Not everyone can win.
Even if titles were completely removed from search, the order of tracks would be the same. It would sure look a lot better though.
Buyers only use 10 common search words or less to try to find tracks. Half a million tracks to search from.
It would make most sense to ONLY have a random generator in each style and tempo.
I donāt think abuse of the search engine is necessary for a track to gain momentum. In fact, Iād say any more than 3-4 keywords and youāre doing your track a disservice. It is most certainly not paying off. Granted Iāve experimented with 4 word titles before, but I honestly donāt think it helped.
Let me elaborate:
Buyers will often search more than one popular term. As long as your track appears in one or two of those corresponding results pages, youāre fine in my opinion. Adding a sentence-long string of keywords will NOT help you here. It will make your title harder to remember, and it will blend in with the rest of the tracks. A 2-3 keyword title is actually optimal in my opinion.
The main issue here is abuse of the automatic approval system. Authors are uploading tracks as 1-2 word titles (which get manually approved), then proceeding to change them to sentence-long word salad. Normally AJ reviewers would reject titles like this, but because ātrustedā authors can pretty much change what they want with auto approval, theyāre free to wreak havoc on their titles.
Notice how NONE of the top sellersā sales changed after adding an extra keyword or two to their titles. Iām talking LumenMediaās smash hit āUpbeat Corporateā - it did just fine with 2 keywords. Studio89ās track āUpbeatā (later āUpbeat Corporateā) managed fine as well. RedLionās āInspiringā is doing better than ever and itās a single word title! My point is that that thereās a sweet spot - and itās probably 2-3 keywords. Even my track, which used to be called āUplifting and Inspiring Backgroundā (only 2 useful keywords), didnāt really sell any more after adding the keyword ācorporateā to the title.
Unfortunately many authors think that by adding more keywords they are increasing the sales potential of the item by upping the exposure. Wrong. In fact, by continuing to subscribe to this idea youāre not only damning your own work but youāre reducing exposure on other tracks as well.
Let me finish with this. The only way youāll benefit from having a keyword in your title is if your track perfectly reflects that keyword. Minldlessly adding keywords will not help you. Iāve seen many authors begin to tack on words like āmotivationalā or āepicā to their otherwise light and inspiring corporate tracks, thinking that this will improve their sales. On the contrary, what theyāll notice is that the track wonāt sell anything more (eg buyers find the track after searching epic and donāt even bother visiting the page because the track sounds nothing like an epic track) Instead, the new title only serves to confuse buyers and crowd the search results.
I donāt knowā¦ the main issue I can see is that on the bestsellers page, there is not a SINGLE unique name. I know a few people in my daily life that use AJ on a regular basis and they find the over usage of these words very frustrating and make it difficult to find what theyāre really looking for. I donāt understand why the search engine canāt disregard the name of the track and only go off tags and description, and maybe something like a sub title where we can plug in all these words that weāre currently using for the titles. This situation also makes it harder to market outside of AJ. Unless a potential buyer already shops here and is aware of these naming conventions, everybody that comes across my stuff is very confused that a bunch of adjectives are what constitute the title of my track.
Part of me is afraid of any change in this regard because Iāve had some success here. I donāt exactly want to rock the boat. But I wonder if its possible to have everything stay as it is and just have what are the current titles become sub titles and let the search engine go off that? I dunnoā¦ just spit balling here.
Thatās true. I think a sub-title feature could be handy.
Iām also going to add something that I donāt think many of us have thought about: different languages.
A significant (probably 30-40%) portion of buyers on AJ are from non-English speaking countries. Having descriptive, adjective-based titles may seem like a strange way to name our music, but for someone who isnāt very familiar with English or doesnāt speak it at all, these titles are probably very useful. By using simple, accurate keywords to form a descriptive title, you are not only making the most of the search engine, but also making your items easier to be found for non-English speakers. Now as I said before, I still donāt advocate huge incoherent sentence-like titles, but I can understand the point of having appropriately-sized descriptive titles for the reasons outlined above.
Itās been brought to my attention that the example I used in my earlier, lengthy post was indeed incorrect; the word āHealthā does in fact appear in either the tags or the descriptions of the tracks displayed under Best Sellers. I stand corrected, and apologize for disseminating misinformation.
However, it does raise another legitimate question:
Why are tags and descriptions taken into consideration by the search engine ONLY when sorting by Best Sellers, thereby promoting ONLY those tracks which objectively do not āneedā more exposure??
Maybe some general rules on naming the tracks could be applied. I remember some time ago that you couldnāt put in the title the genre of the song (eg. āThinking of you tranceā); but this rule dissapeared in time and there are many tracks named only ātranceā āthe tranceā āa tranceā etc. So in conclusion why not agree on a few rules that will take out some of these situations?
