Author Topic: what is keyword spam? (Read 25653 times)

shudderstok · « **Reply #25 on:** July 31, 2013, 22:24 »

Quote from: cascoly on July 31, 2013, 21:11

Quote from: shudderstok on July 31, 2013, 17:39

you can caption however you want. i have been in this business for way too many years working with many magazines worldwide, newspapers world wide, and publishers worldwide to know that you don't caption a monkey an ape or vice versa in hopes your buyer/client/editor/art director/designer does not know the difference and do so in a desperate attempt to sell an image. that shows your lack of professionalism.

now in your case of the woman on exam table, it would be a stretch to use pregnant - unless she was visibly pregnant, but you could also use cancer and syphilis.
so what are you going to do keyword it for what it is or use the entire medical dictionary of every known ailment to mankind as a keyword in desperate hopes of a sale?
you're just proving my point - it's NOT ABOUT professionalism, and it's not about the caption. keywords are VWERY different from captions. you're in the first class of buyers I described. many of us are aiming for the 2nd group-- the much larger population of people who are NOT professionals but who sometimes need images. the pros are likely to stay with their subscriptions where they can get XXL images for pennies

i meant keyword - my bad.

let's just say i purchase a photo of an ape because somebody like you felt that it should be keyworded as a such, when in actual fact it is a monkey, used it on a cover of a major magazine, then i had to write a letter of correction, or even worse face litigation, or even way worse lost my client by buying poorly keyworded images, then i would most likely not buy from that source again. all because of one person who thought he would falsely keyword an image for the buyers that did not know the difference?

keyword how you want man, but by not keywording accurately you are ruining the party for everyone.

now your captions must be really special, this is a monkey/ape from blah blah blah. monkey/apes eat bananas. a monkey is not an ape, nor is an ape a monkey, but because you might not know and you searched for one but not the other we will say it is or is not in case i get a sale,

i think you have answered your own question in regards to what keyword spam is.

while you are being liberal with false keywords, ape, monkey, you might want to add human just in case the buyer wants a monkey while they searched for a human as we are all primates.

continue the spam man, you are good at it, and really good at justifying it.

Leo Blanchette · « **Reply #26 on:** July 31, 2013, 22:28 »

Is this a serious conversation?

shudderstok · « **Reply #27 on:** July 31, 2013, 22:56 »

Quote from: Leo on July 31, 2013, 22:28

Is this a serious conversation?

as serious as a heart attack.

what do you think?

is being very liberal with keywords considered keyword spam?

i say yes it is, and cascoly seems to think it's not.

so back to the reference of monkey and ape, they are very different and there ore the correct keywords should be used. but cascoly thinks they are cute and sort of the same and therefore it's quite ok to keyword as both just in case the buyer wants to purchase what he did not search for in the first place, and feels that there is a chance it would be a missed sale.

my point is that anything other than accurate keywords is spam. his point is that it's ok to use non accurate keywords as long as one (buyer) does not know the difference between a monkey and an ape.

so yes, it is serious as falsely using keywords will turn all buyers off, thus hurting us all in the long run. nothing worse than searching for an ape and getting a page full of monkeys. or searching for oranges and getting lemons etc.

Leo Blanchette · « **Reply #28 on:** July 31, 2013, 23:06 »

I'm amazed its even an issue in a world where people run their own sites. Glad people care to consider it though

Leo Blanchette · « **Reply #29 on:** July 31, 2013, 23:16 »

Quote from: shudderstok on July 31, 2013, 22:56

Quote from: Leo on July 31, 2013, 22:28
Is this a serious conversation?

is being very liberal with keywords considered keyword spam?

I guess I should give my little bit here -

From a customers perspective, if you enter the word "car" and a mouse shows up its annoying.

I design strictly from an SEO perspective, knowing most customers will find you landing from a search engine. And they will probably be using categories. Search on a person's site is probably not the biggest part of the picture.

With the new search system available soon you'll be getting results from content and titles if you wish, as well as word fragments ("wonderbread" will show up in searches for "bread").

I think people will care the most about keyword spamming when centralized operations start popping up more. In which case I'm sure those hub sites will probably have some standards.

Hope this is helpful.

