does sorting the keywords by importance really help; i do my keywording in photo mechanic but it does not sort according to importance

 That's what they say..

I definitely find Fotolia to be worse than Istock for me.

1) They earn me much less, last month was <10% of what I earn at Istock
2) My rejection rates there are much higher than any other agency including Istock

It seems that Fotolia and my work doesn't seem to match.
 

Quote from: visceralimage on March 12, 2011, 22:51

Quote from: tubed on March 12, 2011, 22:16

Quote from: visceralimage on March 12, 2011, 22:13

does sorting the keywords by importance really help; i do my keywording in photo mechanic but it does not sort according to importance

 That's what they say..

Would love to hear others experience; if this is the case, then I have more things to keep me busy on rainy days.  What a monumental task to go in and resort all the keywords on Fotolia, uggg

 Seems from other discussions and my experience that resorting once already submitted doesn't help much.. Should be done before submitting to get the best results..

On FT you can't re-sort after image acceptance except by deleting the file, re-submitting the file + new keywords and running the gauntlet of the 'Rejectors' once more.

Some of my best sellers there are all files submitted in 2008 when I started. Anything submitted in the last year hardly sells at all.

Quote from: visceralimage on March 12, 2011, 22:13

does sorting the keywords by importance really help; i do my keywording in photo mechanic but it does not sort according to importance

That's what they say..

It's another 'microstock myth' unfortunately. It makes no difference. Try it for yourself by unloading a couple of images of the same subject, 'optimise' the keywords of one image and not the other and then, when they are approved, see where each appear in the default sort order. Sales, views and age define where your image will appear, not the order of the keywords.

Another example of how abysmally poor the keywording is and tragically how the search egine responds to it ... is the results of pretty much any seach you try.

Quote from: gostwyck on March 13, 2011, 17:40

Quote from: tubed on March 12, 2011, 22:16

Quote from: visceralimage on March 12, 2011, 22:13

does sorting the keywords by importance really help; i do my keywording in photo mechanic but it does not sort according to importance

That's what they say..

It's another 'microstock myth' unfortunately. It makes no difference. Try it for yourself by unloading a couple of images of the same subject, 'optimise' the keywords of one image and not the other and then, when they are approved, see where each appear in the default sort order. Sales, views and age define where your image will appear, not the order of the keywords.

Another example of how abysmally poor the keywording is and tragically how the search egine responds to it ... is the results of pretty much any seach you try.

Not that I'm questioning your research or knowledge, but I do remember a few years ago reading from someone at fotolia, say that they do have keyword wieghting and that if someone knew how to do it correctly could have a big advantage.. Although they never would give out the secret formula.. Maybe that is no longer the case?

No, it's not the case anymore. I tested it myself several times, it absolutely makes no difference. In fact almost all my best sellers there have alphabetically ordered keywords, because I'm using most of the times Yuri's keywording tool.

The situation for me at Fotolia has gone from bad to worse, in the short span of a few weeks. In fact, for me it's turned out to be even worse that at iStock. Everything is going downhill there - first there was the commission cut, then they changed the search function in way that caused a huge drop in downloads for me, and now they are rejecting almost half of what I upload - and they used to accept most of it. I've resumed uploading to iStock - Fotolia is even worse, and I can't afford to stop uploading to both of them. This is really discouraging. Am I alone in this, or are others feeling the pain?

I wouldn't say that it's worse than Istock, but generally the whole microstock business is getting worse.  I have pretty much stopped uploading to Fotolia.  I have some older images there that sell well, but for some reason my newer images are almost never sold.  It has gotten much harder to get approved, and then even if they are approved, they don't sell, so what's the point?

Quote from: OM on March 12, 2011, 20:38

Quote from: azurelaroux on March 12, 2011, 12:37

I haven't been able to upload to the them in months. When I try to the upload page has an error which will not allow my keywords to be transferred from one box to the other. I gave up trying to continue to upload to the them until they get the page fixed.

Try uploading with Flash. Always worked for me after FTP failed on numerous occasions.

That's what I get when I do upload with Flash.

Never failed me yet..........Browser Firefox on Win XP and very old computer.

Just wanted to say that FT finally figured out my keywording issue. I was using Chrome. I have to use FF for it to work. On a good note they were approving images as soon as I was sending them. So a 5 minute or less turn around for most images. Never had reviews go that fast.