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AlamySearch - Get the info

Permalink Comments (251)23 January 2007 at 10:24 by James Allsworth
Posted under News

A picture of a Woman searching an archive - Image AXHH27 © BE&W
© BE&W Since AlamySearch went live in October, we have been bombarded with emails and calls asking about how it works, why it does what it does and what will happen with it in the not too distant future.

Well, may we please divert your attention to the detailed information on AlamySearch. See, its just over there on the left.

If you have any questions after reading this information then by all means email us.

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Add your own commentComments (251)

  1. 23 January 2007 at 17:57 idmurray

    Thanks for setting this up. It's a great idea as long as we all treat it sensibly. I for one remain very concerned about the effect of AlamyRank on my sales. What I really want to find out is more about what I can do to work within the system. I have felt a bit vulnerable to decisions and events which I don't fully understand or know how to respond to. Thanks again for opening this dialogue.
    Ian Murray

  2. 23 January 2007 at 18:00 Robert Slade

    I agree with Ian - my sales have also plummeted in January, possibly due to AlamyRank, and any information on how contributors may improve the situation is welcome.

    Well done to Alamy for setting this up!

  3. 23 January 2007 at 18:46 John Fowler

    I am equally concerned. My Alamy sales, which had been steadily growing over three years to a somewhat satisfying level, began to tank in October. November and December were worse - and so far this month (January 23), Zero.

    My images are "editorial" in nature, especially suited to textbooks, and have always sold well when I've placed them with editorial-type agencies and distributors. I've also been a loyal Alamy contributor for years and am anxious to continue being so. But something is wrong, without question.

    Please help me get back to where I was.

  4. 23 January 2007 at 18:47 Lynne Evans

    I understand that new contributors are allocated the median rank to get them started. I became a contributor at the same time as AlamyRank started, but find that in test searches my images tend to be on the last couple of pages of, say, 1000 images (sometimes more, sometimes less depending on the search criteria). I am very concerned that my images have little chance of being viewed by potential purchasers.

  5. 23 January 2007 at 18:51 Linda Kennedy

    Excellent - Looking forward to getting Alamy news in real time. Just been having a look at the Resources section - loads of good tips there. Keep it up & well done.

    Linda

  6. 23 January 2007 at 19:18 Serguei

    When direct loading through the Internet at last will begin? You already for a long time promise it to make but do not do, (the word not a sparrow needs to be carried out it, Russian proverb :))

  7. 23 January 2007 at 19:19 Ben Plewes

    At some point in the future I would love to be able to see my Alamy Rank score in real time, just like sales info, as part of 'My Alamy'.

  8. 23 January 2007 at 19:22 Graham Hebditch

    I'm a little concerned with the Alamy search facility, I have quite a few images of twin girls on my site, some of which I've sold in the past, but on doing a search with three known keywords that appear in my images keywords the results were a little less than I expected.

    Out of 2300 images my first image appeared at number 1374, way after images that were obviously not keyworded correctly. For instance I typed "girls" "twins" and "happy", my images being twin girls running down a hill playing and was beaten by an image of two football socks!

    Something's wrong there surely?...

  9. 23 January 2007 at 20:02 Phil Robinson

    The basic idea behind Alamy Search is fundamentally a good one, but there are unfortunately many unforseen (I suspect) drawbacks.
    Including the 'description' field in keyword searches is a huge mistake, as the vast amount of information some photographers put there is bound to make a mockery of the searching process.
    It also discriminates against clear, graphic images which can be identified without enlargement and favours those that have to be clicked on just to check what the subject is.
    And as for bad captioning or keywording, in many cases it is only after the pictures have been clicked on and viewed that the irrelevance of the keywords can be discovered.
    I don't know what the solution is (apart from the description field). Any ideas?

  10. 23 January 2007 at 20:15 John-Mark Odero

    AlamySearch and AlamyRank are very intriguing. I'm glad Alamy is doing something about the picture and keywording spam. I've already had to get punitive action taken against a couple of keyword violators.

    For example the pseudonym Pictureproject not only ripped off all my keywords he/she/they also ripped off the unique Alamy identifier! It took over a month for the all the keywords to be removed.

    Another contributor pseudonym Frantisek Staud spammed at least 256 images with irrelevant keywords. My two accurately keyworded images appeared behind all 256 images! It took over 2 months for Alamy to rectify the problem by moving all his images to the back.

    I thought maybe it wasn't appropriate to name and shame these violaters but what they did was not subtle and in the case of Frantisek Staud he's had MONTHS to correct the problem with absolutely no movement on the situation.

    Alamy is the first agency I ever submitted to but I have started submitting to exclusive shops, because I was getting sick of seeing poorly edited collections of keyword spammed images beating out my shots.

    I believe in Alamy. I recently requested all of my images save for one be deleted, because I am going to touch them up in PS and reedit them. Then I am going to keyword them much tighter. I am going to try and submit in such a way that improves the overall experience for the end user. In the past I felt I had to dump everything onto Alamy just to compete with the spam. Now that less is more I think we will be free to make submissions like civilized human beings.

  11. 23 January 2007 at 20:16 Barry Cronin

    I agree with most sentiments expressed so far, number 1 - the blog is a great idea, number 2 - extremely disappointing sales, a bit like a Richard Hammond crash in reverse, 500 to zero in 5 seconds, surely a result of Alamyrank?

  12. 23 January 2007 at 20:29 James Goldsmith

    I'm still undecided on the idea of Alamy ranking and searching etc. I have seen a few times after doing searches for a particular place that the majority of the shots that appear towards the top are normally of the same thing, surely to be of any use to a buyer you would want as broad a coverage of a place as possible, and then narrow it down after.

    It would be useful to know how we perform in the ranking too (i hear it is coming). That way we can play around using pseudonyms and get a reasonable viewing!

  13. 23 January 2007 at 20:33 John-Mark Odero

    I just wanted to say that Alamy's recent disclosures have explained a lot about the idiosyncrasies of this website. For example I think that having the description field affect search results AT ALL is ludicrous. I've avoided it like the plague. If you've captioned and keyworded correctly the description does not need to be searchable. Now I understand that it must be a limitation of the search engine they are saddled with. That quirk always had me scratching my head.

    Another thing that I always found annoying is the way things that I grouped together like proper names in PS were fine at other libraries but ended up as two irrelevant keywords at Alamy. For example I took a picture of a building called the "Custom House". Everywhere else this image comes up as the "Custom House". At Alamy its the Custom House. So if someone is searching for pictures of Houses, guess what? My picture of a large domed, limestone government building comes up!

    These two items need to be addressed going forward. They would cut down on tons of keywording "spam". Plus I could add great descriptions to all my editorial work without fear of annoying clients with irrelevant search results.

    I hope someone is listening because these should be quick fixes... with the right software.

  14. 23 January 2007 at 20:38 Mark Scheuern

    The blog is a great idea. I commend Alamy on providing a forum for the free exchange of comments and ideas.

