In a landmark move, Getty Images announced its plans to acquire Shutterstock (disclosure: I previously worked as product SEO for the company), uniting two titans of the stock photography and creative assets industry.
In SEO, this merger also sets the stage for new dynamics in content creation, monetization, and the increasingly complex world of licensable media.
Licensable image and video content is a unique market where SEO plays a crucial role in connecting users with creative assets.
Just a few years ago, organic space for licensable images was dominated by giants like Unsplash and Shutterstock, with many small competitors lagging far behind.
However, the dynamic shifted with Google’s Site Diversity update in 2019.
Emerging players saw explosive growth, making the organic space far more crowded and competitive.
In the meantime, more established companies pursued business acquisitions to neutralize or absorb competition.
Fast-forward to today and a small handful of players dominate the organic market through diverse portfolios of stock photos, videos, and creative assets websites, relying on a mix of SEO strategies to grow and mitigate risk.
To understand this space, let’s explore the key players and their strategies to maintain dominance in organic search.
Getty Images
Getty has built its empire on diversification and premium content.
Through iStock, its mid-tier site, Getty offers a more affordable option for stock imagery, while Unsplash provides free-to-use images for a broader audience.
Getty Images itself targets high-end, exclusive content for corporate clients and media outlets, with a strong emphasis on regional exposure through several local brands and dedicated country TLD websites.
Shutterstock
Shutterstock’s strategy has been marked by an aggressive acquisition spree. Recent additions include:
Pond5 (video and audio).
Envato (templates, design assets).
TurboSquid (3D models).
Picmonkey.
Giphy.
Despite the SEO opportunities of its extensive portfolio, Shutterstock has not fully capitalized on these acquisitions to the extent it could.
With Getty at the helm, there is an opportunity to consolidate and optimize these assets to extend joint organic growth potential.
Other notable players
Additional competitors in the space include:
Freepik: Specializes in free and premium vectors, illustrations, and templates, primarily targeting designers; owns several local brands, especially in Latin America and Europe. Leans heavily into AI-generated content for SEO.
Pexels and Pixabay (owned by Canva): Provide free-to-use stock photography and videos, appealing to casual users and professionals alike.
Adobe Stock: Integrated with Adobe’s suite of design tools, catering to professional creators.
Alamy, Dreamstime, DepositPhotos, 123RF: Smaller, more niche platforms offering royalty-free stock content.
Dig deeper: Visual content and SEO: How to use images and videos
While these players dominate the licensable media space, their success relies heavily on effective SEO strategies that cater to a wide range of user intents.
1. Free content
Platforms like Unsplash, Pexels, Freepik, Pixabay, and several others rely on offering free content and/or some form of freemium models, which help build an impressive backlink ecosystem through free content sharing.
At one point, nearly two-thirds of the more prominent players in the organic licensable images space offered at least some free, mid- to high-resolution images that could be easily downloaded without sign-up, registration, or licensing.
2. Indexed search results
Companies like Shutterstock, Unsplash, Pixabay and many other marketplaces rely on indexing internal search pages.
Platforms that index search results often focus on broad and long-tail keywords to capture traffic from various search terms determined by user demand.
With adequate management and careful curation, this can be a winning strategy providing a competitive edge.
3. AI-generated content
Platforms like Freepik have increasingly turned to AI-generated content to expand their libraries and target high-volume search terms.
By creating thousands of variations of popular images, such as “cute dog photos,” and aggressively indexing them, Freepik and similar platforms aim to capture traffic for general and long-tail queries.
While this approach can generate significant SEO traffic, it also contributes to content saturation in Google Image Search, where users encounter repetitive, near-duplicate results from competing platforms.
4. Localization
Localization is crucial for international SEO growth, allowing platforms to dominate in specific regions.
Getty, Shutterstock, and Freepik all employ powerful localization strategies to compete more effectively in organic search.
By employing country-specific TLDs (e.g., gettyimages.co.uk), Getty ensures its content is tailored for local searchers, enhancing its SEO performance in individual countries.
Shutterstock boasts impressive regional and linguistic localization within the core shuttertock.com experience, while Freepik wins through several regional brands.