Author Topic: The Importance of Correct Keywords. (Read 19425 times)

Rose Tinted Glasses · « **on:** February 15, 2016, 20:57 »

What a joke this is. Some ignorant photographer/videographer spammed a clip with incorrect keywords. I hope they sue him and remove their total portfolio.

Moral of the story, bad keywords hurt us all.

How can a buyer purchase anything with confidence from any agency if there is not a standard in keywords???

http://www.buzzfeed.com/meganapper/opening-shot-in-rubios-morning-again-in-america-ad-appears-t#.dj8VDx9ZW

ShadySue · « **Reply #1 on:** February 15, 2016, 21:18 »

Show me the non- specialist agencies with consistently high keywording standards.

YadaYadaYada · « **Reply #2 on:** February 15, 2016, 21:24 »

Wow this is real news and I'm totally stumped how agencies could allow this. Nobody has brought up this problem before. You mean we write our own keywords and some people would sink to lying or adding wrong words, just for 38 cents? I'm devastated that this is allowed.

2010

Quote from: cathyslife on February 21, 2010, 11:14

To me this seems like the perfect reason why keywords should be checked by reviewers when images are uploaded...on all sites. The image would be rejected, the submitter would have a chance to fix the keywords and re-upload, and the image wouldn't be in front of buyers, who will see that come up in a search for bible or religion and be annoyed, possibly going elsewhere.

Now Canada is in New York? Every desert is the Sahara or Death Valley. Why not. All water is the ocean. If microstockers can make some money by lying about the location, they will. Hasn't anybody here figured it out yet. Anything for peanuts, upload your whole collection to DP for 25c, sell out to place that pay 15%. It's the way of Micro.

Then complain on the forum how some are unethical and we are being used. When you sell your soul, your art, your work, to the devil, you don't get to re-write the contract. The devil holds the rights to your soul. You sold out.

Rose Tinted Glasses · « **Reply #3 on:** February 15, 2016, 21:38 »

Quote from: ShadySue on February 15, 2016, 21:18

Show me the non- specialist agencies with consistently high keywording standards.

Pretty much all the micro agencies are filled with bad keywords. I could give several examples but the one I posted is real as opposed to getting into a pissing contest with the usual crowd here. I did that once many years ago with monkey and ape.
It's really simple, just keyword properly. If the image/clip is good and the buyer can use it, then it will most likely sell for what it is or for what it's not in this case.
The artist should be have all of their worked removed from SS as a lesson to us all. I also hope they sue SS and the artist. This is a blatant lie and willfully done. Tough love, but much needed.

anathaya · « **Reply #4 on:** February 15, 2016, 21:54 »

Quote from: Rose Tinted Glasses on February 15, 2016, 20:57

What a joke this is. Some ignorant photographer/videographer spammed a clip with incorrect keywords. I hope they sue him and remove their total portfolio.

Moral of the story, bad keywords hurt us all.

How can a buyer purchase anything with confidence from any agency if there is not a standard in keywords???

http://www.buzzfeed.com/meganapper/opening-shot-in-rubios-morning-again-in-america-ad-appears-t#.dj8VDx9ZW

Probably keywords were suggested by SS tool

Sulio · « **Reply #5 on:** February 15, 2016, 23:48 »

Quote from: Rose Tinted Glasses on February 15, 2016, 21:38

Quote from: ShadySue on February 15, 2016, 21:18
Show me the non- specialist agencies with consistently high keywording standards.

Pretty much all the micro agencies are filled with bad keywords. I could give several examples but the one I posted is real as opposed to getting into a pissing contest with the usual crowd here. I did that once many years ago with monkey and ape.
It's really simple, just keyword properly. If the image/clip is good and the buyer can use it, then it will most likely sell for what it is or for what it's not in this case.
The artist should be have all of their worked removed from SS as a lesson to us all. I also hope they sue SS and the artist. This is a blatant lie and willfully done. Tough love, but much needed.