LesHoward · « **Reply #30 on:** August 01, 2013, 00:44 »

Quote from: shudderstok on July 31, 2013, 22:24

let's just say i purchase a photo of an ape because somebody like you felt that it should be keyworded as a such, when in actual fact it is a monkey, used it on a cover of a major magazine, then i had to write a letter of correction, or even worse face litigation, or even way worse lost my client by buying poorly keyworded images, then i would most likely not buy from that source again. all because of one person who thought he would falsely keyword an image for the buyers that did not know the difference?

If someone hired me to take a picture of an ape then I would make sure I took a picture of an ape and not a monkey. It would be up to me to know the difference. Giving them a picture of a monkey would be incompetent on my part.

Similarly, if they asked me to design a magazine cover featuring a picture of an ape, I would be asking them questions about what what sort of ape they had in mind and that is exactly what I would give them. It's up to me to ensure the picture is indeed an ape. Again, anything less would be incomprtence. The customer could also give me the freedom to use a monkey or a gorilla instead but that's his decision, not mine.

My point is that not only do we contributors have a responsibility to keyword accurately but buyers also have a similar responsibility to ensure the picture is indeed appropriate for their project.

shudderstok · « **Reply #31 on:** August 01, 2013, 01:18 »

Quote from: LesHoward on August 01, 2013, 00:44

Quote from: shudderstok on July 31, 2013, 22:24

let's just say i purchase a photo of an ape because somebody like you felt that it should be keyworded as a such, when in actual fact it is a monkey, used it on a cover of a major magazine, then i had to write a letter of correction, or even worse face litigation, or even way worse lost my client by buying poorly keyworded images, then i would most likely not buy from that source again. all because of one person who thought he would falsely keyword an image for the buyers that did not know the difference?

If someone hired me to take a picture of an ape then I would make sure I took a picture of an ape and not a monkey. It would be up to me to know the difference. Giving them a picture of a monkey would be incompetent on my part.

Similarly, if they asked me to design a magazine cover featuring a picture of an ape, I would be asking them questions about what what sort of ape they had in mind and that is exactly what I would give them. It's up to me to ensure the picture is indeed an ape. Again, anything less would be incomprtence. The customer could also give me the freedom to use a monkey or a gorilla instead but that's his decision, not mine.

My point is that not only do we contributors have a responsibility to keyword accurately but buyers also have a similar responsibility to ensure the picture is indeed appropriate for their project.

yes, i know you get it, but the OP doesn't. i agree, contributors have the responsibility to keyword accurately, and buyers should have similar responsibility to ensure the picture is indeed appropriate for their project as there are contributors that are deviant enough to caption an image for what it is not.

"if you choose to ignore buyers who don't know the difference between a monkey & an ape, that's your decision" this is his excuse to spam. this is willful misdirection.

this sh!tty attitude will turn buyers off and go where there is no misdirection in keywording, which will affect us all in the long run. some sites actually are vigilante about keywords and will reject an image over bad keyword, and so they should be.

enough from me on this, i don't need to keyword spam. tricks are for kids.

Pilens · « **Reply #32 on:** August 01, 2013, 02:36 »

I am with cascoly here. While an image's caption should as accurately and precisely as possible describe the image, keywords are to help image users finding the best image for their purpose. I doubt that even half of potential ape/monkey image buyers are aware of the academic differentiation. We should also take into account that there are a lot of buyers that are not native English speakers. If a buyer cares to read my monkey image's caption found with keyword ape, this image would never make it on a cover if that buyer really wanted an ape.

In any case, when I look at the keywords that buyers used to find and buy my images on DT I find that roughly one third used keywords that are more or less off. I take this as clear indication not to be overly dogmatic on this issue. If I really p!ss off buyers like shudderstok, so it be. - Just show me one stock collection from many contributors that is free from "keyword spamming" issues when you see it as strict as shudderstok? Yet, it seems buyers are still happy to use such collections in ever increasing numbers.

My 2 cents!

ShazamImages · « **Reply #33 on:** August 01, 2013, 04:44 »

Quote from: Pilens on August 01, 2013, 02:36

I am with cascoly here.

+1

DF_Studios · « **Reply #34 on:** August 01, 2013, 07:55 »

I tried a search for "dog", one of my fav stock subjects, and I was surprised to see one of my "pulled pork sandwich" shots show up. I guess because I included my site name as a keyword "dogford studios".

I don't think that qualifies as keyword spam. There was also a picture of a bridge from somewhere over the dog river or something.

