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Kylani Arrington

11 Years Ago

Faa Search Engine Question

I think I may have heard the answer to this question somewhere but I want to just double-check. When someone searches for an image on this site and they get thousands upon thousands of images back... how are they arranged? Isn't it popularity and amount of sales?

I ask because I did a search on FAA for some of my images and unless I look them up by my name I can almost never find them. I use all sorts of words when I tag my images so I'm pretty sure the tagging isn't the problem. So why don't my images show up? (Sometimes they don't show up at all and some of them don't show up until the last few pages out of more than 15).

I'm really looking for some sales from this site and I'm thinking it must be because no one can find my work. Help!

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Kylani Arrington

11 Years Ago

This was extremely useful information. Thank you to all of you who chimed in on this discussion, especially considering I know that there are probably other, older threads out there asking the same thing. I'll take all of this info into consideration and get to work on some more tagging and outside promotion. Thanks!!

 

Jeffrey Kolker

11 Years Ago

When words have 2 meanings... yes. Except..really...are old men without pants appropriate anywhere? ;)

 

Roger Swezey

11 Years Ago

As I've asked this before on similar threads.

Do you think it appropriate for someone looking for that perfect image of a particular sea bird being subjected to inappropriate images of old men without pants?

 

JC Findley

11 Years Ago

Spam tagging is and probably always will be an issue. If it is excessive, report the violating party. It seems less an issue here than most sites.

Here is an interesting search you can run as an example, "alabama crimson tide pelican seagull sunrise heron gulf outboard engine tools sunset" Not that I would call anyone out by name but do want ALL those items in a single image. I wonder if there are any like that on FAA.

Oh, and FWIW, I have pretty much forgot to use "landscape" as a tag in all but 47 of my images. I suppose I should use it more.

 

Jeffrey Kolker

11 Years Ago

Well, if you read the description for the field of flowers, you will see why that item was returned in the search. It was tagged that way. So, often what may appear to be non-related will in fact actually have those items as tag words. Proper tags? I don't know... but if it is tagged, the search engine will find it as such. Sales lost? I don't know.. but sales lost to who? To FAA? Probably not that much... Sales lost to a particular artist when the customer buys another's work .... that is the more accurate question. But I have no answer...

 

Alexandra Till

11 Years Ago

I think most buyers find us through Search Engines like Google, etc. - and that's where FAA still goes strong, it always did !

That doesn't mean that FAA's hand-knitted SE doesn't need major improvement (thinking of my multiple Chicago image sales without ANY improvements on FAA's search results while images that had no sales at all, no votes, no comments, etc. are glued to the same spot at the first 6 pages).

 

I also asked about this search engine thing last year and was told it worked fine.
That still seems to be what some people say.
I haven't bothered with it much since. I just do the keywords more detailed,
but I just did 2 searches for "sand dunes & sand dune" and I am not impressed a bit with how
the FAA searches are done, no matter what anyone says.
The first search I didn't find one of my images until page 6, then page 10, and page 12.
I quit at page 20.
The second search I also stopped at page 20, and never found single one of my images.
BUT, I did find pictures of wood close ups, a boat sitting on a beach,
buffalo standing in a stream, and even a field full of wildflowers - - NONE of which had sand dunes in them,
but they were ALL found before my images.

Having a real hard time seeing where this is a search system that fairly finds artists images
when searched for. If I was a buyer looking for sand dune images and I was given
pictures of all kinds of other things like animals in a stream, I would think twice about
buying from that site anymore.
Wonder how many sales are lost because of this kind of weak system?

It seems that no matter how detailed I do my keywords I will still
get cut out of having my images fairly shown to buyers.

 

Roger Swezey

11 Years Ago

JC,

It seems to me, that you are arguing for the proposal for improving the FAA search engine I made a few years ago...I was subsequently laughed off the Forum for what was considered a ridiculous idea..

That being a search procedure where both the artist and the buyer would be directed to follow a simple and logical tagging program, going from the general to the particular.

In the case of your "Rabbit"

Photography>Landscape>Urban>NYC>Central Park>Sculpture>Rabbit

 

JC Findley

11 Years Ago

Tag relevance IS a big thing here and it DOES work.

TBH, I have no desire to describe how I make it work or me but it is a big thing within the search.

I will say this, if you search for sun flowers it will net way different results than sunflowers. And if I have 500 characters used, you can bet that the last one is every bit as important as the first one. That said, there is a reason "rabbit" is not in the tag below. Someone searching for a rabbit has NO desire to buy a tractor image even if there is a rabbit in there somewhere.

Photography Prints

That said, The White Rabbit is an important tag in this one BUT so is Central Park, so is New York City, So is Alice in Wonderland. Which pray tell is the "most important" or relevant???? Well, it is the term that a buyer wanting to buy an image of that cool statue in Central Park in New York City that they sayw and loved and especially the one that LOVES the white rabbit. The search THAT person uses is the most relevant and important....

Sell Art Online

 

Abbie Shores

11 Years Ago


Search takes into consideration many different factors when determining the sort order of the images.

