Once your photo is buried under thousands of newer photos and didn’t make it into “most popular”, then keywords are the only medium to link buyer to your photos.
Where there a demand, there is a supply. There are now a few services which can help you with your keywording. They all use similar interface and algorithm, so it is really your choice on which one to use. I have tested them for various photos, and they all produce very similar results.
This was the first keywording service for microstocks (released in Sep 2006), and is widely used by sizable russian-speaking microstock community. It uses Istockphoto library for image and keyword retrieval.
2) Arcurs.com
This keywording service was introduced in May 2008 by Yuri Arcurs, and with his powerful brand attached to it, is now widely used by english-speaking contributors. Rumor has it, that it was originally developed by russian programmer in Jan 2008 (it still has russian interface offered) and then was obtained by Y. Arcurs in May 2008. It uses Shutterstock library for image and keyword retrieval (curiously enough, it still have reference to library of now defunct microstock luckyoliver.com)
This service has a useful feature of showing words which are used together to find the photos. It also shows the popularity of chosen keywords in shutterstock library.
3) http://www.findphotokeywords.com/
This service was introduced by Maros Markovic in Oct 2008. Originally, the service required registration and limited number of free searches, however with the competition offering these services for free (and following critique on microstock forums), this keywording service was made free in May 2009 (but accepts donations).
It uses the libraries of Shutterstock, Dreamstime, Istockphoto, Fotolia and Getty Images and each of the search results is shown in different sections.
4) http://www.saranai.ru/keywords/
This is another service from runet (russian internet). It looks as exact replica of microstock.ru service (see 1) ), however it uses shutterstock library instead. And unlike Arcurs’ service it gives you a choice to search among photos by specific photographer.
5) http://dusegard.se/PhotoKeywording.aspx
Another service which uses shutterstock library. What I like about this service, is its user-friendly interface – just one page to work with. It sorts the keywords by their popularity.
Happy keywording !!!
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