What It Takes to Get Your Photo on the Flickr Explore Page
Photography: law_keven
For many photographers, a place on Flickr’s Explore page is the ultimate prize. It’s an acknowledgment that their work can stand among the best on the site, that it is indeed “interesting,” and that they are an important part of the community.
And of course, it can bring a massive surge of views to their image and their photostream.
So what does it take to improve the chances that a photo will be highlighted as one of the most interesting uploaded in the last seven days?
To Be “Interesting,” a Photo Must Generate Interest
The simple answer is that other people have to like it. Flickr itself has no way of assessing a photo; it can only react to the interest the Flickr community has already shown in it. As Serguei Mourachov, a Flickr staff member and part of the team responsible for creating the Explore page algorithm, told us:
“We are looking for what’s attracting [the] attention of our community and not just for nicely arranged pixels.”
That means that to reach the Explore page, a photo has to have gathered views, comments and been faved. Each of these actions has a different weight in the algorithm and the weighting is adjusted regularly. According to Serguei:
“[v]iews have the minimal weight in the interestingness calculation [and] favorites have slightly higher weight than comments, but we change these numbers about four to five times a year to adjust our algorithm to the current climate of Flickrverse,”
There are however a number of minimum requirements that an image has to meet to qualify. In addition to being faved at least twice, photos must also be public, ‘safe’ and include EXIF data.
Groups too can affect the probability of a photo reaching the Explore page (what Serguei calls ‘PEP.’) Photos posted in groups with high numbers of ‘unsafe’ photos, for example, are flagged as suspicious and given a “significantly lower” PEP. Groups with rules that require members to take actions that would increase PEP are also penalized.
“Many ‘award’ and ‘comments’ groups fall in this category,” Serguei explained. “To avoid this kind of problem we are trying to automatically discover such groups and adjust our algorithm for photos included in their pools, decreasing their PEP.”
Posting in Too Many Groups Lowers your Chances
Interestingly, photos posted in “too many” groups are penalized in a similar way, (‘Having [a] photo in more than 15-20 groups will significantly affect PEP,” Serguei told us) presumably to reduce the motivation to spam groups in order to win views, faves and comments.
The order in which the images appear on the Explore page however, is not important.
“Photos are shown in some order just because we want consistent pagination on the Explore day view page,” said Serguei. “The problem we try to avoid is typical for our Last 7 Days page, where sometimes you can see the same photos after page reload. And at each interestingness recalculation we are adding several random factors such as completely excluding all photos of [a] random user, or just [a] random photo for the day.”
Promoting an image in order to place it on the Explore page then can backfire if not done carefully. Post the image in as many groups as possible, and especially those which demand comments, and you will damage the chances that the image will be highlighted.
And being too successful can count against you too. The Explore algorithm increases PEP for photos of little-known users and only places images from the same photographer on the Explore page in intervals of several days.
The best strategy then is to follow the advice posted by Viejito in Flickr’s “Interestingness” group, and provide comments and faves to other images in the hope that they’ll return the favor naturally. That’s always a good strategy to follow on Flickr, especially if the comments are genuinely valuable advice rather than quick compliments.
And if a photo that you think is Explore-worthy doesn’t make the cut, remember it’s not you, it’s Flickr.
“Explore pages are for viewers and not a photography popularity contest,” warned Serguei. “Many great photos of excellent photographers never made Explore… and it does not mean they are bad. [The] algorithm that populates Explore pages is not fair by definition. It’s not created to judge, but to find something that could be interesting.”
Have you had a photo on Flickr’s Explore page?
January 23rd, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Nice article. Interesting to see the inner workings described here.
I have to admit though, Explore always seems a bit overrated to me. If an image I shoot makes it to Explore, then great, but I am not going to go out of my way to try and get it there. Also I admin a few groups and am active in others, so my photos end up in a lot of places. If that happens to affect my "PEP" then so be it.
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:05 pm
I've had several hit Explore at one time or another (38 of my 1500+ to be exact... so I suppose my record isn't stellar).
It's rather confounding; several of my "most interesting" photos which seem to meet all the criteria mentioned never made it, while others with relatively few comments/faves/views, and much lower on my interesting scale, did.
Perusing the explore pages - those "must comment" groups do seem to come up a bit, despite the alleged penalty, especially "the world through my eyes" and various "1-2-3" groups. Though about half the photos aren't in such groups, so I guess it must factor. It's true that they all seem to be in less than 10 though.
(Seems silly to me, there's other ways to neutralize that effect without penalizing people for participating in those kind of groups - for example, look at the average number of comments a photo in such a group receives and weight accordingly).
Personally, I try not to think about it too much - it's nice and all, but it's not the only (or even the best) kind of recognition that Flickr offers.
January 23rd, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Nice post, thanks for gathering and sharing this.
However, I got a few pics on explorer but I'm not sure about the EXIF requirement.
This one made it for instance:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcfull/495713700/in/set-72157600000363458/
And doesn't have EXIF.
January 24th, 2008 at 7:31 am
This image gets loads of hit from all over the place, some searches from outside and inside flickr
Even Digg where I have a link to it
http://digg.com/design/Why_are_men_in_suits_popular_Flickrism
Still not in Explore
January 24th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Just curious, how does one or can one find out if their shot made it to the explore page...are you sent some type of e-mail by flickr to tell you or is there some other type of mechanism?
January 24th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
I've always been mystified by the whole Explore thing. It's funny how I'll have photos pop in there unexpectedly, while others that I thought had a good chance never make it. I figured it had to do with views, comments, and faves, but I always thought they had some other factors (or people) in the background that decided on the entry to Explore. It still feels a bit like the Digg algorithm to me, but I guess that's what makes it so fun.