So why you are so piss off about this clip.
Author of this clip is obviously on crappy cruise ship trip maybe with family and visit 100 places on this naive weekly voyage. Who knows if he take this clip, maybe his wife, son, daughter whatever, and they are maybe not even from USA.
I see it since my first day at microstock.
I dont defend author but you are surely not one who will kick his ass out of stock (dont be Chad if you are not).
And why any wannabe politicians (or they PR or marketing stuff) are buying clips from B-role stock sites?!?
Because they are all ignorant liars.
And circle is closed

Hildegarde · « **Reply #6 on:** February 16, 2016, 00:53 »

Not defending this but some agencies sometimes the name of an item is accurate but agencies like Dreamtime do not allow more than one word as a keyword. Fortunately, if an animal is called something like Canada Goose then it might be in Canada or US. Same thing with food or other names.

Rose Tinted Glasses · « **Reply #7 on:** February 16, 2016, 01:55 »

Quote from: Hildegarde on February 16, 2016, 00:53

Not defending this but some agencies sometimes the name of an item is accurate but agencies like Dreamtime do not allow more than one word as a keyword. Fortunately, if an animal is called something like Canada Goose then it might be in Canada or US. Same thing with food or other names.

I am not defending this either. I don't know of one agency that can confuse the keywords "San Francisco" "New York" "Vancouver".

Seriously, how do you unintentionally keyword a major city on the west coast of Canada and confuse it with two major cities on opposite coasts in the good ole USofA???

To keyword like this took effort and it was intentional effort.

anathaya · « **Reply #8 on:** February 16, 2016, 02:54 »

Background is Vancouver, the boat is going from SF to NY. Very accurate keywording

Chichikov · « **Reply #9 on:** February 16, 2016, 03:19 »

Vancouver is in America.
America begins on the Bering Strait (or Greenland?) and end on Cape Horn…

If the movie speaks about the USA the text should say "It’s morning again in the United States of America"

ShadySue · « **Reply #10 on:** February 16, 2016, 04:46 »

Quote from: Rose Tinted Glasses on February 15, 2016, 21:38

Quote from: ShadySue on February 15, 2016, 21:18
Show me the non- specialist agencies with consistently high keywording standards.

Pretty much all the micro agencies are filled with bad keywords. I could give several examples but the one I posted is real as opposed to getting into a pissing contest with the usual crowd here. I did that once many years ago with monkey and ape.
It's really simple, just keyword properly. If the image/clip is good and the buyer can use it, then it will most likely sell for what it is or for what it's not in this case.
The artist should be have all of their worked removed from SS as a lesson to us all. I also hope they sue SS and the artist. This is a blatant lie and willfully done. Tough love, but much needed.

Monkey and ape rips my knitting too, but apparently (?) there isn't a distinction in Italian.

But it's not only spamming that causes search problems. It can be the way searches are done. E.g. on SS and several others, searching Blue Whale returns any picture with whale, including 'whale shark' and 'blue' (usually referring to the water, maybe the sky).
Only last week I searched the 'smug' agency for Scottish wildlife, and got lots of photos of pics from Edinburgh zoo, which isn't what someone searching Scottish wildlife would want to see.
You didn't answer my question. I'm as anti-spam as anyone, and I'd be really interested in an agency which took keywording seriously. However, without a CV, which many here seem to dislike intensely, I don't see how the 'Blue whale' type of errors (that's just my personal test, but it applies to any 'phrase' keyword you like) can be eliminated. A CV for a generalist company is an enormous task to maintain and update.

Then there's the 'what if the buyers are ignorant' argument, e.g. for putting reptile and amphibian for one animal. It's not something I do because of vanity, probably, but there seems to be some evidence of sales supporting that argument, (also e.g. maybe not everyone knows the difference between a monkey and an ape - then there are Barbary 'Apes', which are macaques ...)

Still, if SS banned that spammer, they'd have to ban all the rest to be fair. That would certainly cut down their library.

Rose Tinted Glasses · « **Reply #11 on:** February 16, 2016, 04:59 »

Quote from: ShadySue on February 16, 2016, 04:46

Quote from: Rose Tinted Glasses on February 15, 2016, 21:38
Quote from: ShadySue on February 15, 2016, 21:18
Show me the non- specialist agencies with consistently high keywording standards.