    I agree with most of the sentiments expressed about AlamyRank. I was excited at the prospect of the system described in the patent which was a rank for each keyword of each image. The current version, which is a ranking per pseudonym, is rather disappointing.

    I, too, see a number of wrongly keyworded images appearing at the tops of searches. We're told that the current ranking is the result of nine months of data collection and analysis. If that's the case, I that the concept of ranking by pseudonymn is fundamentally flawed.

    Consider this: why should the ranking of an image change just because the pseudonym is changed? The image hasn't been changed, the keywording hasn't been changed, only the pseudonym to which it's associated. That should not, IMO, change the order in which images appear in a search.

  15. 23 January 2007 at 20:40 Gunnar Kullenberg

    ...just want to add support to this view by Phil Robinson:
    "...Including the 'description' field in keyword searches is a huge mistake, as the vast amount of information some photographers put there is bound to make a mockery of the searching process..."

    Exactly right...

    I don't use it anymore except for a minimum of info like a date or similar...when it becomes "liberated" from the search realm I'll start using it again.

  16. 23 January 2007 at 20:53 Dirk v. Mallinckrodt

    The AlamyRank seems great for me. I have at least one picture of mine on the first page. Before I had to go to the last page to see one of mine. Number of Sales are the same as before.

  17. 23 January 2007 at 20:59 Ian M Butterfield

    I'd like to thank Almay for the excellent (detailed) write up on the AlamyRank / AlamySearch system. This is exactly the sort of information we as contributors need. I for one will be using the information given to "tighten up" my collection of images.

  18. 23 January 2007 at 21:29 Travelshots

    Alamy rank is working well for us. We only put up our very best images without lots of duplication and keyword very tightly.

  19. 23 January 2007 at 21:48 Jeff Morgan

    Great idea for the blog and allowing contributors to share concerns/ideas with Alamy directly.
    I for one am still concerned about the effects of the AlamyRank/Search system. It is so demoralizing, having been with Alamy since May '03 and put tremendous effort into building up a collection, working within the Alamy guidlines, to have sales cut by 50%.
    I think there is no doubt that the new system penalises specialists who have lots of similar keywords.

  20. 23 January 2007 at 21:49 Zgraggen

    Having just read the overview on AlamyRank, Search and The Future l am convinced that Alamy through a little forward thinking has improved a proven system that will increasingly add to the quality of service our all important image buyers receive. Clearly, Alamy as a business and every single contributor, large or small stands to gain from this.


    A good part of this improvement for me / for my part in this end-to-end business / partnership is this bit, and l quote “feedback will be provided to contributors to help them improve the rank of collections”, see The Future paragraph, we all know how important feedback is. This is a huge plus, essentially a gift from a major player (now how often does that happen) that will allow me personally to improve and thereby keep the momentum of increased quality of service moving forward and hopefully see the rewards of course.

  21. 23 January 2007 at 21:49 Jeff Morgan

    Great idea for the blog and allowing contributors to share concerns/ideas with Alamy directly.
    I for one am still concerned about the effects of the AlamyRank/Search system. It is so demoralizing, having been with Alamy since May '03 and put tremendous effort into building up a collection, working within the Alamy guidlines, to have sales cut by 50%.
    I think there is no doubt that the new system penalises specialists who have lots of similar keywords.

  22. 23 January 2007 at 21:50 Keith Pritchard

    Dear alamy,

    As a long-time photographer and serious agency contributor, I would have preferred you spend your resources on the following:

    Sorting out the AlamyRank fiasco - where you caused maximum discredit and disaffection to some of your earliest 'founding' specialist contributors.

    Sorting out how we photographers can get notified of ALL our image uses - and get paid accordingly.

    Giving us the formerly promised contributors' tools so that we can judge for ourselves how images are being viewed.

    Put an end to the increasing torrent of often useless, cut and paste reply scheme at Members Services. (Bring back Pippa to inject some humanity into the setup if necessary - bless her).

    To summarise: revert to being the alamy I once - a long time ago - described as 'the best thing since sliced bread'.

    Thank you.


    Dear fellow pro-tographers,

    Hi guys, Happy New Year.

    You all sound very enthusiastic about this sudden, latest, initiative. ;-)

    For God’s sake, stop being so *ff*ing precious with your words with respect to AlamyRank. See this space as an opportunity to say what you think - for once - as individuals, instead of cursing it by private email and behind closed doors.

    I'm going to retire from here (if necessary) standing my ground and protecting the interests of our profession - without being patronised by this PR 'blog' twaddle - even if you don't.

    Very good wishes, as ever,
    Keith

    Keith Pritchard
    marine photographer (UK)

  23. 23 January 2007 at 21:59 Tibor Bognar

    It seems a lot of people's sales are suffering because of AlamyRank: perhaps some revision is in order, friends at Alamy? I'm an individual photographer, not an agency; all my submitted images are radically different from each other and I use very few (perhaps too few) keywords and in spite of all this my sales seem to be slowing down lately. I have about ten times the number of images of an average contributor (based on Alamy numbers) and keep submitting new material regularly. What more can I do? Alamy was a great success in the last few years, but I'm afraid that the valid material (of which there is a lot)will be increasingly drowned in the sea of zillions of unedited, repetitive, keyword-spammed images. Something to think about!

  24. 23 January 2007 at 22:03 Phil Robinson

    A thought regarding the 'seen : viewed' ratio. If a customer has their screen set up to view 102 images a page, are those images at the bottom of the page, that might never be seen, counted as 'seen'?

  25. 23 January 2007 at 22:15 Iain Masterton

    Thanks, Alamy, for setting this Blog up.

    I just wondered when we can expect a reply from you to the 24 messages so far?

    Seems a bit one sided at the moment 8-)

    On the subject of Alamyrank , I have to agree with those before me who are currently a bit disheartened with the apparent effects of the new search order on sales levels...

    I would like to know when the rankings will be adusted and when we will be given tools to allow us to tweak our image content and keywords to maximum effect.

    Thanks and Best Regards

    Iain Masterton

    PS For those interested, there are discussion groups for Alamy contributors at Yahoo Groups...I won't mention any by name in case it is against the rules here.

  26. 23 January 2007 at 22:21 Phil Robinson

    Sorry, it's me again. I've just done a search with the single word 'Sienna'(the Italian name for Siena). The two highest-ranked pictures are black and white photos of a young girl on a beach - I could not find the word 'Sienna' anywhere in the title, keywords or description fields. Try searching under 'Croatian National Bank' and see if you can understand the results.

  27. 23 January 2007 at 22:38 chris

    Hi everybody.
    The Alamy Rank just favors more and more the well established photographers, who use the best keywording services for 4 USD / image.
    For now I think You cannot do anything more, just wait and see what Alamy figures out.

