Shutterstock Photographer Forum :: View topic

chbaum · Joined: 19 Sep 2010 Posts: 387 Location: Karlsruhe, Germany

Hi everyone,

today, I sold one of my Seychelles tortoise images to - the Seychelles (at least that's what the map claims). Happily, I clicked on it and got the page below: Similar images showing "closeup shots of beautiful people eating". No tortoises or other animals to be seen.

Since the description text gets smaller and smaller, is there a connection with search algorithms that escaped me? Should I mention the main subject within the first three words? Or is this just a glitch?
I wonder how my tortoises are supposed to be found if "similar images" returns this kind of result.

Best regards,

Christian

triceratops · Joined: 15 Nov 2006 Posts: 7870 Location: The other Nevada

I'd get rid of the word "beautiful" both in the description and keywords. That seems the be what the similars algorithm has latched onto and really isn't all that relevant to the image ... unless you're a tortoise of the opposite sex.

royster · Joined: 19 Apr 2009 Posts: 279 Location: England/Greece

No matter how good looking it is I don't think you can use the term Beautiful.

Mike Price · Joined: 06 Jun 2008 Posts: 2919 Location: South Wales

Agree you have beautiful, relax and eat in your keywords, so you have beautiful girls relaxing and eating in the similars.

Mike

hhltdave5 · Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2012 5:55 pm

There was a post awhile back that said that the description was also park of the search process. But if you have the words in the description in the keywords then it really doesn't make any difference.

From what I have seen lately the related images have been getting a bit screwy lately.

chbaum · Joined: 19 Sep 2010 Posts: 387 Location: Karlsruhe, Germany

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your opinion! I admit that "beautiful" is quite general here. But tortoise is so important that it should appear somewhere in the similars.

Apart from that, beauty is in the eye of the beholder... ;) Seriously, this keyword is, along with amazing, background, wonderful etc, extremely widely used for stock. Why not here? Wouldn't you use it for a slender giraffe, a cute hummingbird or a coloful frog as well? So "beautiful Asian tree frog eating a fly" would come up with girls having cereals for breakfast? I mean, come on....

Best regards,

Christian

klsbear · Joined: 13 Jun 2009 Posts: 313

I searched "seychelles tortoise eating" and it returned 16 images. Two are yours with the similars being beautiful women eating. The others show various tortise images as similars. They tend to have very simple descriptions that focus on more literal descriptions with words like giant, tortoises, eat, Seychelle, as in the first line. "Giant Tortoise Eating" doesn't show up until the second line in your descriptin whereas "Closeup, Shot, Beautiful" are the primary words in your first line.

You've pointed out what may be an interesting concept to consider when adding descriptions. Perhaps concentrating the primary keywords in the description will bring up similar images of yours or other contributors whereas burying the keywords deeper in the description may hide comptetitive similars.

Off to check my own portfolio to test that theory!