Author Topic: how does the search on alamy works? (Read 28916 times)

sweetgirll · « **on:** May 04, 2010, 15:01 »

Hi,
how does the search engine works there ?
do newly approved images show up on the initial pages of the search for a certain keyword
or, older images usually get on initial pages?

thanks!

Perry · « **Reply #1 on:** May 04, 2010, 15:29 »

They appear in the order of their "AlamyRank". There are no information available how the AlamyRank is calculated, but there seems to be lots of different factors involved like CTR (click through ratio), different importances of keywords and sales statistics etc etc.a

http://www.alamy.com/stock-photography-alamyrank.asp and http://www.alamy.com/contributors/alamysearch/default.asp

BTW I think Alamy's search is much better than any micro site's.

sweetgirll · « **Reply #2 on:** May 04, 2010, 15:34 »

Hey, Thanks so much for answering!
I'm going to check into that!

ShadySue · « **Reply #3 on:** May 04, 2010, 16:28 »

Quote from: Perry on May 04, 2010, 15:29

BTW I think Alamy's search is much better than any micro site's.

That's clearly missing a smiley! Alamy's search is just embarrassing. No CV, no DA, takes keywords from all over the place. If your name can be a possible keyword, e.g. House or London, your images will turn up in searches for that term, no matter how irrelevant. My name turns up in searches for Leyden (alternative spelling of the Dutch city) and even once on a search for a person called 'Elizabeth House', because my pseudonym first name is Elizabeth and it was a photo of a house.

lagereek · « **Reply #4 on:** May 05, 2010, 07:23 »

Agree! the Alamy search is far better and more effective then any Micro-search. You can tell the Alamy people have invested quite some money for their search-engine. They dont play it cheapskate.

ShadySue · « **Reply #5 on:** May 05, 2010, 10:24 »

Quote from: lagereek on May 05, 2010, 07:23

Agree! the Alamy search is far better and more effective then any Micro-search. You can tell the Alamy people have invested quite some money for their search-engine. They dont play it cheapskate.

He's being sarcastic everyone!!!
Today I had several hits on a search for end of road not sign. None of them were relevant, though none of them had a sign. But they were all roads, one featuring the end of a bridge, the others being in the West 'End' of either Glasgow or Edinburgh.
I suspect the dreadful search engine is a bigger reason for sales falling there than cheaper competition from micros.

kingjon · « **Reply #6 on:** May 05, 2010, 10:38 »

ShadySue has a point. The search engine will search on your name and also on your address (assuming they haven't fixed it). I live in a small town called Hammond. Most of my views were for a certain John Hammond. I edited all my photos to change the spelling of my home town. The good thing about their system is that you know what the potential buyer searched on to view your images and you can tweak your keywords accordingly. If you don't, your view to download ratio will decrease and so will your downloads.

The search engine has alot of potential, especially since we have to separate the essential and most relevant key words. I don't see why the contributor's name or address would be captured in the search. I suspect its a bug.

sweetgirll · « **Reply #7 on:** May 05, 2010, 21:21 »

ahahahha
i didn't realize he was being sarcastic LOL
that's quite funny!

okay, I asked because in some places my new images seem to get more hits and downloads, and after a while my images get burried and get no downloads etc..

so if at least you know what keyword the customer is searching, etc, that's is a good thing...

Phil · « **Reply #8 on:** May 05, 2010, 23:58 »

funny I've always found it easier to find what I'm looking for alamy than most sites. I hate Istocks search with its disambiguition select the wrong choice and then its close your browser and reload the site

RacePhoto · « **Reply #9 on:** May 06, 2010, 01:11 »

Quote from: sweetgirll on May 04, 2010, 15:01

Hi,
how does the search engine works there ?
do newly approved images show up on the initial pages of the search for a certain keyword
or, older images usually get on initial pages?

thanks!

Alamy has a very helpful and well documented guide to how their system works. Read the help files.