***** Now that I think about it some more. I probably wouldn't want muck up one of my fav search words. If the search engine is pulling "dog" out of "dogford".

Anyway I've been focusing on SEO. I don't know how many people are using the sys network search to find stuff. I think we need to concentrate on pulling people in to the network via SEO.

ShazamImages · « **Reply #35 on:** August 01, 2013, 08:40 »

Quote from: DF_Studios on August 01, 2013, 07:55

I tried a search for "dog", one of my fav stock subjects, and I was surprised to see one of my "pulled pork sandwich" shots show up. I guess because I included my site name as a keyword "dogford studios".

Where did you do the search?

I just tried it on Symbiostock.info and didn't see the sandwich show up.

Imagenomad · « **Reply #36 on:** August 01, 2013, 09:30 »

I had this conversation on MSG a few months back.

In some languages, the word for "monkey" and "ape" is the same. In Italian, there is one word for both that has the same etymological root as "simian".

The conversation arose because iStock's keywording system disambiguates "ape" to "monkey".

The "monkey/ape" problem is fairly specific but it is a real one. A similar problem is "English" being used by buyers when they mean "British" (or even "Welsh", "Scottish" or "Northern Irish"). Ditto for "England" being used when the buyer really means "United Kingdom". So just like I may keyword an orang-utan as "monkey" I have the conundrum of deciding whether to keyword all my shots from Wales as "England". ~~I see that even our very own Mr Locke made this egregious error recently in another thread.~~ (That was cleared up but it's still a common problem).

Trust me. Asking a Welshman to include "England" as a keyword for a shot taken in the town of his birth is like asking Dubya to vote Communist.

I think that the point is that it's easy to spot extreme keyword spam but there's a huge, wide, large, massive, grey, gray, area, region, where one woman's spam is another man's effective, comprehensive, best practice (practise).

Ron · « **Reply #37 on:** August 01, 2013, 09:49 »

Great Britain and the UK are different as well, but I always add them both if I shot something in England. My images of the Seven Sisters in ~~Brighton~~ Sussex have all 3

http://semmickphoto.com/image/seven-sisters-cliffs-in-england/

Kerioak~Christine · « **Reply #38 on:** August 01, 2013, 10:00 »

The Seven Sisters are in Sussex between Eastbourne and Seaford, they do not stretch as far as Brighton

I think you were probably closer to Beachy Head looking west ?

Some more views of them http://stockimages.kerioak.com/image/chalk-cliffs-at-beachy-head-viewed-over-red-viburnum-berries/

Ron · « **Reply #39 on:** August 01, 2013, 10:03 »

Quote from: Kerioak~Christine on August 01, 2013, 10:00

The Seven Sisters are in Sussex between Eastbourne and Seaford, they do not stretch as far as Brighton

I think you were probably closer to Beachy Head looking west ?

Some more views of them http://stockimages.kerioak.com/image/chalk-cliffs-at-beachy-head-viewed-over-red-viburnum-berries/

Sorry, you are right, I meant Sussex. Brighton is not in the keywords. That day we started shooting in Brighton.

DF_Studios · « **Reply #40 on:** August 01, 2013, 12:51 »

http://cascoly.com/symbio/symbiostock-network.asp

Gave me the sandwich shot and a few other randoms from my portfolios based on "dogford studios" in my keywords. I didn't try symbiostock.info

I wouldn't want to mess up the usefulness of search but I also recall one of the most annoying things I experienced on DT was this idiot who had nothing better to do then pull tickets on people for supposive keyword stuffing.

I'd get these stupid tickets on legitimate keywords and then have to explain how they were relevant. The guy was either super OCD or was just trying to cause trouble.

Leo Blanchette · « **Reply #41 on:** August 01, 2013, 14:53 »

I'm really not a very good authority on this subject. We all love spam here:

cascoly · « **Reply #42 on:** August 01, 2013, 15:59 »

Quote from: LesHoward on August 01, 2013, 00:44

If someone hired me to take a picture of an ape then I would make sure I took a picture of an ape and not a monkey. It would be up to me to know the difference. Giving them a picture of a monkey would be incompetent on my part.

Similarly, if they asked me to design a magazine cover featuring a picture of an ape, I would be asking them questions about what what sort of ape they had in mind and that is exactly what I would give them. It's up to me to ensure the picture is indeed an ape. Again, anything less would be incomprtence. The customer could also give me the freedom to use a monkey or a gorilla instead but that's his decision, not mine.