    TO PHIL ROBINSON
    Yes that is true withthe search results, but here You gave bad examples

    1. There is no Italian name as Sienna (only Siena exists), and here I think those with Sienna word should be penalized (as I really do not know what it is). Nevertheless the images of a girl (B&W) are strange to appear here

    2.As to "Croatia National Bank" I suppose the images of a river give the "bank" word (river bank), "national" may be for National Park and Croatian is just for the place

    Best for all of US!!!!

    chris

  28. 23 January 2007 at 22:48 Phil R

    My mistake: Sienna is the alternative English spelling - widely used and therefore a valid keyword.

  29. 23 January 2007 at 22:50 chris

    So my mistake. Thanks for the info , I did not know about the Sienna word. Thanks to You.
    Regards

  30. 23 January 2007 at 22:56 Tony Lilley

    I would also like to thank Alamy for levelling the playing field with image searches.
    I didn't realise that there was a bias towards Agencies in the search results. I did wonder why they seemed to come up mostly first when performing test searches. It is worrying to find out that a full description of an image with additional and helpful information for the buyer might have a negative affect on the Ranking. At least this is my understanding of what I have read. I have also, always been puzzled over the description field of some images being filled with keywords and no description! It will be interesting to see how we can tune our image data etc to improve Rank position.

    Kind regards, Tony Lilley.

  31. 23 January 2007 at 23:00 Bridget Clyde

    My specialist area is skiing - put in ski or skiing in the search and you will get 669,720 results - 6,566 pages. That is not a typo. Why - Alamy search can not tell the difference between sky and ski (and perhaps also skyyng and skiing). Six images on the first page have anything to do with skiing and my first ski related image turns up on page 7. Lord knows I've asked them to sort it but they show no inclination. I have nearly 2000 images related to skiing/wintersports. If I were a client searching for skiing I would give up. Its a mad system.

  32. 23 January 2007 at 23:12 chris

    Bridget, I am just shocked with the "ski" results. Can anyone explain me why "ski" stands for "sky" as well?!
    If it looks like that, You can keyword, keyword, keyword, and You end up with images showing the sky (!) when looking for "ski" word in the search! Oh...

  33. 23 January 2007 at 23:14 Justin Leighton

    Alamy Accounts people pls do not pay me at the moment. reaching $2 TO £ makes alamy too cheap for me. Put my earning into your $ Acc until this crazy 1990's situation calms down. Then pay me in gold into my swiz bank account. You know the number !!
    Lord Leighton

  34. 23 January 2007 at 23:17 Bridget Clyde

    And while I am on the rant - how about someone at Alamy gets The Telegraph sorted - I have an image used in May 2005 still not acknowledged on my statment or paid for, another used in May 2005 where The Telegraph eventually paid me direct and I have about 5 images used in a supplement in early October still not turned up on my statement. All Alamy will say is that it can be 2 - 3 months before the newspapers tell Alamy what they have used. Excuse me - does no one at Alamy working on the Telegraph account keep a track of what is used. And my contributing photographers see the images used and think I'm ripping them off. Anyone with any background in this business will know that The Telegraph have a history of using images and hoping to get away with out paying for them.

  35. 24 January 2007 at 00:26 Ninette Maumus

    It would be nice if the photo tips could include still life shooters in future Resources offerings. For instance, clues on what subject matter is most searched for would be extremely valuable information.

  36. 24 January 2007 at 02:01 Andrew

    Thanks for the addition of a blog. The announcement I'm really waiting for is online uploads for contributors. I've been holding onto my submissions for months waiting for this offering. I look forward to seeing it here soon, hopefully!

  37. 24 January 2007 at 03:22 Yoel Harel

    i like the photo which is describing the archives ,because it is reminding me the situation of being lost in mine.

  38. 24 January 2007 at 05:20 Michael

    I hope some contributors (and Alamy staff?) will find this helpful...and I hope the information I am writing is correct (if not, I'm sure someone will let me know - that's one of the joys of blogs):

    If Alamy Rank gives a higher rank for more clicks and sales per fewer views, then the equation shown for Alamy Rank (Alamy Rank = Views/[Clicks+Sales]) on www.alamy.com/contributors/alamysearch/ and perhaps other pages on the site is shown upside down. If I understand the description of Alamy Rank correctly (and I very well may not), then contributors are striving for a higher rank not a lower rank, and if so, then "Views" should be in the denominator.

    That is, the equation shown should be "Alamy Rank = (Clicks+Sales)/Views". As the image of the equation is presented now, with Views in the numerator, more views and **FEWER** clicks or sales results in higher ranking... which is not what was intended and I hope is not what is actually programmed into the system... If this is in fact the equation that is programmed into the system, that could be one reason why people have been seeing drops in sales, but I will assume that the problem is in the graphic shown.

    If anyone else had a problem figuring out how the equation matched the description, I hope that helped.

    Best regards to everyone.

  39. 24 January 2007 at 05:43 Michael DeFreitas

    I'm really new to Alamy. Can someone explain how I group my underwater shots into a separate "pseudonym" from my topside travel shots?

    Also, to answer one of the concerns above. If a contributor spells sky incorrectly as ski in their keywording then it will show up when someone searches for sky. I have looked at a bunch of images and have found many incorrectly spelled words. It’s too bad the system doesn't have a rudimentary spell check.

  40. 24 January 2007 at 08:35 Jon Bower

    Hi, nice idea for a blog!

    I'm interested to see that several of the initial postings in this strand relate to falling sales. Me, too. As a very early (2002) and enthusiastic convert to Alamy, I was pleased to see several years of rising image numbers and sales. Then things started to fall off last year, accelerating as the year closed.

    I've now seen average prices per image decline by 40% and income per image (currently at the 4000 level) fall similarly.

    Needless to say, to keep contributing more images but see my income declining is not a pleasant or sustainable situation. I know times are tough in this business, but that doesn't altogether explain what's been happening.

    Is the constant mucking around with ranking algortithms the culprit? I just don't know.

    Anyway, here's hoping for an explanation or reversal of this trend!

    Best to all.

  41. 24 January 2007 at 09:05 Kathy Hancock

    Is anyone from Alamy ever going to reply to any of these questions?

  42. 24 January 2007 at 09:12 Zgraggen

    Just for balance, ranking algorithm, luck or what ever, l had a nice start to the New Year my contributions run into hundreds rather then thousands for the time being.

  43. 24 January 2007 at 09:37 Kumar Sriskandan

    Hi.

    Great idea to have a blog - thanks for it.

    I completely agree with several previous contributors that to include words in the "description-field" of the photo in the search doesn't make any sense and may well contribute to the results which are sometimes difficult to understand!

  44. 24 January 2007 at 09:37 Robert Slade

    AlamyRank seems to have caused quite a stir ... some good, but mostly with people whose sales figures have been destroyed!

    I hope Alamy are going to be posting some responses on this 'blog' very soon? Praise is due for setting it up - but it's no use as a one-sided forum.

    My major question is exactly when will the search engine results order be updated. It's been stagnant since October. Then how often will they be shuffled based on the views/clicks/sales formula?

    Please enlighten us! Thanks.