Pretty much all the micro agencies are filled with bad keywords. I could give several examples but the one I posted is real as opposed to getting into a pissing contest with the usual crowd here. I did that once many years ago with monkey and ape.
It's really simple, just keyword properly. If the image/clip is good and the buyer can use it, then it will most likely sell for what it is or for what it's not in this case.
The artist should be have all of their worked removed from SS as a lesson to us all. I also hope they sue SS and the artist. This is a blatant lie and willfully done. Tough love, but much needed.
Monkey and ape rips my knitting too, but apparently (?) there isn't a distinction in Italian.
But it's not only spamming that causes search problems. It can be the way searches are done. E.g. on SS and several others, searching Blue Whale returns any picture with whale, including 'whale shark' and 'blue' (usually referring to the water, maybe the sky).
Only last week I searched the 'smug' agency for Scottish wildlife, and got lots of photos of pics from Edinburgh zoo, which isn't what someone searching Scottish wildlife would want to see.
You didn't answer my question. I'm as anti-spam as anyone, and I'd be really interested in an agency which took keywording seriously. However, without a CV, which many here seem to dislike intensely, I don't see how the 'Blue whale' type of errors (that's just my personal test, but it applies to any 'phrase' keyword you like) can be eliminated. A CV for a generalist company is an enormous task to maintain and update.

Then there's the 'what if the buyers are ignorant' argument, e.g. for putting reptile and amphibian for one animal. It's not something I do because of vanity, probably, but there seems to be some evidence of sales supporting that argument, (also e.g. maybe not everyone knows the difference between a monkey and an ape - then there are Barbary 'Apes', which are macaques ...)

Still, if SS banned that spammer, they'd have to ban all the rest to be fair. That would certainly cut down their library.

Might as well add any port city in the USA and Canada then.

Vancouver is Vancouver. It's not Seattle, It's not San Francisco, and it sure as he!! is not New York. This is blatant spam. I am surprised this idiot did not even add Boston or Chicago or Halifax or even Montreal to the mix as well.

With the media coverage this has been getting, I think it safe to assume SS has lost a customer or two from this. It's a credibility issue in my opinion.

As per your "blue whale" argument, yes CV is a good thing. But there is no "San", "Francisco", "New", "York" in "Vancouver".

Shelma1 · « **Reply #12 on:** February 16, 2016, 05:12 »

Ha ha ha ha! Obviously a New Yorker didn't edit this video. But you'd think with all the iconic landmarks in NY, this editor would have looked for footage of the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building... where he perhaps could see Shutterstock employees waving hello from the ping pong room.

ShadySue · « **Reply #13 on:** February 16, 2016, 05:13 »

Quote from: Rose Tinted Glasses on February 16, 2016, 04:59

As per your "blue whale" argument, yes CV is a good thing. But there is no "San", "Francisco", "New", "York" in "Vancouver".

I said that not only spam was the problem. I totally hate spam, and have a long history of posting about same. Multiple locations are rife over most agencies.

In some agencies, New York pics show up in searches for York, so you have to search York, England. That's easy enough once a buyer knows they need to do that, because almost everyone has heard of New York, so they might understand; however, for example, not everyone knows there are other Scotlands apart from Scotland, UK, e.g. apparently in Texas, which I didn't know until I suddenly had to start DAing Scotland on iS, so might be perplexed or misled.

So, do you think SS will pay you (or anyone) to go over their collection highlighting spammers to be banned? I'm sure a week of finding/reporting spammers would undermine our will to live, but worse, I don't think there's an appetite for clean keywording on the agencies.

There have been many such 'outs' of stock files (either sloppy keywording or sloppy search results or sloppy use by buyers [e.g. who couldn't find 'exactly' what they needed and satisficed, but were caught out by sharp eyed viewers]), but it doesn't seem to make much difference to sales after the storm in the teacup has calmed.
Like I already said, where would be budget buyer go to get a clean search, both from spamming and the search algorithm?