The latest system consists of three main components, giving a combined score, to determine image positioning; namely AlamyRank, the Search Engine and the Diversity Algorithm.

http://www.alamy.com/contributors/alamysearch/default.asp

Or this? How Alamy determines the order in which to display images

http://www.alamy.com/contributors/alamysearch/stock-photography-alamysearch.asp

And yes, Alamy has an intelligent search based on how you keyword and place what you think are important words. Users create their own CV and rank in returns to some extent. No phony boost for exclusive, nothing for writing messages on a forum, no popularity contest for "likes" or reviewers opinions. In fact more views and less clicks or less sales, will lower the rank of a photo. So keyword spamming is not rewarded, it acts to lower the image rank. Most of the rank for similar matching images is based on major buyers activity. Real word best match.

Where other image libraries may order images using solely one parameter, such as reference number or date uploaded, Alamy’s new system relies exclusively on client activity to objectively place the most popular image suppliers higher up the sort order.

In case this appears to heavily favor old accounts and banish new members at the end, everyone starts ranked in the middle and has a chance to earn a position instead of being stuck at the end clawing their way up.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #10 on:** May 06, 2010, 02:17 »

Quote from: ShadySue on May 05, 2010, 10:24

Quote from: lagereek on May 05, 2010, 07:23
Agree! the Alamy search is far better and more effective then any Micro-search. You can tell the Alamy people have invested quite some money for their search-engine. They dont play it cheapskate.

He's being sarcastic everyone!!!
Today I had several hits on a search for end of road not sign. None of them were relevant, though none of them had a sign. But they were all roads, one featuring the end of a bridge, the others being in the West 'End' of either Glasgow or Edinburgh.
I suspect the dreadful search engine is a bigger reason for sales falling there than cheaper competition from micros.

You are finding fault because the search engine finds words the YOU put into the keywords. That's strange?

I did the same search and found some with signs. Same problem, the "NOT sign" won't work unless the contributor has "sign" in the keywords.

You expect the search to be psychic or be able to see the images somehow? It can only search what we put in there.

Stop Words are Words Ignored By Search Engines

http://www.link-assistant.com/seo-stop-words.html

Save space and characters by leaving them out of keywords. Not all on the list will or should be ignored by photo searchs, but most of the common words are useless, so they are ignored.

End of road NOT sign is identical to End Road NOT Sign and gives the same results. A weak two word search for everything that has END and ROAD, ignoring any with the word SIGN in them.

Poor searches will create poor results. Don't blame the search engine for finding only what's there and only what it was asked for.

YadaYadaYada · « **Reply #11 on:** May 06, 2010, 20:55 »

madelaide · « **Reply #12 on:** May 06, 2010, 21:44 »

I have a problem with Alamy search because of my name too (Adelaide), as any search for the homonymous Australian city returns my images too. There is however the relevance in the results sorting order, so for the buyer this doesn't seem to be a problem.

Searching for Adelaide beach, I get 11 pages. My first image appears on page 6, and it has the composed keyword "Copacabana beach", but not beach alone. Then I have one of the same series on page 7, two on page 8, five on page 9.

If only they stopped looking for one word inside the composed keywords, their search would be great. As I said, beach was not a separate keyword in my image - it doesn't show the beach, but the photo was taken at Copacabana Beach.

The same happened in a search for American Airlines, and it returned one of my images because it had "Latin American" or "South American", although not American alone. Doing this search, I find mine at page 19 of 71 andalmost all images before mine are AA-related.

pancaketom · « **Reply #13 on:** May 06, 2010, 21:46 »

Poorly - if you mean have any buyers been able to find my fabulous images

Like most search engines, there are good and bad aspects of it...

as far as I know there is no way to link words in the keywords yet. For example, a picture of the "San Francisco peaks" shows up on a search for "San Francisco". I think a while ago they said they were going to do this with [ ] but I don't know if that is so. I could be wrong though.

It would be very frustrating to have a name or address that is a common search term.

I do like the fact that it theoretically should discourage spam and lets your images rise or fall on their own merit.

--=Tom

RacePhoto · « **Reply #14 on:** May 09, 2010, 17:07 »

It's really not complicated and NO it does not search for street names of users.

The search looks for "word" OR "nextword" OR "anotherword", not just images with AND for all words. If it only did AND people would be complaining that a search for "That Place Beach", didn't come up for "Place Beach", because all three words were not in the search. If it was AND you would have to have all three words for a match. So which one works best for finding photos?

