Author Topic: Istock favors Exclusivity in Best Match search? (Read 7134 times)

Freezingpictures · « **on:** November 24, 2006, 06:30 »

Yesterday was my worst Thursday for a long time. I was wondering why, and made a Best Match search on penguins. Normally the best match search will show one of my penguins on the 3third or so place. But now they moved to the second page.
What happend? What I discovered, that all the images which are ranked before my images are images from exclusive Photographers. Is it a coincidence or did they really changed the best match search in favor of the exclusiv Photographers?

Enjoylife · « **Reply #1 on:** November 24, 2006, 11:15 »

I think it favors exclusive photographers, did a search on sailboat and sailing and all of the first pages were exclusives. Thanksgiving can also be a reason.
Last month i made almost double the money i will make this month.

Did some more searches every first page were all exclusives ?

Bateleur · « **Reply #2 on:** November 24, 2006, 12:28 »

Quote from: Enjoylife on November 24, 2006, 11:15

Did some more searches every first page were all exclusives ?

You probably had lousy sales yesterday because it was Thanksgiving in the States.

I wonder ... maybe they've tweaked their search algorithm to favour exclusives. I mean, those photographers who've thrown their lot in completely with iStock, particularly the ones with huge portfolios, must be pretty sick about the 'disambiguation' hassle. I find it a hell of a lot of work disambiguating my portfolio of some 600 images. If I had several thousand with iStock, and was exclusive, I'd be sick as a parrot.

Maybe iStock has thrown them this perk as a sweetener.

berryspun · « **Reply #3 on:** November 24, 2006, 13:00 »

Quote from: Bateleur on November 24, 2006, 12:28

Maybe iStock has thrown them this perk as a sweetener.

Probably so, I saw a few exclusive complain recently about their pictures not being in the search first page anymore. This attitude seems so pitiful, I can see a possible IS sclerosis...

The exclusive clan may have gotten another perk: getting first in line for having their pictures approved $:-\$

Enjoylife · « **Reply #4 on:** November 24, 2006, 14:26 »

Did another search for (ocean beach and sunset) The first 10 pages or so are all exclusive . How are the designers gonna find my ocean pictures ?

fintastique · « **Reply #5 on:** November 24, 2006, 17:21 »

It makes you wonder if with

lousy upload limits 20/week for non exclusives
long wait for review 7 days
being pushed to the back of the search result for non exclusives
lousy percentage 20% for non exclusives

They are trying to tell us something like "we don't really want non-exclusives" upload somewhere else!

For those with disambigous woes and limited time.

arrange your uploads by number of DLs and see if any of your best sellers haven't been DLed for a couple of months and they should be top priority to have their keywords looked at.

Other top priorities photos where the subject is more than one more than one word like "Notre Dame" or Celtic cross" as having the keywords separate scores lower in the search than if they are grouped.

I must admit looking at some of my earlier uploads my keywording was very poor so its a chance to rescue lost images providing there aren't ten pages of exclusive images with the same keywords.

yingyang0 · « **Reply #6 on:** November 24, 2006, 17:24 »

Quote from: berryspun on November 24, 2006, 13:00

The exclusive clan may have gotten another perk: getting first in line for having their pictures approved $:-\$

They've always had that perk. It's called the exclusive queue.

About the other "perk". I don't think they would rank exclusive photos over non-exclusive. Their business model depends more on the buyers, and ranking an exclusive's photo over a better matching photo is bad for business. Not to mention that they make more from selling the non-exclusive person's photo.

Bateleur · « **Reply #7 on:** November 24, 2006, 17:37 »

Quote from: fintastique on November 24, 2006, 17:21

For those with disambigous woes and limited time.

arrange your uploads by number of DLs and see if any of your best sellers haven't been DLed for a couple of months and they should be top priority to have their keywords looked at.

Or another possibility is to sort the list on the 'DLs per month' column. That will pull up what were once your most popular photos.

Discombobulate them in order, from the top.

My DL/Month image (with a flame) stopped selling mid October. It wasn't until I discombooberated it that the pic started selling again.

Peiling · « **Reply #8 on:** November 24, 2006, 23:00 »

they are constantly changing the game in istock

makes one wonder what on earth are they up to and when they will stablise?

kosmikkreeper · « **Reply #9 on:** November 25, 2006, 10:26 »

Quote from: Bateleur on November 24, 2006, 17:37

Quote from: fintastique on November 24, 2006, 17:21

For those with disambigous woes and limited time.

arrange your uploads by number of DLs and see if any of your best sellers haven't been DLed for a couple of months and they should be top priority to have their keywords looked at.

Or another possibility is to sort the list on the 'DLs per month' column. That will pull up what were once your most popular photos.

Discombobulate them in order, from the top.

My DL/Month image (with a flame) stopped selling mid October. It wasn't until I discombooberated it that the pic started selling again.

Yah, I've been doing that now for a couple of weeks but it hasn't helpped much. My November sales will be roughlt 35% less than October.
And Istock could give priority to Exclusives. Don't think they won't. They've done a lot worse in the past. I'm staying with them cuz they still are my 2nd $$ generator but due to the upload limit I think DT and FT will soon catch up.