  45. 24 January 2007 at 09:46 Ian Murray

    Reading comments above and from other sources such as photographer polls the following appears to be GENERALLY true about the effects of AlamyRank:

    1) Specialists and those with large collections have had falling sales

    2) Generalists with small numbers of a wide range of subjects and those with smallish collection have had rising sales

    People in the first group who have worked hard over the last few years feel let down but are likely to keep adding images anyway or at least not removing them.

    People in the second group are currently elated and feel strongly encouraged to add more images.

    Possible outcome:

    People in group 2 will continue submitting until their sales slow and they will merge into group 1

    There will be a new group enjoying success with small collections and high ranks - Group 3

    Repeat process...

    Isn't this a perfect scenario for Alamy if not for individual contributors?

    Ian Murray

  46. 24 January 2007 at 09:52 Glyn Ryland

    Thanks for the opportunity to share views with other photogs, real step forward, and a mark of a business that listens.

    There is some way to go with the 'search' on Alamy. The 'stemming' is pretty poor, Ski get sky wildfowling get wildfowl etc. That's going to drive customers mad!

    Ranking, always hard to set up and keep everyone happy. My images are always WAY back so no views and no improvement in rank. no amount of tinkering with metadata is going to get round that.

    I'd go for limiting the metadata used by the search, allow everyone one paragraph of key words to be searched. then allow the rest of the data as for customers information only. Then the searched paragraph will be important and worth spending time on, and only diligent phorogs will give customer info, but at least what is given will be good!

    Best

    Glyn

  47. 24 January 2007 at 10:05 Tony Watson

    My sales have also plummeted towards the end of last year. Iv'e been with Alamy for two years and have been very pleased with the sales rate untill then. I've been going through my collection, checking for anything that may harm my ranking, but I would like to know my rank now.

    It seems that the people who helped to build up this business are being penalized in favour of new contributors. I understand the need for more & more images, however at the recent meetings in Elephant & Castle it was admitted that the rate of images being added is overtaking sales. Therefore fewer sales per contributor. I,m now looking at other agencys to host my work, where as before I was content to use Alamy exclusivly. I can't be the only one thinking this. Unless Alamy does something soon, a lot of digruntled people will do the same, damaging the business, in the longterm.

  48. 24 January 2007 at 10:06 Jon Arnold

    So everyone's blogging then! Even Getty. Though unlike Getty, Alamy allows comments, which may or may not be a good thing!

    Well AmlamySearch (Alamy Rank) seems to work for us on the whole. However we had problems with any new pseudonyms we used; they're given a 'mean rank' which in practice, as far as we could observe, placed the images in the bottom 10% of searches. And did they make sales? NO.

    But whatever technological system Alamy employs there's always going to be winners and losers. 7 million images and growing; that's a case of supply outstripping demand by a very large margin. The same could be said of other image portals and large libraries too. Corbis has 75 million images, AGE at least 4 million, Photo Library several million, Getty too etc etc.

    More and more its not just a case of getting the right image of the highest standard but its also a matter of where the image comes up in a search.

    Jon

  49. 24 January 2007 at 10:16 Graham Owston

    The idea of Alamyrank is quite depressing, clearly contributors who are placed at the end of the searches will remain there with sales becoming more and more infrequent.
    What a pity that a modern IT system cannot offer a more dynamic and imaginative search engine which is fairer to all contributors !

  50. 24 January 2007 at 10:19 Zgraggen

    To change the subject slightly, l am thinking about purchasing the iView MediaPro3 software advertised on the site mainly for the keywording side, but wondered if l might be wasting my Euros once the contributors upload facility comes along, l appreciate that uploading is a separate process in the workflow, but just wondered if the upload facility and iVew will be butted together, i.e. effectively, press send in iView after keywording etc and off the images go to Alamy for QA.

    Anybody know, use iVeiw?. Alamy staff can you reassure / comment?.

  51. 24 January 2007 at 10:32 Nick Lewis

    I think the blog is a great idea and will open up channels of communication between Alamy and our fellow contributors. This has been very interesting reading indeed to see how others are faring under the new AlamyRank system. My collection is only just under 800 strong and some of my images seem to rank quite well. Time will tell as they say. Nice to see a few AlamyPro members in here!

  52. 24 January 2007 at 10:32 Rob Rayworth

    Michael, your assessment of the formula
    Alamy Rank = Views/Clicks+Sales is correct as far as I remember from my algebra days at school, and I agree that the formula is upside down. I don't think however it will make any difference to the shape of things. Too much is at stake back at the ranch after all the fanfare and ceremony.

    My sales pre AlamyRank were 1 every 3 to 5 days over the last six years. I have not had a sale in 38 days. Sums it all up really.

    Call some place paradise and kiss it goodbye

  53. 24 January 2007 at 11:00 Clive Sawyer

    What photographers must realise now is that we are all producing a commodity which is subject to market forces. When those photographers joined at the begining, Alamy had less than one million shots.........look at how many they now have.We are adding shots all the time and just diluting each and everyones sales potential and yet the market for images has not gone up in the same proportion. Anyone who can afford a 10 megapixal camera and produce 15 reasonable shots, get them on to Alamy, can call them selves a professional photographer.The future potential for making serious money from stock is diminishing as we speak/write.

  54. 24 January 2007 at 11:05 Nichola Salvato

    I am a very new contributor with alamy and the blog is making very interesting reading.......I wonder if alamy will be reviewing the rank system at all given the feedback from photographers as surely they will not want to loose their long term quality contributors to other libraries.......if they indeed take on board photographer feedback, I have always thought that a system where the client can choose how his search results are displayed would be a good idea. ie. choose most popular first or most recent work first etc

  55. 24 January 2007 at 11:34 Jack Cox

    I more or less agree with what everyone is saying about the DESCRIPTION field being searchable. I brought this up at the London meeting. It’s a crazy and very unfair situation. Contributors use it correctly, to add a description, in other words, background information, about the image. Alamy misuse it and the contributor gets penalised. Its just not fair.

    However it would be a shame to see this valuable information made unavailable in searches altogether. A far more constructive solution, in my humble opinion, would be ad add a field under Advanced Search called “Secondary Search Box” and this would search the description field.

    Here is just one example of how this could be useful to image buyers. Say somebody wants a picture of a bird in flight but they only want ground nesting species. Under the Alamy Rank rules, the photographer cannon put “ground nesting” in his keywords for fear of false positives in search results for “nesting birds”. Remember his bird is not nesting, it is in flight. However he could say “this is a ground nesting species” in the description field. Then if the buyer put “bird in flight” into the Primary Search Box and “ground nesting species” in the Secondary Search Box, the correct image would be easy to find.

    Maybe this is not the best example. All am sure you can all think up better ones more relevant to your own work. If so, please share them with us here.

    Best regards

    Jack Cox

  56. 24 January 2007 at 11:36 Michael Howard

    I am one of those favoured by alamyrank, having made many small sales from relatively few sent in (RM). Few of them were similars and the keywords were relevant.

    But there was an element of luck here - a client has used and re-used one of my pictures 14 times over the last few months and there are several other repeat uses. I am also lucky in that in the sphere I work the RF offerings (so far) are poor. The worry is that some comptetent RF images might eventually queer the pitch.