Of course no matter what they do, some people will complain. They turned on the extended words and it raised chaos. a search for Dog would come up with Dogwood. To make it work, every word would have to be matched and a specific one to one correction in the database added. It's not like just adding "s" is that easy to program. Boot and Boots, and then bootstrap would come up because it has all the same characters. Trap would find bootstrap. Searching foor Boo would find every word with boo in it, if you want the extended search to find partial words, within words! It would be insane.

If the word is in your keywords (or proper name) it will be found. Keep in mind that word order, proximity, and the weighting come into play. Your name is way down the list in the search, which means a good match with all the words will come up first! Every one of us has a name, some are less common, some more common, but I could argue that Tom, Dick or Harry would come up many more times than Adelaide in searches.

Everyone will get some hits in erroneous searches, but when they are down on page 19, what's the deal? It's one crummy view out of hundreds or thousands. Alamy rank isn't the most important thing for getting your images sold. A good photo will get sales. I still can't understand why people are complaining because Alamy finds exactly what the user is searching for and not something else.

Then there's this part on the left... for searching within the search.

Age
   Any
   Baby
   Child
   Teenager
   Adult
   Senior
   See all ...

Number of People
   Any
   None
   1 Person
   2 People
   3 People
   4 People
   Groups or Crowds

Ethnicity
   Any
   African
   African American
   Caucasian
   Chinese
   Indian
   Japanese
   See all ...

Viewpoint
   Any
   Front
   Side
   Rear
   Profile

Location
   Any
   USA
   UK
   Europe

Orientation
   Any
   Landscape
   Portrait
   Panoramic
   Square

Image Type
   Any
   Photographs
   Illustrations

Date Taken
   Any
   Last 7 days
   Last month
   Last 3 months
   Last 6 months
   Last 12 months
   Custom ...

Minimum File Size

Where else can you select files by all those specific limits?

Quote from: pancaketom on May 06, 2010, 21:46

Poorly - if you mean have any buyers been able to find my fabulous images

Like most search engines, there are good and bad aspects of it...

as far as I know there is no way to link words in the keywords yet. For example, a picture of the "San Francisco peaks" shows up on a search for "San Francisco". I think a while ago they said they were going to do this with [ ] but I don't know if that is so. I could be wrong though.

It would be very frustrating to have a name or address that is a common search term.

I do like the fact that it theoretically should discourage spam and lets your images rise or fall on their own merit.

--=Tom

ShadySue · « **Reply #15 on:** May 09, 2010, 17:40 »

Quote from: RacePhoto on May 09, 2010, 17:07

I still can't understand why people are complaining because Alamy finds exactly what the user is searching for and not something else.

If I were a buyer I'd hate all the totally non-related stuff that comes up in every search I've tried (other than a few where there were very few 'hits' for an obscure topic, obviously). Sure, some related stuff is in there, but you generally get a really high noise-to-signal ratio. Like anywhere else, of course there is poor keywording: spamming or genuine mistakes. But with Alamy, it's compounded over and over because of the actual system they have chosen to use.

kingjon · « **Reply #16 on:** May 10, 2010, 09:19 »

Racephoto is right - the search engine no longer searches on the address field (it used to though a couple of years ago). It looks like they fixed the glitch. I like Alamy's search engine. Photographers who use inappropriate keywords are punished. There doesn't seem to be any favoritism to any group of photographers.

John

RacePhoto · « **Reply #17 on:** May 10, 2010, 13:48 »

Quote from: ShadySue on May 09, 2010, 17:40

Quote from: RacePhoto on May 09, 2010, 17:07
I still can't understand why people are complaining because Alamy finds exactly what the user is searching for and not something else.
If I were a buyer I'd hate all the totally non-related stuff that comes up in every search I've tried (other than a few where there were very few 'hits' for an obscure topic, obivously). Sure, some related stuff is in there, but you generally get a really high noise-to-signal ratio. Like anywhere else, of course there is poor keywording: spamming or genuine mistakes. But with Alamy, it's compounded over and over because of the actual system they have chosen to use.

