Searching for Truth #1--A Typical Top Five

Every day the image servers at my company, Index Stock, process thousands of search requests.  I find it fascinating to see what our customers and visitors are interested in.

Here are the top five requests from a recent day's activity:

people

business

animals

abstract backgrounds

woman

The first search is almost always the same one, every day.  People want to see "people."  Frankly, it seems like a pretty lame and stupid search to me!  But then, the same can be said for four of these top five.  Putting in a single generic keyword is going to return a flat, generic set of images.  I'd guess that most people who take this approach are either browsers ("Let's look around and get some ideas") or "testers" ("Does Index have any new people images, today?")

"Business" is also generally high on the list.  I am always tempted to adjust our results to give a cute answer to this query.  Quote DB (a great site for finding quotes) has the famous Calvin Coolidge quote ("The business of America is business.")  So, maybe I should put a big American flag or eagle image into our business results?  I could also play on themes like "home business" or "funny business."

However, as you will see if you click on the links above, most of the twists can be handled by our search engine.  If someone wants "home business" and types it in, he or she will see business being done in the basement, in the living room, etc.

I was pleased to see abstract background high on the list.  This has always been one of my favorite "secrets" of the stock photo business.  Abstracts are HUGE sellers.  Water drops, textiles, patches of dirt...there are tons of great abstract images in our file (and yet to be taken).  We have more than 1500 of them and wish we had twice as many good ones.

Finally, please note that women are more interesting than men.  Look through the random magazines at your doctor's office, the next time you are there.  I'd bet you'll see twice as many ads with women in them as men.  The same thing holds for magazine and newspaper articles.

Comments

[Bill Whelan]

Didn't realize you were into "abstracts"... will go after them forthwith! Thanks!

Bill