Feature Graph is a system that we are using to categorize every asset on TurboSquid. This new system not only provides a better search result for assets, but Feature Graph creates better listings and product placement. No longer are you subject to a small set of categories that may or may not accurately describe your model — Feature Graph has over 13,000 categories.
Improved Publishing & Search Results
Let’s start with the asset “apple.” As a homonym, this can be taken in multiple ways: is it an Apple iPhone or an apple that is a fruit? The old ways of searching for “apple” would have resulted in products of both types – iPhones and fruits. This distinction can now be made thanks to Feature Graph. If you want to search for apple, simply select the fruit from the drop-down menu, based on your intent. Once you have made your selection, you will only see apples of the fruit variety in the the search results– nothing else.
Another example of the benefit of Feature Graph can be demonstrated by a search for “hot dog.” This instance proves that the keywords used to describe some products can actually harm the visibility of an asset. When an artist uses “hot” and “dog” as a keyword that describes an asset, the old system would display the keyword search for “dog.” This is clearly the wrong result, as the asset is not an animal. Feature Graph does not rely on keywords to determine what an asset is, so it properly identifies a “hot dog” as food and places it into the correct category. The outcome is a search results page that no longer includes hot dogs in the mix when a customer or artist searches for “dog.”
There is also a hierarchy tree set up for all assets. Let’s use “clownfish” as an example; if a customer were to type in animal, sea creature, fish, coral fish, anemone fish, fishes, tropical fish, arcanthurus, amphiprioninae, clown fish, or clownfish, they would see this asset in those lists:
This helps your product’s visibility and reduces the amount of spam and incorrectly-keyworded assets from showing up in those categories.
Product Pricing
As many of our artists have experienced, CheckMate enforces a strict pricing policy, put into place partially to prevent undercutting. Feature Graph gives the CheckMate Inspectors a way to more accurately determine the average selling price of all assets of the same type of model. This information will provide the information needed to help TurboSquid to fend off undercutting, especially as we continue to view each model submitted against comparable assets.
Help Us Improve Feature Graph
While the number of categories continues to expand, there will likely come a time when a specific category does not have representation with an asset. This is bound to happen as we strive to categorize all of the objects in the world. We are currently developing a tool for artists to add brands to Feature Graph that aren’t yet listed This is where you, our artists, come in: help us to better categorize your assets. Simply email us at breadcrumbs@turbosquid.com with the product ID or URL, as well as suggestions for the specific category or brand name that you feel best represents the model. With your help, along with our own research, we can categorize every asset on TurboSquid, making it a place that allows your assets easy visibility and ultimate profitability.
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Corey Cambre is a TurboSquid CheckMate Inspector. In addition to this post, he has also detailed the process behind getting our artists’ models through the CheckMate Pro v2 Certification.