Alamy Measures Stats January 2009

It's been a quiet month punctuated by a snowboarding holiday where I shot a few Facebook pictures for my friends, and promptly received news of my work situation changing...for the worse. The credit crunch has bitten and I am now looking for my next contract. You'd think that this would give me an opportunity to go out and shoot some pictures but actually I'd rather practice the guitar in the warmth of my living room and finally finish keywording the last handful of pictures of Japan. I pleased to say that my portfolio on Alamy is getting a healthy number of views, a nice level of zooms and my pseudonyms are settling in nicely. The surprise statistic is that my travel image pseudonym has the best CTR at 3.20% - I was expecting it to be terrible in face of the competition but perhaps they are my best photos after all. Here is my view of Alamy for the month of January: Proportion of searches for: 1 word = 18% , average of 13.04 pages viewed 2 words = 44% , average of 9.57 pages viewed 3 words = 27% , average of 8.57 pages viewed 4 words = 9% , average of 4.45 pages viewed 5+ words = 3% , average of 8.38 pages viewed Total number of pictures at end of month: 512 Proportion of views to pictures: 131.84% Number of sales for month: 0 Average number of my pictures viewed matching query: 2.27 Total average CTR for searches in which my images appeared: 1.27% My CTR: 1.18%

Ema (wishes) on display at Meiji Shrine, Yoyogi Park, Tokyo, Japan

Proportion of searches for: 5 letter words 18.07% 4 letter words 16.47% 3 letter words 15.66% 6 letter words 13.52% 7 letter words 12.45% 8 letter words 6.96% 9 letter words 5.62% 2 letter words 5.09% 10 letter words 4.28% 11 letter words 1.34% 15 letter words 0.40% 12 letter words 0.13% Most popular words (top 5 in each position ignoring "and"): First word: READING off shell green Hiroshima asda Second word: berkshire shop license UK airport amsterdam car town a drink wheel japan festival petrol you Third word: UK south japan not manger Fourth word: africa UK town book is Womad england Fifth word: UK Any position: UK and READING book japan shop berkshire Most popular variations: cape town: (table mountain OR south africa) reading festival: NOT (book OR womad) grand union: (canal OR narrow boat) woman: (money OR drink alcohol)! buckinghamshire: (crime OR police OR public) blue: (recycling OR wheelie bin) book: (pages OR store) recycling: (bin OR facility) beer: (shop OR crates) green: (bins OR management) shell: (station OR petrol) train: (japan OR arriva) castle: (battle OR coombe) In contrast to the stats that I can gather from my own Measures data, here is what the whole of Alamy is searching for: Most popular Alamy searches (top 5 in each position ignoring "alamy" as a search): by number of unique customers searching: cat laptop london "piggy bank" dog by number of sales: "new york lights" handshake barcelona "brooklyn bridge, new york" iphone by number of zooms: "punjab india" mirrorpix dubai baltic "Jurassic Coast"

Alamy Measures Stats October 2008

I think I am losing enthusiasm for Alamy. Whilst it provides a meaningful outlet for my photography, it is rather soulless as far as photography goes. It does not reward artistic merit but rather rewards those who can "produce" photos, something I have not scratched the surface of. November in England is not an inspiring place for the artistically shallow! Here is my view of Alamy for the month of October: Proportion of searches for: 1 word = 18% , average of 19.00 pages viewed 2 words = 50% , average of 20.04 pages viewed 3 words = 20% , average of 7.44 pages viewed 4 words = 9% , average of 5.44 pages viewed 5+ words = 3% , average of 8.73 pages viewed Total number of pictures at end of month: 375 Number of sales for month: 0 Average number of my pictures viewed matching query: 2.01 Total average CTR for searches in which my images appeared: 0.95% My CTR: 0.65%

