How many keywords can you use on each stock agency?

How many keywords on Shutterstock: 7 to 50

Shutterstock asks for at least 7 keywords and accepts up to 50 per clip. Keywords and descriptions must be in English. The exceptions are scientific Latin names of plants and animals, place names, and foreign terms commonly used in English.

The description, which Shutterstock also uses as the title, is where its pages disagree. The metadata standards allow 2,048 characters; the article on preparing uploads for submission says the editor caps the field at 150. One sentence under 150 characters passes both. Each clip needs one category, and a second one is optional. Seven categories are not available for video: Abstract, Beauty/Fashion, Celebrities, Interiors, Miscellaneous, Parks/Outdoor and Vintage. If your photo workflow assigns one of them by default, change it for footage. The full set of Shutterstock rules for video is on the Shutterstock requirements page.

Keyword, title and description limits by agency

Adobe Stock: 49, 50 or 5 to 50 keywords?

Adobe gives a different keyword limit on three of its own help pages:

Adobe does not say which page wins. A list of 5 to 49 keywords meets all three, so that is the safe range for video, in the browser and in a CSV alike. The CSV columns are explained in the Adobe Stock CSV guide.

Keyword order on Adobe Stock

Adobe writes that keyword order “is essential and should reflect the content’s importance.” The first 10 keywords have the greatest influence on search ranking. The video upload page says the same thing in other words: start with the most important keywords.

• Put the subject, the action and the place in the first 10, before mood and concepts.
• In a CSV, the Keywords column follows the same rule: keywords in order of importance.
• Adobe can suggest keywords when you upload. You can review and adjust them, so reorder the list and remove anything the clip does not show.
• For a vertical clip, Adobe asks for the words “vertical” and “video” in both the title and the keywords.

Shutterstock’s keyword guidance says nothing about order. A list written in order of importance works on both, so you only have to write it once.

In depth: how to order keywords on Adobe Stock.

What Shutterstock counts as keyword spam

Shutterstock rejects spammed keywords and titles at review, and forbids adding them after publication. Its definition covers four cases:

• One word or word stem repeated across keywords. Its example: “car ride, car road, car drive, car move, car adventure, car trip, car journey”.
• Keywords that do not describe the content. An irrelevant keyword counts as spam even when nothing is repeated.
• Repeated words or word stems in the title. “run, run, run” and “run running runner” are both refused, and so is “Fishing scene with a fisherman fishing for fish with a fishing pole in a fishing boat with a fish on a hook.”
• A title that repeats the description. In Shutterstock’s words, “Titles must not include repeated words or phrases from descriptions.”

Some overlap is fine. Shutterstock lists “Kansas City, city street, street scene” as allowed: “city” appears twice, but each keyword names something different. Links, camera details and brand names are also banned from descriptions and keywords, except brand names in editorial content.

Why you should aim below the maximum

Every agency on this page penalizes keywords that do not match the footage:

• Shutterstock counts irrelevant keywords as spam.
• Adobe Stock lists “inappropriate or irrelevant keywords and metadata” among its refusal reasons.
• Pond5 allows 50 keywords but recommends 10 to 20.

Once you have listed the subject, the action, the place, the framing and camera move, the time of day, the mood and the concepts the clip can honestly illustrate, stop. Padding the list to reach 50 adds exactly the kind of term that gets clips refused. The method for building that list is in how to keyword stock footage.

To check a title and keyword list against each agency’s limits before you upload, paste it into the free title and keyword checker.