My point is that not only do we contributors have a responsibility to keyword accurately but buyers also have a similar responsibility to ensure the picture is indeed appropriate for their project.

exactly -- when I started this thread, I thought the monkey/ape example was a fairly easy example of what would NOT be spam. guess I was wrong

in any case, what I was looking for was a discussion of what might be done for what most people would consider extreme spam - eg, one microagency suggests 'sexy' as a category for ANY image that has 'woman' in the keywords or description.

I've come across a coupla cases of this in the existing collection, but as it grows it's more likely and I was looking for ways to handle it .

Leo Blanchette · « **Reply #43 on:** August 01, 2013, 16:03 »

Personally keyword spamming doesn't bother me in a system where I can just cut off the connection with the spammer

People of course will say "OMG Leo doesn't care about keyword spamming!!!" but really the issue is that keywords are a small part of what bring customers to you at this point. Regarding the network and everyone sharing the load though, I'd hope blatant disrespect and self-promotion could be avoided.

Pilens · « **Reply #44 on:** August 01, 2013, 16:40 »

Quote from: Leo on August 01, 2013, 16:03

Personally keyword spamming doesn't bother me in a system where I can just cut off the connection with the spammer

People of course will say "OMG Leo doesn't care about keyword spamming!!!" but really the issue is that keywords are a small part of what bring customers to you at this point. Regarding the network and everyone sharing the load though, I'd hope blatant disrespect and self-promotion could be avoided.

I agree with Leo. However, I can see that keyword spamming might create a problem for those of us who run a hub site. One idea to deal with it could be a system where image searchers/buyers can easily "flag" what they think is keyword spamming. Image owners and hub site owner could then be informed of those flags. It'd help hub sites to recognize possible spamming and help everyone else not intentionally spamming to pinpoint and correct issues.
That said, I am aware that DT has such a system implemented, which I believe is just a PITA and doesn't help much. But that's just my limited view as a contributor. So I might be wrong.

zeamonkey · « **Reply #45 on:** August 07, 2013, 02:09 »

Just a thought...I've noticed in analytics that my most common keyword on my site is "minipic" aka the thumbnail. Would it be helpfull SEOwise to change minipic to stockphoto?

Leo Blanchette · « **Reply #46 on:** August 07, 2013, 02:12 »

In the more recent version we're setting up I'm pretty sure thats been addressed.

anjaliaroha · « **Reply #47 on:** August 08, 2013, 02:18 »

Keyword spamming means you are using repeated keywords in the content, I mean to say that high keyword density can cause keyword spamming. One more reason for keyword spamming is that you are using your keywords repeatedly in title and description tag for the website.

Ron · « **Reply #48 on:** August 08, 2013, 02:43 »

Quote from: anjaliaroha on August 08, 2013, 02:18

Keyword spamming means you are using repeated keywords in the content, I mean to say that high keyword density can cause keyword spamming. One more reason for keyword spamming is that you are using your keywords repeatedly in title and description tag for the website.

Thats the whole purpose of SEO !

Yoast actually is telling us to make sure the focus keyword is everywhere.

cathyslife · « **Reply #49 on:** August 08, 2013, 06:35 »

Quote from: Ron on August 08, 2013, 02:43

Quote from: anjaliaroha on August 08, 2013, 02:18
Keyword spamming means you are using repeated keywords in the content, I mean to say that high keyword density can cause keyword spamming. One more reason for keyword spamming is that you are using your keywords repeatedly in title and description tag for the website.

Thats the whole purpose of SEO !

Yoast actually is telling us to make sure the focus keyword is everywhere.

I agree. Thats what seo is all about.

I consider keyword spamming when someone adds popular, irrelevant terms to their image. Like when i do a search for a horse and get pictures of women with a headset.

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Author Topic: what is keyword spam? (Read 25653 times)

shudderstok

Leo Blanchette

shudderstok

Leo Blanchette

Leo Blanchette

LesHoward

shudderstok

Pilens

ShazamImages

DF_Studios

ShazamImages

Imagenomad

Ron

Kerioak~Christine

Ron

DF_Studios

Leo Blanchette

cascoly

Leo Blanchette

Pilens

zeamonkey

Leo Blanchette

anjaliaroha

Ron

cathyslife

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