Ranking Vs. Adding Your Image To Too Many Groups.....

I think that the images here at FAA on the Feature page are selected by Sean.

Greg is correct if you mean the first page when you open up the site.

Adding to multiple groups does NOT hurt your search ranking though. Look at Savad who has like ten gazzilion groups. I have more than a few and it has never hurt me either.

So, then it's the opposite on FAA ... the more groups you add to your image the more chances of ranking?

Because I've used the other rules from Flickr on FAA and have seen an increase in views to my work on FAA.

FLICKR = primarily share site

FAA = Primarily sales site

Some protocalls may overlap, but certainly not all. The more eyes you get your image in front of, internal and external, the better off you are.

Okay, JC, I'm mostly concerned here with internal so your information helps. Think I've got the external working okay. Thanks!

I used to belong to a lot of Flickr groups and also enter their "contests", but I found that most, not all of them, were mostly popularity activities.................so I dropped those groups.

Thanks Greg, I know what you mean, and for that reason I dropped all the groups that do contests and post group stickers in comments. So then FAA and Flickr for me are both about sharing and selling, with the only exception that Flickr doesn't have a shopping cart. But if you look at the pictures for that group in that link I shared in my OP there is some incredible art there !!

I'll take a look at the link, Frank. Thanks.



Update: Interesting reading in that link, Frank.

Glad it could be of use to you, Greg, its all about helping each other make it through life.

Flicker - free to look, free to look
FAA - free to look with the option to buy

I haven't been on Flicker so long now that Yahoo disabled my login.

Edward - most of my referrals to FAA come from Flickr through image search. You should activate again!

Second in line for referrals is my WordPress blog. Then my email marketing, and last my social media channels.

Actually I did start looking into it yesterday after seeing some of your posts. I might be missing out. How is the image theft risk on Flickr? Do people watermark?

Mike also feels moving images around like submitting to contests, group activity is good because the bot picks up on the activity.

Suzanne - thank you for that information, I didn't know that or think that about the bot.

Edward - you can watermark but it wont get you on the Explore page. I think it's one of the rules mentioned in that link in my OP.

Personally I post full res and don't worry about it. Then again, if I don't want theft I keep it private as Flickr is also my independent backup. Sometimes I share with groups and don't make it public on my photostream which keeps it also from google and yahoo search. There are buyers who search certain groups looking for images and art.

Really, Frank you are overthinking this. Forget about what works on Flicker. What works here for the search is sales on image, sales by artist, sales on keyword, sales per uploaded image, recent sales, sales per view, sales per sale, then it is you have at least one comment, vote or favored. After that it is image featured in group at least once.
That may not be accurate, but you get the idea.
As for being featured on the front it goes by what Sean wants to put up there and is not likely to be influenced by minor search algorithm quirks.

Going off-topic for a moment.

@Suzanne -- Even doing 'housekeeping' in your galleries (shifting things around, choosing new logos, etc.), can trigger a flurry of bot activity. I work on my galleries at least every couple of weeks, for just that reason. :-)

Returning to topic.

Wendy - you explained why I saw all this bot activity yesterday after updating my galleries the day before. Good to know and well worth me posting this thread.

Bradford - I understand sales get your work to the top. I'm working on more of my work getting sales. When you post comments and likes on other work it helps with your ranking. I was told this in another thread and if I find it I'll post it here too.

For example, if you fav or your own work it does nothing for ranking, only if other fav your work. Works the same on Flickr. So, I was wondering if groups work the same too.

Bradford, here is the link to the thread I referenced in my last post:


http://pixels.com/showmessages.php?messageid=1723341

"There are buyers who search certain groups looking for images and art."

Frank, on Flickr I used to belong to tons of groups and had all kinds of views and favorites and all kinds of invites to groups. But lately I haven't been submitting my photos to any groups. I have found that I got favorites and comments only if I favorite and comment on their photos. I have Flickr "friends" that have been with me for a couple of years now and always favorite my photos. I'm supposed to reciprocate. And I do, but out of guilt. I find it very difficult to say nice things about other peoples' photos when I'm not being sincere. However, it's also just as difficult ignoring someone who's gone to the trouble to fav. and comment on my photos. Uploading photos to flickr should either be fun or strictly for business. It should NOT be a stress.

However, if you feel that buyers are searching groups for images and art, it might be worth it to start adding my photos to groups again.

that's one reason i hated flicker they limited how many groups you can go into. the search is divided up by how many sales you made then how popular you are. features you get etc, are from the groups your in. i don't care so much about honor as i do with sales and time management. spending time to add it to only a few groups, just to go back and add it to a few more was a waste of my time. that's why i stopped uploading there.


---Mike Savad

favoring your own work won't help much, you can vote but i don't know if it will help or not, but it will if your IP changes. so i vote anyway. other people voting, commenting etc with you, also increases your chances. i mean if you can impress other artists that they want to follow you, then buyers should like you too. right now i'm in 940 groups. any one image may be in 100-200 of them, my sales are just fine if not just wonderful.

the hard part is trying to remember what some of them want.