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #14 on:** February 16, 2016, 07:29 »

I find it hard to get too annoyed about this. It is for the agencies to worry about. We pay them enough, they can sort it out.

sgoodwin4813 · « **Reply #15 on:** February 16, 2016, 08:04 »

I really hate the spammers and wish something could be done but the problem is rampant. I assume their thinking is to have their images/clips show up in as many searches as possible hoping that they will get some downloads even though their work is not relevant to the search, but that really makes it difficult for buyers. For editorial the agencies should take a very strict approach but for RF nothing will happen unless agencies decide it is important. A cv to me is like communism - nice idea in theory but in practice it just doesn't work, as shown thoroughly by the almost complete failure of the iS cv. DT used to have a system where buyers could report inappropriate keywords but that never worked very well either - I was reported once for the keyword "Australia" on an image of a fish taken at the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Easily dealt with obviously but for the agencies a system that could take a lot of time for little benefit. Giving reviewers authority to reject for keywords - which I think they have already at SS and probably other agencies - also may be a problem if they are not aware of all possible descriptors or with the blue whale example given previously. Something will only happen if buyers complain vociferously and it doesn't look like that will be anytime soon. Caveat emptor!

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #16 on:** February 16, 2016, 11:18 »

Quote from: sgoodwin4813 on February 16, 2016, 08:04

I really hate the spammers and wish something could be done ...

It wouldn't be all that hard to develop software that would flag the most egregious cases, especially where location information is involved. Start by flagging any image keyworded with multiple countries or multiple cities.

A human reviewer could then see if there was an obvious explanation (an image of multiple isolated old fashioned luggage stickers for example). If not, it gets rejected for keywords and submission software allows for correction of keywords without uploading the image again. You keep detailed stats on each contributor's track record regarding keywords so you can identify serial offenders.

I did a search on SS for hawaii caribbean and there were over 18,000 results! Taking just a few of the page one offenders, you can find one image that says it's in "caribbean, hawaii, cancun, thailand, mexico, maldives, barbados". Putting tropical onto a beach with a palm tree is fine, but larding on every country you can think of that has nice beaches is spam.

A search for city street produces over 1.3million results and from the first page there's an image that claims to be in "amsterdam, rome, belgium, netherlands, bremen, france, italy, paris, germany"

I found (doing a search for iowa maine) an image of a bend in a river with the following keywords: "louisiana, shore, jersey, sunset, alaska, iowa, minnesota, river, north, nevada, arizona, sunrise, new, canada, colorado, carolina, mississippi, kansas, washington, york, kentucky, delaware, oklahoma, nebraska, massachusetts, michigan, oregon, maryland, montana, arkansas, wisconsin, california, vancouver, indiana, hampshire, ohio, alberta, mexico, georgia, idaho, bc, maine, alabama, pennsylvania, connecticut, missouri, illinois, hawaii, florida, seattle"

SS clearly doesn't want to spend a cent on fixing this problem, or even making it mostly better. They've provided a tool to help contributors find keywords (not a bad thing if you pay attention to the problem of wrong keywords). You don't need a CV (whose time has come and gone IMO), but you need good search and some rudimentary anti-spam measures in image acceptance.

Copidosoma · « **Reply #17 on:** February 16, 2016, 11:35 »

Quote from: Chichikov on February 16, 2016, 03:19

Vancouver is in America.
America begins on the Bering Strait (or Greenland?) and end on Cape Horn…

If the movie speaks about the USA the text should say "It’s morning again in the United States of America"

^this

Technically the video is correct. People just like to whine.

If there is a problem here it is that the editor of the video was ignorant enough about the cities of the US that he/she couldn't tell that this wasn't one of them.

If I want to purchase a picture of an Asian woman talking on a cell phone and the search shows women of all sorts of races and I pick the wrong one it isn't totally the keyword spammers fault. Buyers need a brain too.

YadaYadaYada · « **Reply #18 on:** February 16, 2016, 11:37 »

Agencies don't care and it's too hard to go back and check 50 million images, video and drawings. They should have done this right from the start. Now we are all penalized for the problem, buyers can't trust the keywords or make a good search.

It makes us look stupid and casts a shadow on all of Micro work as cheap amateurs fighting for more peanuts by any way.

I use only real and good keywords. I resent people who intentionally or accidentally don't know San Fran from Vancouver. Buyers can't find good search for images because the spammers and idiots have plugged the system. This is the way of Micro more words, words that aren't main subject, words that people imagine, anything to get more views. Grasping for any chance to make a few more pennies.

Monty-m-gue · « **Reply #19 on:** February 16, 2016, 11:45 »

Quote from: YadaYadaYada on February 16, 2016, 11:37

Agencies don't care and it's too hard to go back and check 50 million images, video and drawings. They should have done this right from the start. Now we are all penalized for the problem, buyers can't trust the keywords or make a good search.

