franchitti Iowa" the page is at least 75% mine with 30 results. The second image is someone else, 3rd mine, 4th-5th someone else, 6-7 me. That's how diversity works.

Specifics will help and since it appears you did your homework and identified each tractor by Mfg or Model, that's a good thing!

No I don't know and couldn't find anything more from Alamy except the people who spent money. Does that mean all the other former buyers, and their searches don't show that month if they didn't buy anything? Or that if they don't buy for six months, but search, they are still in the measures or not included in measures? At any rate it's not all registered buyers, that have ever bought something.

Quote

I beg to differ! I believe that "these types of comments" are positive for successful contributors.
It is positive to advise others to resist the urge to brag about their successful methods, because good ideas spread fast, especially when published in books and blogs.

I fully understand your interest, as a book author, to extract successful ideas from others, but "others" must realise that they will lose their competitive advantage, through too much sharing. Play one's cards close to one's chest!

I also expect you to understand my "brutally honest" advice to "others" and I can even grant you the right to publish it in your book. 

Fair enough. No plans for another book for a while, licensing images is much more profitable!

I don't think that anything I publish / divulge is going to have a massive impact to make our market more competitive. It's not like I'm publishing the formula to turn copper into gold. Same with others, I suppose. I'm far from being successful at Alamy, although I'm making strives.

The Alamy forum is open to the public and they've been discussing pseudos and strategies ad nauseum, which is how I got the idea in the first place. Anybody is free to search there for answers if they have enough patience. Some of the guys posting on there have portfolios with over 100k images and 10 years experience on Alamy alone.

It's lead into gold you need to study the periodic table and I know how to do that... but I'm not telling. Bitcoin is a better chance of the magic working. Plumbum 82 into Aurum 79 is just three electrons difference. 

True, telling people what's common knowledge by making an organized collection of facts and opinions is not going to change the game.

My reason for quoting as much as I could find for Alamy, the pseudos, the ranks and whatever else, is because I don't pretend to know the answers. it's just facts and quotes, anyone else can decide on what they want to believe. My opinion is and has been for a long time, that some people worry far too much about things that don't matter and then attribute those imaginary details actually have some mysterious effect on sales.

Good accurate keywords/titles and well produced/edited, thought out images, will make more sales than tricks with pseudos, trying to game the search or waving a philosophers stone over your computer keyboard when you're uploading to Alamy.  Tell them that!