January 25th, 2008 at 5:18 am
Flickr is only sharing what they want us to know. There must be many other variables as, those who have tracked photos say that there is no consistency at all. I've had a few photos on the Explore Page...one never even got on Scout, it was there for such a short time. And, where many of my photos used to be among the top 500, I haven't had one show up in a month. It's best to take Explore and Interestingness with a grain of salt.
January 25th, 2008 at 6:13 am
Well I need to confirm on the groups things, I never really knew that but I have noticed that a lot of my pictures that reached the explore page where only part of a group or two, while others, that I was more proud of and promoted to about 10 groups never did it to the interestingness
January 25th, 2008 at 7:21 am
Howard,
There is a tool out there that will show you what has hit the Explore page. I will try and dig it up and post it here..
January 25th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
And the pretty girl with the same frakking self-portrait from 3 quarters, it's mostly the same pic, but hey she's cute so she has a following and she gets faved and clicked and everything. But just like a Melissa Etheridge album it's always the same song, just different makeup (not really) different lighting (not really) it's the same frakking picture with slight, slight difference and she gets to the front page, there's no creativity, but she's cute. Further proof that all social networking elements always end up as a cool-clique network where the cool people are worshiped over the talented. Oh Look I can point a camera at my face.... yay!
Just slightly bitter - Not that I think my pictures deserve the frontpage (though I'm proud of a few of them) I just think that a lot of them don't deserve to be.
January 25th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I found the tool by Googling...very useful. Here it is if anyone wants it:
http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/scout.php
Go know I had 9 images in Explore and I never knew it!
January 26th, 2008 at 9:37 am
I've always been baffled by Explore, but it's fun when a photo gets picked up. I've had 7 show up according to Scout.
January 26th, 2008 at 11:37 am
I've had 120+ included in Explore, but I can't tell you how it's done. Some get a lot of comments, views, and favorites, others not so much.
It's a nice compliment but I don't really pay attention to it. I just want to make appealing photographs.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:58 am
I heard a couple of the Flickr developers speak at web apps conference a while back and they said that one of the factors was that someone who has had lot's of photos in explore favourites your photo then that will carry more weight than someone who doesn't have many photos in explore faving it.
That would explain how some photos with very few comments may get into explore over others with loads.
January 28th, 2008 at 7:44 am
Wow thanks for that Scout tool Howard! Never noticed my swan photo had been on there - only 10 comments (2 of mine!) and 82 views. Cool!
February 5th, 2008 at 12:18 am
I've been fairly successful with Explore, but it's still something of a mystery. For obvious reasons, Flickr isn't interested in doing more than hinting at how pictures get in. They don't want to see the obvious gaming that would follow.
More thoughts on the definition of "Exploreworthiness" can be found in the Scout faq: http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/faq.php?section=scout
I especially like how Scout keeps track of every photo that you have in Explore:
http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/scout.php?username=76016463@N00&sort=date&year=0
or, you can have it just show you the ones that are currently in:
http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/scout.php?username=76016463@N00&combined=0,
which can change quite a bit.
Explore is very dynamic. Photos for each day jump in an out, based on their current "interestingness". Or perhaps someone decides to make a bunch of photos private. They vanish from Explore and new places are created.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Having your photo in the top results of Explore gives an immense amount of exposure - not only on Flickr but also on various websites around the web, which display those photos through RSS. That's why Explore is not something to ignore or regard as insignificant or unimportant.
According to my DNA page (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/dna.php?username=17056146@N00), 41 of my 102 public photos have made Explore, yet it is a mystery to me as to why some make it and others with far more faves and comments don't.
But in every case the pics which made Explore, especially in the top 10, are what gave my stream the most views. Those photos, however, rarely stay on Explore for long.
My personal opinion on Explore is that the guys at Flickr try to show photos of various users - and new users on Flickr do need that kind of exposure so they get noticed and encouraged too.
That's why it seems that the more popular someone's stream becomes, the less probable it would be that their new photo would get on Explore.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:19 am
Very good article, and handful tips meantime. The strategy behind the algorithm is fair I think, though sometimes is lacking the sincerity.
May 20th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
DAVE ID Said:
And the pretty girl with the same freaking self-portrait from 3 quarters, it's mostly the same pic, but hey she's cute so she has a following and she gets faved and clicked and everything. But just like a Melissa Etheridge album it's always the same song, just different makeup (not really) different lighting (not really) it's the same frakking picture with slight, slight difference and she gets to the front page, there's no creativity, but she's cute. Further proof that all social networking elements always end up as a cool-clique network where the cool people are worshiped over the talented. Oh Look I can point a camera at my face.... yay!
Just slightly bitter - Not that I think my pictures deserve the frontpage (though I'm proud of a few of them) I just think that a lot of them don't deserve to be.
-----------------------------------------------
I suspect you are talking about Lucia Holm aka Miss Lulu or whatever. I totally agree. I do think she has talent, but when it comes down to it she's only popular because she's pretty and a minor internet celebrity. So much for "interestingness".
May 26th, 2008 at 6:30 am
Interesting article, but I still find Explore a huge oddity - I've only had two in, but my best position was based on 18 views, four comments and four faves, and it's a long way from my best photo. Even more odd, it was dropped, then re-added a day later in a higher position, but on the basis of no more views or comments. The EXIF thing annoys me though, if it's true, as it's surely a bias towards digital rather than film photography.