It makes us look stupid and casts a shadow on all of Micro work as cheap amateurs fighting for more peanuts by any way.

I use only real and good keywords. I resent people who intentionally or accidentally don't know San Fran from Vancouver. Buyers can't find good search for images because the spammers and idiots have plugged the system. This is the way of Micro more words, words that aren't main subject, words that people imagine, anything to get more views. Grasping for any chance to make a few more pennies.

I'm quite happy for these folks to spam their images It makes buying from Microstock companies unreliable for clients that require accuracy. Therefor they continue to buy from the specialist (often RM) agencies where prices are much higher.

ShadySue · « **Reply #20 on:** February 16, 2016, 12:24 »

Quote from: Copidosoma on February 16, 2016, 11:35

Quote from: Chichikov on February 16, 2016, 03:19
Vancouver is in America.
America begins on the Bering Strait (or Greenland?) and end on Cape Horn…

If the movie speaks about the USA the text should say "It’s morning again in the United States of America"

^this

Technically the video is correct. People just like to whine.

If there is a problem here it is that the editor of the video was ignorant enough about the cities of the US that he/she couldn't tell that this wasn't one of them.

If I want to purchase a picture of an Asian woman talking oa cell phone and the search shows women of all sorts of races and I pick the wrong one it isn't totally the keyword spammers fault. Buyers need a brain too.

That's just silly. not the Asian woman example, but for sure, you can't expect all potential users of stock to be able to identify all cities of the US at sight. H*ll, I bet even a lot of USians can't do that, far less those of us who live elsewhere.

With other goods you buy, you expect them to be 'as described'*, and I'm pretty sure that legally the disclaimers the sites make that they make no guarantee that the files are as described would hold them free of blame - you can't make disclaimers to let you circumvent the Law.
*You don't buy something which says it's a tin of peas and expect to find pears inside the tin instead.
(And yes, my first thought in the current instance was 'Isn't Canada part of America?')

Copidosoma · « **Reply #21 on:** February 16, 2016, 13:24 »

Quote from: ShadySue on February 16, 2016, 12:24

Quote from: Copidosoma on February 16, 2016, 11:35
Quote from: Chichikov on February 16, 2016, 03:19
Vancouver is in America.
America begins on the Bering Strait (or Greenland?) and end on Cape Horn…

If the movie speaks about the USA the text should say "It’s morning again in the United States of America"

^this

Technically the video is correct. People just like to whine.

If there is a problem here it is that the editor of the video was ignorant enough about the cities of the US that he/she couldn't tell that this wasn't one of them.

If I want to purchase a picture of an Asian woman talking oa cell phone and the search shows women of all sorts of races and I pick the wrong one it isn't totally the keyword spammers fault. Buyers need a brain too.

That's just silly. not the Asian woman example, but for sure, you can't expect all potential users of stock to be able to identify all cities of the US at sight. H*ll, I bet even a lot of USians can't do that, far less those of us who live elsewhere.

With other goods you buy, you expect them to be 'as described'*, and I'm pretty sure that legally the disclaimers the sites make that they make no guarantee that the files are as described would hold them free of blame - you can't make disclaimers to let you circumvent the Law.
*You don't buy something which says it's a tin of peas and expect to find pears inside the tin instead.
(And yes, my first thought in the current instance was 'Isn't Canada part of America?')

I'm not trying to suggest that keywording spam isn't a problem. Just that there is a responsibility on the buyer's side as well.

YadaYadaYada · « **Reply #22 on:** February 16, 2016, 13:59 »

Quote from: Monty-m-gue on February 16, 2016, 11:45

Quote from: YadaYadaYada on February 16, 2016, 11:37
Agencies don't care and it's too hard to go back and check 50 million images, video and drawings. They should have done this right from the start. Now we are all penalized for the problem, buyers can't trust the keywords or make a good search.

It makes us look stupid and casts a shadow on all of Micro work as cheap amateurs fighting for more peanuts by any way.

I use only real and good keywords. I resent people who intentionally or accidentally don't know San Fran from Vancouver. Buyers can't find good search for images because the spammers and idiots have plugged the system. This is the way of Micro more words, words that aren't main subject, words that people imagine, anything to get more views. Grasping for any chance to make a few more pennies.

