Dear Contributors,
In the coming weeks, you may notice some changes to the search results on Shutterstock. We’d like to share some information with you about what to expect.
The Shutterstock search team has been hard at work improving the system that powers our search results. Our goal is to create a more robust and full-featured search system to support exciting new interfaces we are developing. Soon, we will begin testing the new search service with a small percentage of customers.
Here’s a short summary of how the search upgrade will affect contributors:
- This upgrade will fix a glitch that now causes some images to temporarily not appear in search results.
- There will be a slight delay for images to appear in the New sort order, but reliability will be greatly improved.
- During testing, different users may see different results for the same search.
- The order of images in search results may change. (However, the fundamental principles powering the New, Most Popular and Relevant sort orders are not changing.)
All you need to do is keep creating and uploading great content, and be mindful that some of the changes you’ll see in the Shutterstock search results are a result of this upgrade. We’re excited about our progress in search, and confident that our new system will help us create even better experiences for customers and contributors in the future.
Best Regards,
Scott Braut
VP of Content
17 Responses
The missing images have been going on for well over the past 1-2 years and last night it took a total dump, image reviews have gone from 1-2 days to in many cases well over 9 days or more but yet certain other members get reviewed within hours while others that have been waiting for days are still waiting.
So the It department has a fix!
Doubt it they will probably get it massively messed up for these limited test subjects (guinea pigs) and their images will disappear into thin air and become lost in space.
Sure would be nice to be able to have images not get lost and to be searchable by keywords yada yada yada i could go on forever but that’s enough for now.
Gotta love shutterstock the best sie on earth!
Thank you SS. The past 2 days I lost 50% of my sales on Thursday and today 70% off my normal. Thank you again SS.
“What Our Improved Search System Means for Contributors”
I can answer that. Well, it means my sales tank because I cost more per a DL and they are having a IPO and have to show more profit but we’ll wrap this whole pile of zhit in a bug fixing bullzhit sandwich for you!
Thanks again SS
cooking the searches is never good never . It means the searches are fake and only what you want people to see
Your own words below quoted from your own page above!
• “The order of images in search results may change.”
• “During testing, different users may see different results for the same search”
If the large ports here suffer a massive blow in sales, what can the small ports expect? I am a starter, struggling to get the port up and running, surely if the large ports drop in sales, we are left with 0. And exactly that is true. I expected sales to pick up in May as April showed an increase at the end. Too bad this new search system threw a spanner in the wheels.
The images I’ve sold over the yesterday and today have been my more popular images but I seem to be selling more than usual. I’m not sure if that’s a result of the new search testing or just my good fortune since they’ve been popular images even with the old search but whatever is happening, I like it!
I’ll keep my voice on the front
Thank you SS. The past 2 days I lost 50% of my sales on Thursday and today 70% off my normal. Thank you again SS.
My final word. I hope this is just a bad ebb for me and not what you are doing to the searches. If it is your new changes then I will have to figure out how to make up the lost income from your “improvements” and that is just the hard bumps of life.
My sales are Better than ever!
Keep up the good work SS!
Thank You
Well I hope at least some of you guys are happy with this new thing. Me, I’m not. As other photographers and illustrators do, I report at least 40% drop off sales last week. I didn’t see something like this in about 3 years. I do stock for living, SS is my first earner so I cannot be happy.
My sales are doing well! I welcome any improvement of any search-engine, thats heading in the right direction.
Minor changes of pics places are ofcourse to be expected but the alogarithm, must not be changes from say a page 1, to say a page 10. that would be derrogative to any large port, any large contributor.
best.
chris56, may I take look to your port? just curious.
My English is not good. I’m sorry.
now everything is never the same again. Sales also fell. very slow.
turned to an old popular searches. illustrations for the first time the old type. and I think that’s ridiculous.
There was a fair game last week. now I do not think so. I am very unhappy
I do not know what is to be done.
at the same time. Images Missing error/bug returned again!
I hope that popular search results will be like the previous week.
respects
sales down at last 3 days
Thanks SS
I’m seeing a total drop-off in OD sales starting May 9th. Other contributors in the forums are reporting the same experience. Naturally I’m wondering if this is due to the “testing” SS is doing. Are our images not included in the search results when an OD buyer looks for an image? I suppose that’s something that could be programmed into a search algorithm, but if so, it creates a very uneven playing field here, doesn’t it? If this is what’s happening, how does SS decide who gets OD, EL and SOD exposure, and who doesn’t? As a contributor in good faith, I find this extremely disturbing. If this continues, I may need to rethink my side of the deal.
50% drop off sales this month
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