How does a picture get explored on flickr

Fortunately for everyone, the Explore algorithm has been recently updated by the SmugMug-Flickr team:. First up?

Testing to update Explore. I found this out by accident, as a new image upload of mine made it into Explore and someone commented :. I went to the third party tool that tracks which photos have been in Explore, and I found that over of my photos have been selected for explore.

To find your own photos featured in Explore, substitute your screen name or Flickr ID number at that link. Some interesting observations… Some of my better, older work was recently featured. I often re-process my older images, and Flickr enables me to replace the photo one of my favorite Flickr features. Given the complicated algorithm, changing anything such as adding your photo to a group or adding a tag can kick your photo in or out of Explore.

So if you replace a photo and maybe accept a group invitation you missed or put it in a group, it may get more activity, and Flickr may detect recognize the improvements.

Or maybe a human does. Either way, continuing to invest in Flickr, even with older images, can deliver new benefits. Since I like and want to keep using Flickr, anything that improves it and encourages new use is a good thing. Does this signal a new era of relevance and quality for Explore?

Maybe someone saw your photo on the Explore front page. But Explore for any given day doesn't become "official" until the following day at midnight Pacific Time.

There's a reason Flickr doesn't link to the current day's Explore only yesterday's and older. The results don't become "official" until the day ends when all of the photos for that day can be evaluated fairly. Otherwise it's like running a race but letting some people start early. Rankings don't "count" until the very last photo of the day is uploaded because that one could be 1 for the day.

So Scout waits until midnight when the results become official. The rankings in Explore for all dates change all the time even for dates in the past. Interestingness rankings are recalculated for all photos many times per day. Photos uploaded a day, a week, even a year ago, are still receiving activity in the form of views, comments, favorites, etc.

And all of that activity affects each photo's Interestingness ranking, even for photos that were uploaded years ago. Explore is very dynamic.

When you browse through Explore on any date, you are viewing what the Interestingness algorithm has selected as the highest ranked photos at that moment. Rankings are relative to other photos uploaded on the same day. If everyone else moves up, you move down. Were they uploaded on different days? Remember, to get into Explore every photo has to "compete" against every other photo on Flickr; and every day is a different competition with different photographs. You can't compare rankings from day to day.

That is, the 1 photo in Explore today might have been or might not even have made the cut if it was uploaded yesterday—even though in your personal listing it is your highest ranked photo. It seems counter intuitive but it makes sense. Interestingness is not calculated in real-time, microsecond to microsecond. It is calculated en masse at intervals, perhaps once per hour. Imagine all of the activity that occurs in an hour—not just on your photo but all of the other photos in Explore and on the rest of Flickr.

All of that activity goes into the Interestingness algorithm and every photo is re-ranked. The result of that activity is that many photos' Interestingness rankings may have changed drastically. If it were completely random then you'd never see any stability in a photo's ranking and there are many photos that have maintained the same position for months on end. No one knows for sure except Flickr staff. Many people speculate that it is a random factor in Explore. That may be. Mainly it's because there are really more than photos in Explore each day around typically and they rotate through the top spotlight.

Also, as time goes on, old photos keep getting new activity so photos are added and dropped from old dates in Explore all the time. Scout started keeping a permanent record of every photo that was ever in Explore on May 24th Before that, Scout would delete dropped photos from the listings after a few days.

You're out of luck if your photo dropped before May 24th. Because Scout and Explore are updated at different intervals, the rankings may be slightly out of sync.

Flickr Tip 3: Don't add your photo into too many groups. Go through your groups and decide which ones give you the best return on investment. Which groups produce views and comments, and which ones don't? Adding your photo into an excessive number of groups will hurt your interestingness score. Flickr Tip 4: Post your photo early in the morning.

Remember that explore includes the most interesting photos on the site during one calendar day. Common sense says that the longer you have your line in the water, the more fish you'll catch. Flickr Tip 5: Take eye-catching photos. I think one reason for this is that your photo has to look creative or unique from a thumbnail size.

Photos that are not colorful, or photos with fine detail that can only be noticed when enlarged will not get as many views because it won't prompt people to click on the thumbnail if it looks dull from that size. Let's be honest, just because your photo appears on the explore page doesn't mean that it's a great photo.

Personal Note: If you've checked my Flickr photostream lately, you know that I rarely update it. I'm mostly wrapped up in paying photography gigs lately, so I don't have much time to be social on Flickr. Personally, I really don't care how popular my photos are.

I really use it as a way to share photos from photowalks to my local group of photographers. Regular posting is one of the factors that helps keep your audience engaged, but your focus should be on building an authentic community of people who value and interact with your work in a genuine way. Does adding tags, titles, and descriptions to my photos impact my chances of being in Explore? Providing more metadata and information about the upload influences the scoring of the photo.

The more the system can understand the content uploaded, the better the chances of it being Explored. Does adding my photo to groups help my chances of getting into Explore? Adding your photos to on-topic groups is a great way to connect with other Flickr members interested in the same kind of photography that you do.

It is also a great way to build community and interaction around your work, thus improving your chances of getting featured! Why are there so many birds on Explore? What can I do to increase my exposure on Flickr?