I'm quite happy for these folks to spam their images It makes buying from Microstock companies unreliable for clients that require accuracy. Therefor they continue to buy from the specialist (often RM) agencies where prices are much higher.

+ Makes mine rise in the search for being accurate words. I don't like being included with the people who make us look bad, but I don't mind when it hurts their sales. By now people here should see that good words help your search placement and spam makes your pictures drop. Alamy explains that, clicks, views, zooms, sales. Raises search.

Words search on Micro, no view, no zoom or preview, no sale, you lose rank.

Then people here blame the agency for their falling search page change which is designed for giving buyers better results. Spam penality paid.

memakephoto · « **Reply #23 on:** February 16, 2016, 17:53 »

Quote from: ShadySue on February 16, 2016, 12:24

Quote from: Copidosoma on February 16, 2016, 11:35
Quote from: Chichikov on February 16, 2016, 03:19
Vancouver is in America.
America begins on the Bering Strait (or Greenland?) and end on Cape Horn…

If the movie speaks about the USA the text should say "It’s morning again in the United States of America"

^this

Technically the video is correct. People just like to whine.

If there is a problem here it is that the editor of the video was ignorant enough about the cities of the US that he/she couldn't tell that this wasn't one of them.

If I want to purchase a picture of an Asian woman talking oa cell phone and the search shows women of all sorts of races and I pick the wrong one it isn't totally the keyword spammers fault. Buyers need a brain too.

That's just silly. not the Asian woman example, but for sure, you can't expect all potential users of stock to be able to identify all cities of the US at sight. H*ll, I bet even a lot of USians can't do that, far less those of us who live elsewhere.

With other goods you buy, you expect them to be 'as described'*, and I'm pretty sure that legally the disclaimers the sites make that they make no guarantee that the files are as described would hold them free of blame - you can't make disclaimers to let you circumvent the Law.
*You don't buy something which says it's a tin of peas and expect to find pears inside the tin instead.
(And yes, my first thought in the current instance was 'Isn't Canada part of America?')

Saying Canada is part of America is sort of like saying isn't Scotland part of England. I can call a Scotsman an Englishman and he wouldn't get upset about that.

Both countries are part of the North American continent but that's as far as that goes.

Having said that, the guy who edited the ad was likely on a deadline and trusted that when he did a search the results were what he expected them to be and no further fact checking was needed. Which is how it should be.

Adding specific city names when they are wrong is misleading and a bad practice and the contributor should be penalized for doing it.

ShadySue · « **Reply #24 on:** February 16, 2016, 18:45 »

Quote from: YadaYadaYada on February 16, 2016, 13:59

By now people here should see that good words help your search placement and spam makes your pictures drop. Alamy explains that, clicks, views, zooms, sales. Raises search

Alamy's rank is by contributor, not by individual file. Also contrary to what they say, words anywhere in the title, caption or keywords all affect search, so searches are by no means always clean. For example, search Leonards Cohen Doesn't matter if you don't have a clue what he looks like - it will be perfectly obvious that many of the top ranking pics aren't him. Yet further down the search are plenty which are him. Actually in this case few if the badly placed files are spammed , it's the way the search is pulling words from different fields combined with the rank of the contributor. Which must be annoying for buyers and lower ranked togs with truly relevant pics.
But there is a lot of egregious spamming by Alamy contributors, so don't imagine it's the domain only of microstockers. I've seen pretty shocking keywording by direct uploaders to Getty too.
It just seems to be totally endemic. Why the buyers don't complain a lot more is a mystery.

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Author Topic: The Importance of Correct Keywords. (Read 19425 times)

Rose Tinted Glasses

ShadySue

YadaYadaYada

Rose Tinted Glasses

anathaya

Sulio

Hildegarde

Rose Tinted Glasses

anathaya

Chichikov

ShadySue

Rose Tinted Glasses

Shelma1

ShadySue

Justanotherphotographer

sgoodwin4813

Jo Ann Snover

Copidosoma

YadaYadaYada

Monty-m-gue

ShadySue

Copidosoma

YadaYadaYada

memakephoto

ShadySue

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