Words are ranked by the field we choose to put them in, and how far up in the order we choose to put them, also there are three levels of importance for the keywords and information to rank results in an order of importance. Words are found by proximity to each other and word order. We control that too.

Also there is the diversity setting so one person doesn't get all their images in a pack, in front of ours and fill pages and pages with the same shot or similar images. That moves people up in the pages on an equal basis.

If a word is in there, the Alamy search will find it. It's all that simple?

Tell me where except IS do you get different results that are better and more accurate?

A good search will get good results. Also see above all the ways after the initial search to refine the results! Where else do buyers get all those options?

lagereek · « **Reply #18 on:** May 10, 2010, 14:06 »

Quote from: madelaide on May 06, 2010, 21:44

I have a problem with Alamy search because of my name too (Adelaide), as any search for the homonymous Australian city returns my images too. There is however the relevance in the results sorting order, so for the buyer this doesn't seem to be a problem.

Searching for Adelaide beach, I get 11 pages. My first image appears on page 6, and it has the composed keyword "Copacabana beach", but not beach alone. Then I have one of the same series on page 7, two on page 8, five on page 9.

If only they stopped looking for one word inside the composed keywords, their search would be great. As I said, beach was not a separate keyword in my image - it doesn't show the beach, but the photo was taken at Copacabana Beach.

The same happened in a search for American Airlines, and it returned one of my images because it had "Latin American" or "South American", although not American alone. Doing this search, I find mine at page 19 of 71 andalmost all images before mine are AA-related.

Why dont you start taking a hell of a lot of shots of Adelaide? that in conjunction with your name should render you a fortune!

you gonna thank me in a few years

best.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #19 on:** May 10, 2010, 19:04 »

Quote from: ShadySue on May 09, 2010, 17:40

Quote from: RacePhoto on May 09, 2010, 17:07
I still can't understand why people are complaining because Alamy finds exactly what the user is searching for and not something else.

If I were a buyer I'd hate all the totally non-related stuff that comes up in every search I've tried (other than a few where there were very few 'hits' for an obscure topic, obivously). Sure, some related stuff is in there, but you generally get a really high noise-to-signal ratio. Like anywhere else, of course there is poor keywording: spamming or genuine mistakes. But with Alamy, it's compounded over and over because of the actual system they have chosen to use.

Can you give an example or two please?

Obviously I don't work for Alamy and I'm not just going on and on to defend their search. I just find that it has all kinds of features and ways to make the results better and more accurate, except the [phrase here] or connecting exclusive words "like this" functions that don't work. If the choice of search words is only two words or vague, it will return vague results.

If people put in words that don't belong, then the search won't work. The first words and the most important words are the responsibility of the artist. The search finds them first and finds the words together in the correct order, before the same words, not in the correct order.

Which makes me ask, for an example or two of the search engine being the cause of the bad results?

Watch this and see if it produces better search results than what we used to have on Alamy? (top one)

http://www.alamy.com/Blog/contributor/archive/2010/04/23/4813.aspx

ShadySue · « **Reply #20 on:** June 28, 2010, 17:10 »

Quote from: RacePhoto on May 09, 2010, 17:07

[snip]

Then there's this part on the left... for searching within the search.

Age
   Any
   Baby
   Child
   Teenager
   Adult
   Senior
   See all ...

Number of People
   Any
   None
   1 Person
   2 People
   3 People
   4 People
   Groups or Crowds

Ethnicity
   Any
   African
   African American
   Caucasian
   Chinese
   Indian
   Japanese
   See all ...

Viewpoint
   Any
   Front
   Side
   Rear
   Profile

Location
   Any
   USA
   UK
   Europe

Orientation
   Any
   Landscape
   Portrait
   Panoramic
   Square

Image Type
   Any
   Photographs
   Illustrations

Date Taken
   Any
   Last 7 days
   Last month
   Last 3 months
   Last 6 months
   Last 12 months
   Custom ...

Minimum File Size

Where else can you select files by all those specific limits?