    The contributors who ask Alamy to remove the "description" from the equation are dead right. Please do it without delay Alamy!

    Another easy improvement would be for Alamy simply to truncate the keyword section to a lowish number. This would force those who "spammed" with hundreds of keywords in the past to redo with a few relevant ones.

  57. 24 January 2007 at 11:52 Nick Lewis

    I agree that searching should work based on keywords only and the description should only serve as background information for the buyer to help them clarify that the image is what they are looking for.

  58. 24 January 2007 at 12:19 Doktorfootball

    It seems the losers here are being more vocal than the winners. I for one have seen my sales go up after AlamyRank was introduced. I think it's time the people who are moaning about lost sales started to realize that instead of whinging they should go and redo their keywords to make them more accurate, and stop sending in so many similar images.

  59. 24 January 2007 at 12:29 Peter Forsberg


    This blog is good, because in such an inhumanely big institution as Alamy is, it has been difficult to do much more than submit and keyword.

    I have been submitting images to Alamy since August 2005. It has been slow, but during the last year or so I have added some 2,500 photos here, from all over Europe. The sales were non-existent for the first 5 months, then sluggish, about two photos per month until September, and since then (and especially after AlamyRank) there have been at least 4 sales per month. The only thing I don't like is the fact that it takes such a long time to get anything into the system, the time it takes for the images to be admitted into the system is longer and longer, now pushing two months.

    The other thing I don't like is the fact that not all imagebuyers pay for their images. I think Alamy should be more stringent about to whom they give the credit account and mainly demand that the image is paid for before it can be used.

    There seem to be a few here who have seen their sales go down, but it will all even out in the end. And it's good that people who have been selling their images like hot cakes in the past sell now less and let the newcomers get their share. That's what digital photography is all about: the old guard has to stand down and see their unfair advantages go with the modern times!

  60. 24 January 2007 at 12:42 James Allsworth - Alamy content team

    Many thanks for all your comments so far, we are reading them all and taking everything on board but we wont be answering specific questions here. Please have a look at the blog post entitled "Blog comments – The floodgates open!" for more information.

    Also just a friendly reminder - please keep your comments relevant to the post title.

  61. 24 January 2007 at 13:01 Pearl Bucknall

    Back in the summer I inadvertently discovered that my images were coming up on the latter pages of any search that I did. I tried all sorts of searches to try to find out why but to no avail. Thinking this was likely to result in fewer sales than if they came up near the front I wrote to member services to ask why. They would tell me nothing other than to advise me to wait for AlamyRank. I was making regular monthly sales however.
    Since AlamyRank was introduced my images have come up on the first few pages which I thought would mean increased sales but instead they have plummeted with nothing so far this month.
    I wrote again to member services but just got a standard reply about peaks and troughs - strange there weren't any before!

  62. 24 January 2007 at 13:24 Tibor Bognar

    After the remarkably rapid break in the top ranks of photo agencies, the next challege for Alamy now is to manage the phenomenal growth to avoid becoming victim of its own success. About half a million images were added in last couple of months alone! Trying to put myself in the shoes of a client, while it's nice to have a large choice at one point it becomes too much of a good thing when you have to wade through mountains of irrelevant material to find the right image. Contrary to what Jon Arnold said, Corbis has much fewer images than Alamy (although I don't know the exact number)but can show much better results with them. I have 10 times more images on Alamy than on Corbis, but get 4 times more money form the latter - that's 40 times the income per image! This seems to indicate a client preference for a tightly edited collection. Unfortunately I don't have the recipe what Alamy should be doing with this situation, but if it goes on Alamy is in the risk of deteriorating into one of the popular amateur websites where anyone can post anything. While this may make many people happy I'm sure serious professionals will not be among them and if they start to leave or just stop contributing will Alamy be happy?

  63. 24 January 2007 at 13:37 idmurray

    "It seems the losers here are being more vocal than the winners. I for one have seen my sales go up after AlamyRank was introduced. I think it's time the people who are moaning about lost sales started to realize that instead of whinging they should go and redo their keywords to make them more accurate, and stop sending in so many similar images."

    A couple of points. Those old whingers contributed in exactly the way that they were asked to by Alamy at the time. That included being encouraged to add a thesaurus full of keywords - the instruction was basically 'if in doubt include it cos it can't do harm'. Newsletter after newsletter stressed this including the urge to add the all important adjectives and concept words. Boy, am I glad that I never found time to keyword 'properly' because those that did are being punished for it now!

    Also, the message that similars 'were in general okay - you never know what the buyer wants - but don't go over the top - a limit of five is about right.' It tended to be contributors complaining about too many similars and Alamy being rather defensive for allowing it. There were big hurrahs on the forums when the 'limit' of five was introduced.

    All of a sudden the rules changed. But contributors have not been provided with tools to respond quickly or easily to those changed rules. That is the trouble.

    I think its a shame that there have been so few developments in respect to the tools in My Alamy - such as bulk keywording, sophisticated searches, automatic amendments to all data fields, and even the option to delete speedily!

    It's always good to hear success stories but I feel you are being rather unfair in dismissing people as whingers who have seen their sales collapse after years of hard work on Alamy. Stalwarts, loyalists, committed contributors, experienced members, salt of the earth, perhaps!?

    I feel that many can be justified in feeling that they have been harshly treated by developments even if this has happened as an unforeseen outcome rather than by design.

  64. 24 January 2007 at 14:07 Jacques Jangoux

    I cannot comment yet on the performance of AlamyRank as I had so far just one sale in January, and it is the same picture and seems to be from the same client as A December sale.

    Introduction: In most one-word search that bring thousands of pictures I appear to be ranked close to the top within a group of about 30-35 photographers, as after the first picture (usually on p. 3 to 5) I have one picture every 30-35th picture.

    I suggest two ways that will 1. narrow the searches and 2. make some pictures appear although they are at the end of searches.

    1. Instead of having a small link for the Advanced search on the home page, add the Advanced search to the home page. There is room for it (at the bottom right, for example). It may induce more researchers to go directly to the advanced search, thus reducing greatly the numbers of results per search, which would be more focused. I agree that it may make the home page a little heavy; I am sure Alamy had good reasons (faster access) to make it simple.

    2. Add, still on the home page, the option of a random search (one agency uses random search exclusively - it started at about the same time as AlamyRank so it´s to earl to have sales figures), both for the general search and for advanced searches. Some good images from photographers with a low ranking, generally buried at the bottom of searches, would occasionally appear, be clicked and eventually be sold.

    I would add a third comment: individual image ranking could be considered, placing the best sellers or most often viewed images toward the top of searches (for one specific search for which I have 6 images, my allover best selling image appears next to last of the 6).

  65. 24 January 2007 at 14:35 Mark Scheuern

    "It seems the losers here are being more vocal than the winners. I for one have seen my sales go up after AlamyRank was introduced. I think it's time the people who are moaning about lost sales started to realize that instead of whinging they should go and redo their keywords to make them more accurate, and stop sending in so many similar images."