It takes into consideration:

1. the relevance of your image keywords
2. the number of times an image has been sold
3. the number of times an image has been favourited
4. the number of times an image has been commented on (by others. Your own comments on your work do NOT count)
5. how long an image has been on the site
6. the number of times an image has been featured in a group
etc...

There are more than 25 different criteria that the search engine evaluates.


Most sites do not even give out this information

Google also has a formula they work to and they do not share all of that either

 

Roger Swezey

11 Years Ago

Beth,

I'm not talking about "Tag Spamming", I'm talking about FAA not recognizing "Tag Placement", where the "Regulars" always come first no, matter where a tag is placed and how significant that tag is to the image.

Edit:
The Artists of the fine works I've mentioned did nothing wrong

 

Abbie Shores

11 Years Ago

What I have said is true

We have over 25 criteria for the search. I do not make a habit of telling untruths, although I am accused of it constantly
#
If someone is tag spamming that is not our fault. It is the fault of the one spamming. The search is working fine if finding the keywords,. Whether they are right or wrongly added.

 

Roger Swezey

11 Years Ago

RE:.."1. the relevance of your image keywords"

Oh, how I wish that was true.

Mr. Smythe mentioned "Sunflowers"

I checked "Sunflowers"

The top pages are not as bad as many other FAA search engine topic pages, that are filled with irrelevant images.

There is a fine piece of the 4 seasons (4 individual images) where "Sunflowers" has only a minor role, even the Artist thinks so, having the appropriate tags ("Season" related) first, followed by "Leafless", "Cardinals" "Cherry blossom" even "Squirrels" and others all coming up before "Sunflowers"

There is another beautiful image of a flower that is not a "Sunflower"...."Sun" is part of the first tag ("Sun Star) and "Flowers" is the second tag.

Since I believe that those checking "Sunflowers" are interested in "Sunflowers"

That's why I feel that those images that have "Sunflowers" as the FIRST tag, should come FIRST.

For the hell of it. I checked out "Sun"....Talk about "Relevance"


 

Jeffrey Kolker

11 Years Ago

Not likely to be given out Rich, so as to avoid people trying to game the system. Like me ;) If people don't know, they can't....

 

Rich Franco

11 Years Ago

Beth,

Is there such a list,ranked by importance? Seems it might be useful,

Rich

 

Abbie Shores

11 Years Ago

Search takes into consideration many different factors when determining the sort order of the images.

It takes into consideration:

1. the relevance of your image keywords
2. the number of times an image has been sold
3. the number of times an image has been favourited
4. the number of times an image has been commented on (by others. Your own comments on your work do NOT count)
5. how long an image has been on the site
6. the number of times an image has been featured in a group
etc...

There are more than 25 different criteria that the search engine evaluates.

Hope this helps

Beth

 

@Mike, re unsold work appearing high in search.......I do think that once one becomes a 'seller' here, whatever you upload gets into early search pages, and there are many images pages 1/2 in searches without votes,favs,comments...........totally inconsistent...........aside from spammers copy/pasting their tags to every image whether relevant or not......there's a lot of inconsistency............all of which hampers one's chances........

 

Danny Smythe

11 Years Ago

Keep in mind that the buyer has the ability to refine the search. (Recently added, Photos, etc.) I just searched for recently added photos of Sunflowers (a saturated category) and mine tuned up on page 2, even though it was submitted a week ago.

 

Mike Savad

11 Years Ago

but that's only if you depend on the search working for you. that's why it's encouraged to branch outwards.

---Mike Savad

 

Jeffrey Kolker

11 Years Ago

It's a catch-22

To sell, you have to be seen...but to be seen (higher in the search rankings), you have to sell.

 

Ruth Seal

11 Years Ago

I think that after the biggest sellers get their place the others should be rotated daily. That way those who are now on page 50 for instance get to be on page 5 or 10 or whatever for at least a day.

 

Mike Savad

11 Years Ago

it's sorted by artists that sell most, and are the most popular. but it's kind of confusing. since many of the ones that surface of mine, never sold at all. and for others, if you do sell, the placement still doesn't change.


---Mike Savad

 

I search Search to find unsaturated tags /pages to try to have less competition, but honestly, if FAA doesn't honour tags then it's even harder to be found . Sales Matter most,.....the reward is you're found early in the tag search. But many images in the first pages of a tag search have been there so long....it would help if these searches weren't stagnant and boring to visitors.
The best advice is to promote yourself a lot.....elsewhere......

 

JC Findley

11 Years Ago

There are all sorts of things that go into it but sales of the specific image and sales by the artist as a whole count the most....

So, how do you get seen to sell if you have to sell to be seen????

For me, I concentrate on subjects that are not overly saturated here. I sell enough of those where I end up being higher in the more saturated categories and am able to sell there as well.

If you are looking for yourself in a saturated category, have fun. I sell pretty well and have even sold my daisy image and am way back on page ten in a search or "daisy." Now, pink daisy puts me higher but nonetheless, I will not likely sell that image a lot unless I BRING people to buy it. On the other hand, less saturated subjects continue to sell well because there just isn't that much to look through.

 

Jeffrey Campbell

11 Years Ago

I suspect they are shown by the most sold for that particular search term used.

 

This discussion is closed.