The A-Bomb Dome at night with moon, Hiroshima, Japan 3/3

Proportion of searches for: 4 letter words 19.93% 5 letter words 16.93% 7 letter words 15.52% 6 letter words 12.87% 3 letter words 11.82% 8 letter words 6.70% 9 letter words 5.47% 2 letter words 4.94% 10 letter words 3.53% 11 letter words 1.94% 15 letter words 0.35% Most popular words (top 5 in each position ignoring "and"): First word: snowman cape christmas haunted UK boots Second word: house town UK garden cards shrine Third word: UK cape town chemist money Fourth word: town UK money turbine open sign warm group africa driveway Fifth word: EUROS Any position: snowman insulation ludlow ostrich Hiroshima Most popular subjects: japanese: (home OR Bullet train) willow: (river England OR tree river) UK: (road signs OR foorball ground OR motorway OR autumn hedgerow) old: (house OR paper) car: (wash OR wind turbine) ?!?! affordable housing: (UK OR building) empty restaurant: (UK OR London) baby: (stroller OR hide OR strollers) christmas: (angel OR cards OR stars) home: (depot OR ventilation) queue: (UK OR Britain) In contrast to the stats that I can gather from my own Measures data, here is what the whole of Alamy is searching for: Most popular Alamy searches (top 5 in each position ignoring "alamy" as a search): by number of unique customers searching: Christmas "christmas tree" barcelona fireworks football "credit crunch" iceland by number of sales: meditation "historical art collection HAC" "venice art" "northern ireland" "child yoga" by number of zooms: Nice Skagway "person and red" puppy madrid There is no good news this month. I've added 100 pictures in the last month and my CTR has more than halved. Even though Alamy's CTR is depressed this month, this is not good news. I think I need to create a new Pseudonym to house my Travel pictures as they are terrible at the moment (in fact, I ought to remove them altogether at this rate). Time for a bit of reflection on what should be on my portfolio I think, before I dissappear into the lowest ranks of Alamy. Andy

Excessive similars? Too much competition more like

Himeji-jo (Himeji Castle), Himeji, Japan (deleted)
I have started editing the next batch of our Japan trip and so another 50-odd images are Awaiting Processing with Alamy. In the meantime I have come to a difficult decision, I am going to remove some of my images from Alamy. This is based on some consideration of AlamyRank.

The pictures illustrating this post are of Himeji Castle, probably the best castle in Japan as it was not bombed in the war and has not burnt down in recent history, and so is a stunning and almost unique site in Japan. Unfortunately it is not a unique sight for Alamy contributors as a search for Himeji castle shows 523 images. There are pictures of it in the autumn, pictures of it in the snow, pictures of it with cherry blossom and pictures of it at sunset, or at night...and so my 30 images of the place, albeit taken on a blue sky day, need to be significantly different to the others otherwise I will get lots of views (probably more than 10 views every time someone searches) and no zooms and sales. The effect on my AlamyRank would be significant.

I already put these pictures in my lesser ranked pseudonym but this morning I took the decision to remove 14 of the 30 pictures. The pictures on this post are now residing in my Alamy recycle bin awaiting deletion. I have also done a scan of some other recent pictures in my portfolio and deleted a couple of others - for example, a picture of the Lutheran Cathedral in Helsinki on a overcast day, there's 382 pictures of it on Alamy, none of which have a grey sky like mine.

The temptation to leave similars on Alamy is very strong. Once the images have passed QC they don't cost me anything to store, however the cost to my Rank - and hence my sales in the future - could be very significant. Whether I will ever learn to edit the pictures before uploading remains to be seen!

Himeji-jo (Himeji Castle), Himeji, Japan (deleted)

Abstract editorial? Oh dear...

Blue pyramid glass bulidings against a blue sky
Ho hum, this week has been spent at work and the weather has not been stock-friendly in the evenings. I've had another two batches of images go through QC and one or two images, though perfect technically, probably won't sell. They've been plonked in my "Creative" pseudonym as I don't expect them to sell and I don't want them to affect my main pseudonym's Rank. The main problem with them is that I don't have a property release so they can't even be used "creatively", which leaves them in the wilderness of non-editorial non-released subjects - which I am quickly becoming a specialist in :-(

At least the Olympics are exciting for us Brits...

Abstract of wooden clad multi-storey car park in Reading, UK

Close-up of the pages of a book 1/6

The image on the left, by the way, is an image that I re-shot this week on my D300, using the same settings and lens as the two examples that failed shown in my QC Tests. This one passed with no issues whatsoever, my best case yet for soft or lacking definition being linked to upscaling and not lens or technique. I'll soon forget about my QC issues, but I'm still feeling hurt from all the comments that were made...about crap glass, crap technique, crap workflow...well here is the proof.