---Mike Savad

Mike - thanks for your invaluable input here. Your last sentence is what I'm experiencing too, and I only belong to a handful of groups at this time.

Carol - you have no obligation to reciprocate actions on your work in Flickr. For example, because I have been Explored several times, I have thousands of followers. I do not follow back, but rather visit their photostream and comment on one of their photos thanking them for following me. The people who favorite my work I let go. I only comment on work that I admire whether I am following them or not.

If you post in groups that are your subject nitch, I've had photo and art buyers PM me in Flcikr asking how to buy my work. My analytics also show a huge refferal base from my Flickr to FAA, short of the long. The only way they find my link is go to my profile from the picture they are viewing ... I don't post a Link to each pictures.

Connect with me please: www.flickr.com/fjcps

Hope this helps.

"I only comment on work that I admire whether I am following them or not."

Frank, I wish I could do this. But I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, lol. I think it's time for me to be more business minded and less sensitive.

Thank you for all the information about Flickr. It's been really helpful.


https://www.flickr.com/photos/carol-lux-photography/

Carol - yeah, I had to learn that too. Empathy over sympathy.

Frank, yes there is always discussion about comments and favoriting helping your ranking. But it has also been affirmed it only helps so much. Abbie alluded to that in the thread you linked. Artists who regularly get sales go to the head of the class. Artist with some activity on the file get to be ahead of last place. And it's not like you keep moving up for every comment. That would make it too easy to game the system. On a scale of 1 to a hundred for ranking maybe comments gets 2 points. Then you max out on that. Sales get 30 points on an image and maybe 10 points for each sale after that. Not accurate for sure, but if you think of it that way you can see what you need to do to get high in a search. How do I know? I saw how much I moved up when I got sales in the first weeks and months I was here. How did I get the sales? Unique subject matter, many researched and correct keywords, played to Google with title and description. That's what gets you sales. Beyond that it is marketing. I used to just delete the comments, but now I leave them. Tacky and unprofessional and so is the featured in groups icon. But if it tickles the search engines I do it. I just rank it lowest on importance.

I'm pretty much of a newbie here - some great info in this discussion.
a. changing things up attracts attention
b. I try to comment on a lot of images. If nothing else, I congratulate the artist on 'features'. After spending a few years in our regional PPA affiliate, going through print competition, I have a hard time holding my tongue (fingers) about things that jump out at me. But the leader of one of the groups I'm active in told me that the artists post work that they are proud of and I try to accept that and 'vote' for the images. Some, I just can't.

Is there a way to get data on views/comments/likes/ etc. in a sort of spreadsheet format for all images? I think there must be (several of you seem to have this data at your fingertips) - but I haven't found the right link.

thanks -

When I Google my name my Flickr site comes up on the first page even though I haven't posted to it since January, 2013. My FAA site is on the second page. I'd rather it was the other way around. I don't get the stats from my Flickr site anymore since I don't pay for an account there now, so I don't know if I'm directing people to FAA from there. In any case, I found Flickr to be kind of useless as far as getting any income from it, even in a roundabout way...it's meant to be a sharing site. I was on Explore more times than I can count and on the front page many times. Tons of people jump in and make you a contact then you never hear from them again. Everybody's always onto the latest flavor of the day. The only thing I can say about it is it helped my up my game because there are truly some amazing photographers on that site. And it saw me through a really rough time in my life when I didn't want to have much to do with real live humans. But I thought the feedback from other photographers on Flickr was kind of meaningless in a lot of ways because it's pretty much "I'll pat your back if you pat mine".

Despite all this, I've been considering posting there again occasionally. ;-) But I wouldn't take the time to comment on other peoples' work. I guess that sounds selfish but really, there's only so much time in the day.

Once you get involved in the round robin of liking and commenting etc you realize that you must continue to do it or you will not receive that many visits to your page... and it becomes maddening. Yes, it helps with your ranking, it's part of the ball game, and it helps to have others that may share it forward, but the bottom line comes down to reaching outside and into the prospective customers lap.

They don't sit around liking and commenting on art on many mediums.

Bradford and Glenn, thanks! Good things to know and also I've got some thinking to do.

" They don't sit around liking and commenting on art on many mediums. " ... Very true, Glenn. I've thought about this more than you want to know.

Carol - you asked " Is there a way to get data on views/comments/likes/ etc. in a sort of spreadsheet format for all images? I think there must be (several of you seem to have this data at your fingertips) - but I haven't found the right link. " If there is I havent heard of any. In fact, I wish there was a list on how ranking works on FAA similar to the list I shared about Flickr on my OP. If you find such a list please think of me!

Peggy - You're the first person who says Flickr comes up on search before FAA. You must have been really active on Flcikr or something? Usually the ranking goes: LinkedIn; FAA; Blog; Social Media, etc ....


Glen - Thinking about it, because FAA has a shopping cart, compared to Flickr which does not, I need to also sell "Amazon" style. You jogged my brain about the email at this link Sean send out some time ago: http://fineartamerica.com/why-every-artist-and-photographer-in-the-world-should-be-selling-on-fineartamerica.html?id=392787

Though I have to say the rules from Flickr that I've applied to FAA have shown a definite increase on my views stats. My objective with this thread is to see how the groups work and, as you can read, we learned a whole bunch more.

