Quote from: Uncle Pete on November 22, 2024, 13:43

When I started and the Alamy forum was fun and friendly the "What's your BHZ" came up. For anyone who tests, just keep in mind that some people have placed the BHZ in the wrong place or more than once. They will be ahead of anyone doing it right. Keyword Only

I don't understand if it works by Pseudo or my account.

Multiple Pseudos are too complicated for my taste.   Just describe the asset best you can.   Measures tool is very valuable as you can see what real customer is searching for.  Phrases in particular.  I frequently modify metadata after I see some search term I haven't been thinking about.

Their Forum was once ok,  you could find valuable info.  "wiskerke", think guy is Dutch, would often post very intelligent stuff.  But it became full of snitches and I don't go there anymore either.

As for Tags/Supertags etc.  it is also likely they periodically tune algorithms just like everyone else.  My observation are less "scientific" than yours,  I just notice very often in Measures my asset was returned and/or clicked for search term that was in the Caption.    IMHO using these 150 characters in Caption field in optimal way is most important thing.

I don't really disagree, well, except the forum can be fun, now and then, but it's not what it used to be. 

I did pseudonyms, back in the start, because people had all kinds of theories about placement and if you put your best images into a "good" pseudo, then you would rank higher and get more views, and maybe people would look at your other images. Or something along those lines. Also that the pseudo with the higher rank would be ahead on the search pages. I just don't know.

One is Motorsports, another illustrations, another is nature or wildlife, and the other is the Crapstock... I mean Microstock snapshots.

I do know that Alamy has a diversity algorithm, so they won't have a whole page at the start of the most popular images, on one search, because someone does that subject the most. Say someone who specializes in birds, and then a search for a specific bird, would be a flock of their pictures, before everyone else. To our benefit, diversity is supposed to mix the results.

Yes to captions which are also used for ALT text by agencies. Many assistive technologies stop reading alt text at 125 characters. Search engines may never see any words after the first 125 characters. This could matter for SEO. Best and most important words first.

Scientific, maybe, but barely. (or someone might argue hardly?) I tagged five images with the nonsense word keyword and a real word that was the variable, and waited overnight.  Just because I did one test and saw the order, doesn't mean, the same results will always occur in  the same way. It would need to be tested on different images, selected at random, and then notes made again. I'd say another ten times, might show a pattern, and if they aren't always the same results, in the same order, then the whole conclusion is unsupported.

So when it snows and I'm bored, I'll go look again. 

Here's some fun? For a single keyword, where there are only four pages of results, I have ten images on the first page. When it was only one page, I had all ten on the first page. Since then someone has uploaded a bunch of some event, and they have the entire 4th page and many on the 3rd page. Someone else used that word for their series of images on a different subject and the fill out page 3 and much of page 2.

Nice if someone searching uses that word, I'm well placed. What if they don't use that word, and instead us a more common term? My best selling image is #4 and I don't appear again in the 42 pages, until page nine. Add the word "Illustration" and I'm back to page one, some images that are illustrations are missing. Thanks for asking, I need to go edit...

I have had numerous instances of image sales on Alamy that are refunded and rebought. Usually the new sale is for a small bit less $ - often just cents. The most frustrating was when they cut our take 20% from 50 to 40% and a big sale from before the slash was refunded and repurchased after the slash (months later) for maybe a dollar less, but I got a lot less because of the percentage cut.

Do you have any theory / explanation as to why refund / repurchase, for slightly lower amount,  happens?  I presume this has nothing to do with Alamy accounting, but end customer?

Quote from: zeljkok on November 27, 2024, 02:41

Quote from: pancaketom on November 26, 2024, 20:35

I have had numerous instances of image sales on Alamy that are refunded and rebought. Usually the new sale is for a small bit less $ - often just cents. The most frustrating was when they cut our take 20% from 50 to 40% and a big sale from before the slash was refunded and repurchased after the slash (months later) for maybe a dollar less, but I got a lot less because of the percentage cut.

Do you have any theory / explanation as to why refund / repurchase, for slightly lower amount,  happens?  I presume this has nothing to do with Alamy accounting, but end customer?

I always assumed it was mostly from the customer - maybe they realized they needed a slightly different usage or time frame and then contacted Alamy who said refund and purchase this slightly different deal. I don't actually know though.

I've had the same and the following sale is always lower. $77.24 became $69.51. Another funny one was someone licensed the same image, small and large, same day, $40 and $40? Unless there was something in the news and I magically had two sales of the same image of a scenic view? Surprised that this ever sold at all, anywhere. Hazy morning, I climbed up a day after it rained, no choice. Take it or leave it. 2 miles roundtrip, 350 feet elevation gain.



But I've never had an image refunded, that wasn't licensed right after, again. Yet.