Remove the title from the search ranking, problem solved. Then we can have more interesting and meaningful titles like I have with my music outside the royalty free market. This will make the marketplace look much more professional. This system sucks as it stands and is biased Iām afraid. Tags are there for a reason, titles should not be used as tags. Obviously my opinion will upset some, who benefit from this system, but letās encourage new buyers in by looking like the quality audio marketplace we actually are.
Hereās some recent examples of titles that I have used outside of AJ.
BEES KNEES
BLISSFUL SUNSHINE
BONDING EXPERIENCES
BOUNCY CASTLE
BRIGHTEST LIGHT
BUILDING COURAGE
BUSY DAY
Tags and descriptions are always weighted, itās just that the title is weighted MORE. It only shows when you use uncommon words.
Of course, the only real solution is to completely remove titles from the search. It wonāt change the exposure or search order for tracks since they will all have the same words and phrases in the tags, but it will make things look like something other than a dictionary consisting of 10 words.
Other sites do this and it works just fine. As suggested before, a specific title field (NOT default) can be present if youāre searching for a specific track title (which is useless now).
By the way, this is the very reason a certain ex-leading artist is now struggling to even get half of what he used to. By not changing titles heās giving up $10,000 a monthā¦
Sure, I had to drop a few words from the title to get it approved:
So maybe this is why there are only 10 common search words or less as @Flumen Stated? ā¦Maybe buyers are using only words they know or look up on google translate and search only using thoseā¦they wouldnāt even be able to read or understand the ācreativeā titles, it would take mush work to translate everyoneā¦But this is stock audio people, buyers search for a mood/sound/emotion anyway, not a popular chart topping song from an album, for that they would just contact the artist directly and pay wayyyyy more!
Are you saying here that if I name my tracks using 2-3 of the 10 famous keywords I would sell more?
Damn I have to change at least my last 30 titles!
Guys, just a practical question, when you change a title of the track do you change a file name too and re-upload each time files? Thanks
āPorn Star From My Villageā and look, a decent track with only 4 sales - I wonder why? Maybe because they didnāt name it āFun Happy Indie Rockā - oh well. sigh
Interesting point and I hadnāt thought of the language thing before. However, Iād argue that for the 60-70% who are native English speakers, the current way is much more confusing and cumbersome. Iād much rather have a system that works best for the majority of customers.
I understand something like changing the entire search structure of a large marketplace like AJ is HUGELY complicated and probably loaded with unforeseen consequences. Iāve got 250 tracks hereā¦ I wouldnāt be thrilled about the prospect of changing all of the titles. But the homogenization of track titles is a bit embarrassing as far as Iām concerned, and Iām not convinced itās productiveā¦
Also, I was thinking about a way to expand on the sub-title idea. Perhaps the sub field could be created in a way that would automatically populate with current titles. That way we could keep titles the same, or have the ability to change it to something more subtle and creative, without being penalized by the search system (assuming you keep the sub title the same and the search engine is using that as its reference). And then, for those who have gone with creative titles could have an opportunity to enter new sub title info that would be more accepted by the search engine. Not sure if Iām explaining that clearlyā¦ it makes sense to me lol.
Yeah, Iām done. I sold here for about two months, then removed all my music and moved on. This place is in a world of its own doomed to revisit the same issues that really only exist here over and over again. Iām sure a good number of people appreciate the point to this post as intending to discourage this naming practice. But Iām equally sure that a number of readers, no matter how ridiculous this sounds, are walking away with the idea that this is how they must name their files to make it to the top seller list. Itās not the search engineās fault, itās the fault of the authors and Envato could easily make it stop, but wonāt.
I strongly disagree. The search engine (and top lists) will ALWAYS dictate author behavior. The smart ones have been using it to their advantage for years but now the masses have caught on (too late).
Yes i think naming problem is realā¦butā¦heyā¦i am also noticing that probably AJ isnāt worth it after all. I mean, i know itās all about competition nowadays and itās ok, but maybe being a drop in an ocean full of similar tracks with no chance to stand out and have a ādecentā sales amount itās not worth it. itās ok to provide the best items we can in terms of quality and usability, but to have decent (extra, in my case)) money itās too hard with millions of similar items and names.
I am going to see where all this is going in the next months, then i think iāll see if itās worth it. Even for extra money itās not satisfying at allā¦unfortunately, even because anyway when we make a track we put the best we can in it, no matter whatā¦and itās still 9,50$ at the best.
Good sales everyone! 
Well, itās more like $150,000 at bestā¦ Nothing in life worth something is easy. The competition is tough, naturally, since there is lots of money to be made and lots of talented people around the world who love making music. The ones who really succeed are the talented ones who put in the hard work CONSISTENTLY over a long period of time. It is usually like that.
Like the old, but very true, saying goes: The harder you work the luckier you get.