    I'll add to idmurray's comments and say that of course one should have accurate keywording and not go crazy with similars. But it's wrong to assume that doing that will necessarily help your ranking under the present system. Try doing a search on "cat" and, on the first page of 48000-some images, you'll see shots of a whale, a frog, a leaf, a squirrel, a parrot, a rabbit, and a wolf. All nice images and, in some cases, perhaps the keyword makes some sense but I don't think they're what a buyer searching for "cat" would want.

    I do primarily automotive and motorsports photography, I'm familiar with the subjects, so wrongly keyworded images jump right out at me. I see a lot of highly-ranked images with incorrect keywords. What's the lesson to be learned from that?

  66. 24 January 2007 at 14:54 Mark Scheuern


    I should add that I hope comments about problems we see with AlamyRank aren't interpreted as "whinging". I'm a long-time supporter of Alamy and they've done a lot of good things for me. That doesn't, however, dissuade me from pointing out problems as I see them.

    Though it's probably a bit too early to tell, my sales--so far--don't seem to have been harmed by AlamyRank but, long-term, it can't help. Obviously, ranking is a zero-sum game and people who were boosted as a result of AlamyRank are going to be happy. But I think there are some obvious faults with the present system and, in general, with the concept of ranking by pseudonym.

  67. 24 January 2007 at 15:00 Dan Borzynski

    Now that the information is actually being recorded, one thing I would like to see is how many times a particular image is actually looked closer at by someone. Not the numbers for how often it shows up in a keyword search but how often they actually click on an image for a larger view. I'd be happy with the numbers for my images alone. Probably the biggest piece of information that I got from my first sale was that yes, people are looking.

    My main logic here is that it would give me a better idea as to what buyers are interested in, at least with respect to what I am offering. Also, for images that no one is looking at, I can either delete those or avoid those categories altogether. They are certainly a couple of images I have submitted that are really specialized and I have no idea it would be worth spending the time on those categories.

    And for what it is worth, I am happy with the new ranking, but that is in part because I come up a lot higher in some cases.

  68. 24 January 2007 at 15:14 MKJ

    I think that most people would agree that there is some stunning photography on Alamy, and some real dross. Any random search will show that. My work is in neither category, but I am capable of producing good stock images. It seems to me that until a way is found to purge the site of inferior work, the earlier comment that Alamy is in risk of deteriorating into one of the popular amateur websites where anyone can post anything, is fast beconing true.

    Here's an email I sent to Members Services. I'll let you know if I get a reply.

    "I've read all the relevant info on the site, but nothing answers the problem that I'm about to illustrate. I have nearly 200 shots
    of a pair of swans incubating eggs and looking after cygnets. Some are better than others, of course, but some are very good. In a simple
    search 'swan', all but one of my shots is beaten by an indifferent headshot of a canada goose (no swan at all)... because the word 'swan'
    has been keyworded. My highest ranking shot (which is not my best by any means) is on page 35, far below many inferior photographs.

    If the aim of ranking is to bring the better shots to the fore, it isn't working.

    I am trying to improve the quality of my collection all the time, including culling shots, but could you please explain to me how I can go about
    improving my actual ranking when my best pictures are probably never seen?

    I know you're very busy people, but it's a dispiriting situation and I'd appreciate a reply."

  69. 24 January 2007 at 15:15 Pat Lam

    Hi,

    Just want to say one or two photographers even put keyword from Wikipia website. It is true.

    Pat

  70. 24 January 2007 at 18:04 Graham Hebditch

    Right check this out. I looked for an images of mine, a shot of the sign on the Tiffany store wall in Vegas. This image came out on page three AGYAR0. Search this and look at it and tell me what the hell it has to do with tiffany's?! and then LOOK AT THE DESCRIPTION! No wonder it appears, it has every single keyword in the world. (almost) Rant over!

  71. 24 January 2007 at 18:31 Stephen Saks

    I want to add my name to the list of contributors who have seen a dramatic decrease in sales over the last couple of months. My assocation with Alamy started in July 2002.

  72. 24 January 2007 at 19:03 colinspics

    Hi,
    Great to read all your comments.Personally I think Alamy need to pay a bit less commission and hire some creative people to edit our images.I am sure many of us are guilty of thinking in numbers rather than quality..I know I am!! Great company though and I'm addicted.
    Much better sales from other libraries with much less images but NOT as much interactive fun.
    Enjoy!!

  73. 24 January 2007 at 20:31 Jeff Greenberg

    As to AlamyRank, God Bless AlamyRank.

    If it is tuned thus far to the 9 months of activity from Jan'06 through Sep'06, will the next updating of AlamyRank occur after 9 months more activity from Oct'06 through Jun'07?

    Also, is it possible to program this blog so that whatever one has already viewed becomes a different color?

    regards jg

  74. 24 January 2007 at 22:56 eks

    AlamyRank has given my images a much needed boost. Sales have improved slightly, but not sure if due to new ranking system. AlamyRank is much mor fair than the old ranking system, where contributors were locked into a tier. Those who started out with a low ranking stayed there, regardless of the quality of their subsequent submissions. And those who started out with a high ranking also remained on the front pages, and some of these high-rankers took there advantageous position for granted and submitted lots of similars with lots of spam in the keywords.

    I do sympathize with those whose sales plummeted. But I also sympathized with those who had great images and low rankings in the days before AlamyRank.

    After AlamyRank recalculates customer activity again, there will again likely be some major shifts. A couple more recalculations and things will undoubtedly stabilize.

  75. 24 January 2007 at 23:34 david moore

    Following an article in the UK BFP newsletter about Alamy and feedback from the library management concerning mistakes in keywording i checked my images and found a lot of mistakes. I know mosque is spelt with a 'q' so why did i spell it with a 'g'? A series of images prompted 'cut and paste' but this too caused problems where words become joined with no spaces. I could go on, but i will say this. I I have this last week re key worded again a group of images and they have improved their rankings. So it is worth the bother. I just hope the goal posts remain still a bit longer than the time it takes to do some more literary house keeping.

  76. 25 January 2007 at 03:31 Reimar Gaertner

    I also have had no sales in January.

    I have now divided my collection into two pseudonyms for grade A and B images. I hope to get a better rank for the A images. What would help me do that would be a listing of the number of clicks next to each image as I edit them. This would help everyone know, after a while, which images to place in grade A collections, grade B collections, or perhaps delete entirely.

    So Please Alamy - show us the # clicks for each image.

    I hope that AlamyRank is re-calculated reugularly. At least montly or so. I'd hate to have to wait for a half-year for changes to take effect.

  77. 25 January 2007 at 09:04 Michael Juno

    Hi! I'd just like to reiterate Bridget Clydes comment (Post No 34) re the Telegraph. A pic of mine used by them in October 2006 has yet to be reported on my sales. Am I getting unduly suspicious in my dotage, or has it been lifted directly from the website ?

