Home > Contributors > Blog

Blog

Contributor filename no longer searched

Permalink Comments (22)14 December 2007 at 16:08 by Pippa Greig
Posted under News

We've made the decision to stop making contributor references searchable on the website (these are the references that we create from your image filenames, by moving the file extensions. e.g. .tif or .jpeg). This change will be reflected when our search engine next updates. Your references will however continue to be searchable in the "Manage Images" part of your account, to allow you to search for and edit your images as usual.

The reason we've decided to make this change is as a result of the AlamyMeasures feedback we're receiving. Allowing contributor references to be searchable means that images are sometimes returned on customers' searches where they are not what the customer is looking for. As an example, if you had named your image "34.jpg", your contributor reference would have been "34". If your image was of an elderly lady, and contained the keywords "80 year old woman", then your image would also be returned on a search for "34 year old woman." Clearly this is not desirable to the customer, and over time may have a negative impact on your AlamyRank as your image would be viewed but not clicked on or purchased.

Top

Add your own commentComments (22)

  1. 14 December 2007 at 16:56 Gary Cook

    Similarly the contributors name should not bring up spurious results in a search. For example I am getting a look of views for terms including cook, cooking etc even though the images have nothing to do with cooking. Can searches for contributors names / psuedos be relegated to an advanced search feature where a user would have to deliberately select "search for contributors name" in the same way that getty as recently introduced?

    Thanks,
    Gary Cook

  2. 14 December 2007 at 17:58 Mal Knight

    I totally agree with Gary because I suffer the same problem, my last name being Knight brings up all sorts of weird and wonderful results.

  3. 14 December 2007 at 19:30 Paul Collis

    Re: contributor name.
    I agree. Put the word 'COLLIE' in the search bar and you'll get 6,371 results.
    But 2,062 - one third! - are not 'collie' dogs; they are my shots because my name is COLLIS. A myriad of subjects, not one of them a collie.
    I've been telling Alamy this for a year, telling them to exclude photographers' names from the 'subject' search. But have they listened?
    I ask everyone to contribute to this blog, to say "Get my name out of your subject search" so that Alamy finally sees sense. Thank you.

  4. 15 December 2007 at 01:22 Martin Shields

    I concur! Two of the three most frequent search terms that call up my images are based on my last name and not on my image subject matter. This hurts my Alamy rank and penalizes me for something entirely out of my control. And, of course this hinders the search experience for the customer. Had I known all of this two years ago I could have made a pseudonym that wouldn't hurt me, but now it is too late - I would have to drop to a "median rank" if I changed my pseud now.
    Overall I am very happy with what you have done for us alamy - but surely you can see that this is an unfair disadvantage for some of us?
    Happy Holidays

    Martin Shields

  5. 15 December 2007 at 09:17 Rainer Raffalski

    Dear Alamy,

    thanks a lot for listening. This is a good example that we all benefit if Alamy pays attention to their contributors.

    One more point to consider regarding unwanted search results: I have lots of false positives found because the description field is still searchable. That should have been terminated some time ago, but obviously it isn't.

    The better the description, the better the chance for false positives. Therefore the description field should also be excluded from the search.

    Rainer Raffalski

  6. 15 December 2007 at 09:24 Ian Murray

    I like having my filename searchable. I find my IDM2471 much easier than the Alamy ref especially the confusion over 0 and O

    This helps if I want to refer a possible buyer to my images for the sale to be processed by Alamy.

    Would it be possible to request an auto cut and paste of my filenames into some searchable area - my Excel skills are not up to doing this.

    Perhaps others would like this?

  7. 15 December 2007 at 10:28 Austin Christmas-Butcher

    Ha!

    You think YOU'VE got problems... ;)

  8. 15 December 2007 at 11:29 David Hill

    Another vote for photogs' names not being searchable!

    Same also with the description field.

  9. 15 December 2007 at 12:33 Steve London Eye



    My surname can bring duff results too, sometimes.

    Just kidding !

    Cheers and Happy Festive Season

  10. 15 December 2007 at 14:40 David Cole

    The ONLY (sorry no red ink available!) sections that should be searchable are those designated as KEY WORDS - not caption, not file name and certainly NOT NOT NOT the description field which is there to provide information and is NOT and never has been KEY WORDS.

  11. 16 December 2007 at 03:19 Jeff greenberg

    Single digits
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
    are also not searchable
    Won't this discourage buyers?
    e.g.,
    2 political candidates
    calle 8
    6 sided building
    9 lives
    etc.
    will all give very inefficient results

  12. 16 December 2007 at 10:58 IanMurray

    Advance warning would have been good and choices/support over how to respond.

    For example, those who would prefer to have their file names searchable.



  13. 16 December 2007 at 11:40 Mark scheuern

    It looks like any single digit always matches in a search even when it's not present in the caption, keywords, description, contributor's ref or Alamy's ref. That's a pretty serious problem.

    Mark

  14. 16 December 2007 at 12:16 Mark scheuern

    After a bit more experimentation, I think the filter they're using on the user input parser is filtering out *all* single-character strings, which might make sense for alphabetic characters but not numerals.

    Mark

  15. 16 December 2007 at 16:46 Steve

    ""We've made the decision to stop making contributor references searchable on the website""

    Good - well done, it's another small step forward - Thanks

  16. 16 December 2007 at 21:11 David Cameron

    I definitely agree with the others on here with unfortunate names... The sooner we can stop searching pseudo names the better!

  17. 19 December 2007 at 08:40 Sally@BillBachman

    I think this is excellent idea (surprised it was even in place to begin with!) And I'm in agreement with David Cole.

    Advance Search tools could offer all these other options.

    I believe researchers also need to learn how to Search effectively. You look at some of the Search strings in Alamy Measures and they're woeful - no wonder they get images so off their topic.

    Also, once full Annotation tools implemented with [] and " " marks, then we have further means by which to streamline a search result.

    IAN MURRAY writes: I like having my filename searchable. I find my IDM2471 much easier than the Alamy ref especially the confusion over 0 and O"

    If this is important to you, perhaps you can put your ID in the Comprehensive Keyword field Ian. However, with an excel spreadsheet you can have both the Alamy ID# and your own ID # sent to a client.... or make them a lightbox...or they can search on your name AND subject.

    Refining can only benefit us all in the long run.

  18. 19 December 2007 at 09:06 Shaun finch

    I agree with the first two posts. I have teh same prblem with my name being Finch.
    It is good to see Alamy is taking note of ideas and suggestions from the forum.

  19. 20 December 2007 at 16:04 Baron

    Having just checked the search results it's clear I'm also having the problem about searching against contributer name, which of course will affect my alamy ranking.

    Searches for 'Red Baron' or similar invariably bring up my images! Alas noe of them having the slightest relevance.

  20. 21 December 2007 at 10:58 Mike Booth

    There are lots of images of booth's, but none of me :)

  21. 30 December 2007 at 23:14 Alan spencer

    Pseudonyms and names MUST be searchable unless there is a keyword search facility included in the "Manage Images" section to assist in getting to a specific image. At the moment being able to search on one's own pseudo is a quick way to find one's own images of a specific subject and edit to update or change keywords.

    Alan Spencer

  22. 17 February 2008 at 02:33 Brad mitchell

    It is too bad that you have made the file names not searchable. I have over 1000 links from my personal website to Alamy (one for each on-line photo) that will no longer work because of this. Guess I will have to remove all those links as I don't have any other way now to link my inidividual website photos directly to the same photo on Alamy.

Add your own comment
Means that we require this information. We respect your privacy and store your details securely. See our privacy policy for more.
Security code picture
No picture? Reload page.
No picture? Reload page.