iStock Best Match Slider Comes and Goes

Recently, I discussed the iStockphoto Best Match sort and how adjusting this slider was supposed to make the sort return more or less “relevant” to what you were searching for.  ie., you could have it less relevant and more “brainstorm”-ish while still on the keyword, or you could get really targeted results for a (set of) keyword(s).  Well, the plan is for the slider to bid “Bon Voyage”.  Not quite yet though.

… we are going to remove the keyword relevancy slider some time next week. At that point everyone will have the default which is in the middle

That was the word in this thread.  And the slider did disappear for a while this week.  However, it has now returned due to some code issues, but don’t get used to it.  It is planned to re-disappear (is that a word?) soon.

It may not be that big of an issue.  It was like the feature that no one knew about, or they might have known and forgot.  The slider, after the site redesign, was hidden in the display options box at the bottom of the page, and for the most part it seems, rarely touched.  It may have caused unreasonable overhead, it may have been hard to code around, who knows – for whatever reason, IS decided to remove it.  It seems like this has been in the works for a while, due to the big swings in the Best Match sort algorithm in the last week or two.  Heavy reliance on Vetta/Agency one day, heavy emphasis on past downloads another.

The sort return at this point seems fairly well-weighted to all its bits and pieces.  There are still bugs somewhere that need to be squashed, as brand new files seem to get sent to the back of the class immediately.  So I suggest sorting by age to get a look at brand new content, and then switching over to Best Match as a secondary sort.

Hopefully this will all get ironed out next week.  Permanently (looks skyward).

Comments are closed.

This image is protected by copyright law. Please contact me for licensing information. Thanks!