Thanks everyone for your input so far!!

Frank, I see you've been "Explored" yet again on Flickr. Congratulations on that! Another great marketing method to get people to see your work.

Thanks, Carol, it I think is the fourth one this week. .... and my FAA stats have jumped as well. Thanks again, you didn't have to announce it ..... shucks !!

"Is there a way to get data on views/comments/likes/ etc. in a sort of spreadsheet format for all images? I think there must be (several of you seem to have this data at your fingertips) - but I haven't found the right link."

You can get some information on views (visitors) and comments in the Behind the Scenes/control panel under Statistics.

Frank, you've become my unofficial Flickr Guru!

When I finish the not-so-new-at-this-point website, and dive into updating my long ignored Flickr site, I'll be referring to your threads like crazy!

I've been away from Flickr so long, it will really be like starting from scratch. Everything there looks so awesome, as compared to four or five years ago -- I can't wait to get started! :-)

Thanks Wendy. I guess it's fair to say Flickr for me is like Facebook or Instagram for everyone else. Its something I seem to have a knack for, and Facebook and Instagram drives me nuts ( doesn't surprise me why both are owned by the same guy ) .

Bradford - thanks for answering that question for Carol. I thought she meant beyond what we see in B T S.

Frank, yup, I joined Flickr in 2006 and was quite active until I stopped posting in January last year. When I first started I usually posted two pictures a day, then went down to posting one a day. My squirrels in particular really took off there. One of them got picked up by Reddit (I think it was...hard to remember now) and has had about 136,000 views.

I'm still not crazy about the new format...well, I guess it's actually old by now.

Anyway, like I said, the main reason I stopped posting there was because I was hoping my ranking on Flickr would drop off and be transferred here but it hasn't worked out that way. Not yet anyway.

Peggy - I took a peek at your Flickr photostream. You have a wonderful profile with testimonials and bio. Your pictures and captions are outstanding, and you've used Flickr sort of as yout blog it seems... which is difficult to do since most people think of a photoblog as WordPress or Tumblr these days. I can see why your Flickr comes up in search before FAA. Doing an Yahoo! search for "Peggy Collins Photography", yes, your Flickr comes up first and about the seventh listing is one of your images on FAA.

My suggestion is that you use Flickr then to make it work for you. I would include a sentence after your picture descriptions like what you said on your profile: " I make my living from photography. Please visit my profile to learn more about me and where to buy my aartwork".

I don't think you have a custom domain, but if you do then use it as your Flickr screen name: https://www.flickr.com/help/faq/search/?q=screen+name Personally I don't, but if my Flickr came up first in search I would.

Thanks for the compliments and suggestions, Frank. You're right, I used Flickr as a kind of blog for many years. I really like your idea of editing my picture descriptions and will chip away at that. I'm also really thinking of posting there again but I'm afraid it would have to be post and run pretty much. Last week I bought a custom domain but I'm going to point it here.

Excellent Peggy. Two things ...

Point your custom domain to your Artists Website and make that your Brand. I've done this and now my AW it top on search because if forward my domain to my AW. Here is an example: http://FrankJCasella.com

Second, like I mentioned before, consider using your domain name at the very least as your link in your Flickr profile ( instead of just your name that you have right now ), if not as your Flickr screen name.

I wish that my Flickr account would be first in search, but my About.me comes up first. Then comes LinkedIn and then my Blog, followed by my AW. If the first three were not there my Flickr would come up before AW just like with you. So, what I'm saying is to use your Flickr like your blog since you don't have one ...

Ah, but I do have a blog! When I was first trying to decide on a custom name for my blog, I had to come up with something other than peggycollins.com because that's been taken (by a realtor) and there are a surprising number of women with my name out there. So I had the bright idea of using peggymooncollins.com for my blog. Much later I realized that probably wasn't the smartest move because most people know me simply as Peggy Collins. So I just bought peggycollinsphotography.com for my blog and peggycollinsgallery.com to direct to my AW (which I haven't gotten around to yet).

I guess I don't understand why you'd want your Flickr account to come up before your AW. Or am I misunderstanding? And so you're saying you think I should use peggycollinsgallery.com as my Flickr screen name?

I want my Flickr to come up before my AW because there is a larger audience on Flcikr than FAA. WordPress has better SEO than Flickr, but I see more referrals from Flickr than from WordPress . My Tumblr, by the way, refers a lot to my Flickr. Because Tumblr makes it east to post from Flickr with attribution.

Yes, I think you should consider Peggycollinsgallery.com as your screen name, or at the very least make your screen name PeggyCollinsGallery. ... this way the SEO will pick it up over time.

Remember you only need to post a selective upload once per week or so, to make it manageable

http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=aaplw&p=using+flickr+for+business

O.K., thanks for answering, Frank. I guess I'll do that. Thanks for the link too...I'll do some reading up.

You're welcome, Peggy. You don't have to listen to me, I'm just sharing what I know so you can make informed decisions. It's all about helping each other make it through life.