    Couple of other points... I find Member Services sometimes send me a stock reply, but more often than not they provide a detailed same day response to any query I may have, which is more than I've experienced with some other libraries.....and yes, my sales slumped for about a month in late 2006, but it's been a pretty good 2007 so far.

  78. 25 January 2007 at 09:40 Tony Lilley

    Hi,
    My sales seem to have been good so far this year but I am still waiting to be paid for a photo sold in 2004 !
    I have found some Alamy Services relies to have stock answers but most are good and helpful.
    If we use different pseudonyms to help our Rank position, e.g. so that one genre does not pull down another, does the Ranking have to start again with each new pseudonym ?, because the Rank is attached to a pseudonym rather than an image. If this is the case it may have a Rank lowering effect on each new pseudonym.
    Hope this makes sense.

    Kind regards, Tony Lilley.

  79. 25 January 2007 at 12:14 Peter Barritt

    I'm someone who has done very well out of Alamyrank. Under the old search, photos from the same photographer were clumped together on one page and similars were becoming a real pain. Most of the photos coming top of the searches seem pretty good to me and I hope the customers feel that too. I concentrate on varied tightly edited images with concise keywording.
    I'm hoping I don't get reshuffled into oblivion at the next re-shuffle!!

  80. 25 January 2007 at 14:12 Stan Pritchard

    Can anyone advise me of a REALLY GOOD photo agency, one that really works?

  81. 25 January 2007 at 16:53 D.Dempster

    As with most things, you get out of an agency what you put into it. I try to edit my images critically and I research the keywords. It takes a long time to do it right but I think it pays off in the long run. I'm pleased with Alamy so far and my sales keep increasing. I would be interested to see how my photos rank in sales (dollar amount and # of sales) by percentage of images on the site.

  82. 25 January 2007 at 17:29 Peter Forsberg

    I agree with D.Dempster. To be a stock photographer, for Alamy or any smaller and less succesful agency, is a lot of work. Most people think this is some sort of an easy way to make money on the side, but it is quite far from the truth. I am actually in the process of writing an article on how it has been these 18 or so months. During 2006 I probably worked an average of 12 hours a day "for Alamy". Not only researching and studying the market, but also walking, travelling, waiting, occasionally pressing the shutter, picking photos, working on them, researching keywording, keywording (thank goodness I am very fast typer!), and then taking care of them once they are in the system (additional keywording, perhaps deleting if the editing has not been too succesful etc). Alamy can bring one great results, but it is a lot of work. If you want to become rich quickly, play the stockmarket or go digging gold. Stock photography can be rewarding, but to get there is a sacrifice. If you have a full-blown family life with visits to parents and whatnot, forget it. To be able to profit from this, one has to get at least 200 photos on Alamy every month, month after month. It takes a lot of time to do that, no matter how fast a walker or typer you are.

    I checked some of the commentators photographs on Alamy, and was surprised to find that many had only a small selection of photos. I didn't sell one before I had over 400 photos in the system, and started selling frequently when I had 1,500+ images. It doesn't matter how the search works, if your photos are good and useful they will sell.

    There are only a handful of succesful photo agencies around. Alamy is one of them. I don't look for other ones anymore, because, in my experience, they either go bust or rip you off. I am certain Alamy has a great future, and its policies on environment and other things is far superior to the other big agencies, which only care for a quick profit.

  83. 25 January 2007 at 18:52 Tony Lilley

    I agree full with Peter Forsberg. I am perhaps lucky in that I've had sales since only having 20 images with Alamy. I now have 1500+. I have been working full time as a Freelance since March 2006 and still find it difficult to get more than 100 images in per month. It is a lot of work but I think in the end it will pay off. I also work 12 hours a day at photography. My images are now also dispersed more amongst other peoples images when carrying out test searches, since Alamy Rank has become effective.
    In my experience so far Alamy is still the Agency who sells more and gives a higher return.

    Kind regards, Tony Lilley.

  84. 25 January 2007 at 19:27 david moore

    The last few months with falling sales it has made me reappraise things, call it a wake up call if you like. I researched which images of mine sold and what didn't in relation to location. Hardly surprising was that most of the sales were uk based and from around my local area. My trips to Australia have brought sales but the main disappointment are my 700 images of Malaysia, 4 sales only. A check with a Malaysian picture library shows that i have images to fill the gaps. I suspect the only way i can deal with the situation is to restrict my alamy images to uk only and try and submit my work to a Malaysian Library perhaps covering world wide. Is this the correct thing to do?

    David.

  85. 26 January 2007 at 05:00 doug Steley

    I am not sure about the alamy rank system either I feel there may need to be work done to fine tune it and get it running properly.

    December was our best month ever january is shaping to be the worst for several years. I hope it is a seasonal thing not the ranking system. Perhaps if you could give us some sales figures and more information it would be helpful in allaying our fears.

    I am concerned if I shoot a lot of photos of one event from different angles and styles I am less likely to get the sale than a person who only takes one photo of the event???


    I recently sold images A0KWD9 and A0KWDB to the same client on the same day for $333 each if I subscribed to the alamy search theory I would have only put one of the images up and may have missed out on the sale altogether.

    In finishing up A happy new year to all on the whole I am delighted with the service provided by Alamy and have recommended you to both photographers and image buyers.

    My comments are intended to be constructive not criticizing.


    Cheers Doug

  86. 26 January 2007 at 10:59 MKJ

    Could I just thank Peter Forsberg (post 82) for giving such a clear appraisal of what is needed to succeed with Alamy. Very helpful and encouraging. Thanks.

  87. 26 January 2007 at 11:57 RAbboud

    I think AlamyRank is a huge advance over the previous ranking system and infinitely fairer to all of its contributors.

    The weak link, and I think the source of the frustration one hears from contributors here and on forums, is the fact that AlamyRank was released before the availability of the promised contributor tools.

    If contributors don't have the tools to identify and fix the problems with their collections, they have no choice but to bitch and moan. Photographers *LOVE* to bitch and moan. Instead of investing time to improve their own product, they waste a lot of time pointing out problems with everyone else's!

    Ultimately, AlamyRank will have proven a success if Alamy revenues increase at a rate faster than before its implementation.

    So, Alamy, has it?

    PS: It might be too early to make the connection, but my sales have increased noticably since AlamyRank. I have not added a single image to my collection in the past year, yet my revenue for 2006 is up from 2005, and 2007 is off to a good start!

    Best regards,

    Rubens.