[snip]

These bits that are down the left hand side for choosing - do they come from the keywords? Because I can't find any other way of setting, for example, ethnicity, except in the keywords. (I realise that 'I can't find' isn't the same as 'it's not there'!)

ShadySue · « **Reply #21 on:** June 28, 2010, 18:37 »

Quote from: ShadySue on June 28, 2010, 17:10

Quote from: RacePhoto on May 09, 2010, 17:07
[snip]

Then there's this part on the left... for searching within the search.

Age
   Any
   Baby
   Child
   Teenager
   Adult
   Senior
   See all ...

Number of People
   Any
   None
   1 Person
   2 People
   3 People
   4 People
   Groups or Crowds

Ethnicity
   Any
   African
   African American
   Caucasian
   Chinese
   Indian
   Japanese
   See all ...

Viewpoint
   Any
   Front
   Side
   Rear
   Profile

Location
   Any
   USA
   UK
   Europe

Orientation
   Any
   Landscape
   Portrait
   Panoramic
   Square

Image Type
   Any
   Photographs
   Illustrations

Date Taken
   Any
   Last 7 days
   Last month
   Last 3 months
   Last 6 months
   Last 12 months
   Custom ...

Minimum File Size

Where else can you select files by all those specific limits?

[snip]

These bits that are down the left hand side for choosing - do they come from the keywords? Because I can't find any other way of setting, for example, ethnicity, except in the keywords. (I realise that 'I can't find' isn't the same as 'it's not there'!)

Otherwise we're getting into the same old, same old. E.g. I've got photos of some Caucasian musicians playing Japanese drums. The keywords include taiko and Japanese drums. So will those images show on a search for Japanese ethnicity?

ShadySue · « **Reply #22 on:** June 29, 2010, 08:46 »

Quote from: ShadySue on June 28, 2010, 18:37

These bits that are down the left hand side for choosing - do they come from the keywords? Because I can't find any other way of setting, for example, ethnicity, except in the keywords. (I realise that 'I can't find' isn't the same as 'it's not there'!)

Otherwise we're getting into the same old, same old. E.g. I've got photos of some Caucasian musicians playing Japanese drums. The keywords include taiko and Japanese drums. So will those images show on a search for Japanese ethnicity?

Answer my own question: the pics are now on sale, so I checked and indeed the do show up on Japanese ethnicity. So again, I have to assert that the Alamy search system is seriously flawed.
OTOH, I remember being informed when I joined that the location you put in the location bar is searchable. This is NOT currently true, so I've just added the detailled location into the keywords of a couple of hundred photos with probably another few huindred to go.

lagereek · « **Reply #23 on:** June 29, 2010, 09:18 »

Yeah, its all soooooooooooooo secret, right? and with plenty of hush, hush, on par with the IS best match and all that blaha. Simple answer is: DOESNT work at all and neither does anybody elses.
Buyers will have to throw a dice and hope for the best to find their shot.

ShadySue · « **Reply #24 on:** June 29, 2010, 09:45 »

Quote from: lagereek on June 29, 2010, 09:18

Yeah, its all soooooooooooooo secret, right? and with plenty of hush, hush, on par with the IS best match and all that blaha. Simple answer is: DOESNT work at all and neither does anybody elses.
Buyers will have to throw a dice and hope for the best to find their shot.

IS is a gazillion times better for search then Alamy. At least if contributors keyword correctly, the search will be fairly clean, the problem comes with either spammers or 'genuine mistakes', and even they will fall in the best match soon enough.
The trouble with Alamy is that without a CV, or even 'keyword phrases' (e.g. by CSVs), even correct keywording will give poor results just because of the way the system works. Worse still, they seem unwilling to resolve the problem and reluctant to accept feedback from the forums.

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Author Topic: how does the search on alamy works? (Read 28916 times)

sweetgirll

Perry

sweetgirll

ShadySue

lagereek

ShadySue

kingjon

sweetgirll

Phil

RacePhoto

RacePhoto

YadaYadaYada

madelaide

pancaketom

RacePhoto

ShadySue

kingjon

RacePhoto

lagereek

RacePhoto

ShadySue

ShadySue

ShadySue

lagereek

ShadySue

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