  88. 26 January 2007 at 15:27 Nichola Salvato

    I would like to second MKJ's comment......very helpful thank you Peter

  89. 26 January 2007 at 20:40 Neale and Judith Clark

    After the elephant and castle meeting we concluded, like many others, that picture rank was assigned to the pseudonym not the individual picture, and new pseudonyms would get a mean rank. This we assumed, meant an average positioning within the ranking system. We made the decision to divide our images into two collections under different pseudonyms, our original name containing images that had sold and those that had the best chance of selling, and a new pseudonym under which we put the rest. The top pics also had the keywords tightened up considerably. With 5000+ images it was no mean feat doing this. We immediately noted that the originals stayed put or moved up slightly and the new pseudonym images went to the bottom and I mean the very bottom of each search made for those images. If I change the pseudonym back, up the picture rises! So much for a mean Alamyrank! Has anyone else noticed this?
    In terms of sales, ours have slumped to a third of Jan'06 but judging by what others have said it could just be the markets, not ranking, since November for us brought us our best month ever on Alamy!
    One final point, both pseudonyms still sell equally, so did we just waste a great deal of precious time?!!! Do picture buyers really have so much time to trawl through all the dross?
    I think perhaps it would be interesting to have info from buyers as to how they search!

    regards

    N&J

  90. 27 January 2007 at 15:07 Jacques Jangoux

    It would be interesting to know (but it´s probably a trade secret) if researchers use preferably the big search window on the home page or if they prefer going directly to Advanced search. Also interesting (but probably another trade secret) would be to know the proportion of sales through the website vs. direct sales (by personal contact, phone etc), the search being done by Alamy editors. I am probably asking for too much information.

  91. 27 January 2007 at 19:52 keith morris

    I'm really at a loss to work out how the search engine works at times. I did a search for 'closed school wales' and four of the top 15 images returned were of a 30mile an hour speedlimit road sign with these captions and key words:

    Close up of circular speed limit road sign stating 30 against blue sky with orange brick and tiled house behind

    tiles, cottage, terrace, row, dwelling, chimneys, ochre, ocher, white, red, black, thirty, circle, round, roadsign, signage, notice, restriction, restrict, law, legal, highway, code, speeding, penalty, fixed, notice, licence, license, points, endorsement, offence, offense, catch, caught


    Nowhere do the words 'closed' 'school' or 'wales' appear anywhere.
    Why were these images returned by the search engine?

  92. 27 January 2007 at 20:12 Neale and Judith Clark

    I guess Keith, it's because the keywords are truncated and we don't see them all - only the photographer can see all keywords he has added. It could also be the picture title . Perhaps the house is in wales and was part of a school that was closed!

  93. 27 January 2007 at 20:37 keith morris

    " it's because the keywords are truncated and we don't see them all "

    ah...didn't know that. Is that a verified fact?
    Don't recall reading about that anywhere...

    Still, looks like sloppy keywording in that case as there's no way that image could be used in a 'welsh school closed' context!

  94. 27 January 2007 at 20:49 Dennis

    Less is more. Keywords in an image are not equal in relevance and significance.
    There is a simple way to limit spamming and encourage more focused keywording. Let contributors specify, for each image, up to 3 Primary Keywords (PW), 1 colour (including "BW", "mixed") and orientation ("H", "S" or "V"). Search result will rank higher images with 3 matching PK's, then 2 PW's, then 1 PW etc.

  95. 27 January 2007 at 23:52 Damian P. Gadal

    In answer to #91 Keith Morris, the search engine seems to pick up how the photographer names their image file. So, if a speed limit sign was taken in Wales and named something like "SL-Wales.tiff", it may be picked up, even though that wasn't in the keywords, nor the intention of the photographer. Try it with some of your own images and you'll see what I mean.

  96. 28 January 2007 at 15:25 Jacques Jangoux

    A useful feature of the search engine, I think, would be to include in the Advanced search "Search submissions within the last 90 days". It would serve two purposes: 1. show new pictures to researchers and 2. give an indication of which picture have done well during that period and should therefore placed somewhat high in searches. Of course some good pictures will not been clicked on during 90 days, but some will definitely be clicked on often an eventually bought. Just another suggestion :-)

  97. 28 January 2007 at 17:34 Chris Gloag

    Quick question: Where can we find out our Alamy Rank Number?

  98. 28 January 2007 at 22:06 Quentin Bargate

    So far so good with AlamyRank. The idea is surely sensible. I have a couple of January sales on a small portfolio. If I shoot what sells, I'll rise up the ranks, as I understand the system. I am less sure about grading individual images. It seems best to rank photographers by sales or views accross their entire portfolio.

  99. 28 January 2007 at 22:28 Mark Scheuern

    The ranking is actually by pseudonym and not by photographer. Same thing, of course, if everyone had only one pseudonym but, as things stand, one can change the rankings of images by dividing them up among different pseudonyms. That makes no sense to me: changing something unrelated to either the image itself or the associated keywords and descriptions shouldn't change ranking.

    Ranking per keyword per image, as described in Alamy's patent, would, I think, help address the problem of many irrelevant images appearing high in rankings. That's clearly a problem with the present system.

    Also, for whatever reason, the present system seems to punish specialists. It's a bit disheartening to specialize in an area and see images of questionable quality and accuracy of keywording appear much higher in the rankings.

  100. 28 January 2007 at 23:30 Robert Ginn

    First off I appreciate Alamy putting this board together - BUT it is not a blog as it now stands: About 7 months ago Alan Chapel was sent to link to a very interesting paper at UMASS/Dartmouth on the use of blogs by successful business concerns. Dr. Nora Barnes (Prof of Marketing Research) is internationally renound for her work on such things as the use of blogs, and some of the main points of this small paper (59 pages) must have been overlooked when the BOARD was set up... For what this board is I think it serves a valuable and fine end - but it is not a blog where information is exchanged on a level playing field. The 3 major boards run by Alamy contributors does some real service and I hope the information here is posted there also!

    But I do want to thank the Alamy management for starting this board and would hope that they take to heart the value of 2 way ONGOING communication - I imagine it is well within the ability of its staff and cashflow to carry this "beginning" board to the level of a serviceable blog.

    PLEASE --- would everyone put their full name with their posts - There are 7,000 people connected with Alamy and I must think there are more than one of most names. And to those who use some "other" name here I am surprised Alamy puts them up as they are in reality a "blind" post by an unknown. Robert Ginn

  101. 29 January 2007 at 12:50 Clive Sawyer

    What is of serious concern about all this is the shear numbers that a client needs to look at just to see a reasonable amount of good photography. I remember many years ago submitting images to a well known agency (no longer around) that boasted it had 8 million images. Most was rubbish but this did not matter because the client would call up and the agency did the selecting/editing (of transparencies) and sent off, in the post, a pretty good selection. Now that this job is left to the client they will soon be looking for alternative agencies who edit down to a minimum and save them half a days work just to find a decent shot

  102. 29 January 2007 at 13:24 Mark Scheuern

    I think this sort of one-on-one happens with Alamy as well, Clive, and it's one of the things that helps me feel good about Alamy despite some of my misgivings about the current state of AlamySearch.

  103. 29 January 2007 at 13:26 Pat Lam

    Seems you miss those good old days. In fact Alamy still has personal research images for client. At the same time client can look for some very special subject images which those old agencies cannot be bother to keep them in their collection. Those sells quiet well too.

  104. 29 January 2007 at 17:39 clive Sawyer

    Point taken Mark, I am still an Alamy fan and hope things get better for all concerned.