123RF asks for a minimum of seven keywords per file, and its own keywording guide then calls about thirty to fifty relevant keywords ideal. The gap between those two numbers is the least consequential thing on the page. Four other rules decide whether a file stays online: brand names, event dates, unrelated terms, and the fact that none of it can be edited after acceptance.
Seven is the rule, thirty to fifty is the advice
The submission floor is seven keywords, and it is the same seven for photos, vectors, footage and editorial. 123RF does not publish a hard ceiling in its keywording guidance; what it publishes instead is a recommendation, and the recommendation is four to seven times the minimum. Hitting seven and stopping is technically compliant and commercially pointless. The rest of the field limits and file requirements sit alongside this, but the keyword count is the one contributors most often satisfy at the floor.
There is a second reason the floor is risky here. 123RF treats metadata as a precondition for review rather than a discoverability concern: a file that is not keyworded or described adequately does not get assessed. Seven generic terms can read as inadequate on a frame that obviously needs more.
A comma is a delimiter, and that quietly changes your count
123RF spells out the mechanics: keywords are separated by commas, and everything between two commas is treated as a keyword or a key phrase. So "aerial view of a wheat field" is one entry, not five. This is the detail that makes a fifty-item list cover fifteen ideas. If you are writing phrases, you are buying precision at the cost of coverage, and the thirty-to-fifty recommendation assumes mostly single terms with phrases used deliberately.
The practical consequence is that a phrase only earns its slot when buyers actually type it. "Business meeting" does; "man sitting at a desk looking at a laptop" does not, and splitting it into its nouns reaches more searches for the same number of slots.
Order a keyword list the way 123RF reads it
123RF treats everything between two commas as one keyword or key phrase, asks for at least 7 and calls 30 to 50 ideal. Drag the strongest terms to the top and watch which entries are phrases eating a whole slot rather than adding a distinct search term.
The 5Ws are 123RF's actual method
Rather than handing out a list of approved terms, 123RF's guide walks contributors through five questions and lets the answers become the keyword list. It is a better framework than most agencies publish, because it produces coverage without padding:
- What is in the frame — the objects, named as specifically as you can and then one level more general.
- Who is in it — number of people, apparent age range, what they are doing.
- When — time of day and season, but not a calendar date.
- Where — indoors or outdoors, the kind of place, and the named location if it is genuinely identifiable.
- How — the action, the technique, the viewpoint.
Concepts sit alongside the literal description, not instead of it
123RF explicitly wants conceptual keywords in the list — happiness, leisure, diversity — next to the object names. This is where the thirty-to-fifty recommendation starts to make sense, because the literal description of a photograph rarely needs forty words and the concept layer does. The constraint is that the concept has to be what the picture is about, not what you hope it suggests. A frame of two colleagues at a laptop is about collaboration; it is not about innovation unless something in it is being invented.
Brand names: banned on royalty-free, allowed on editorial
This is the rule most worth reading twice, because 123RF's two guides say opposite things and both are correct. The royalty-free guide names examples: copyrighted keywords of famous brands and names like Audi, McDonald's and Teflon should not be included. The editorial guide names almost the same list — Audi, McDonald's, Michael Jackson, Teflon — and says they are allowed.
The licence type decides, not the photograph. The same frame of a restaurant storefront is a policy violation as a royalty-free file with the chain named, and a correctly captioned editorial file with the chain named. Which is why re-routing an editorial frame into the royalty-free catalogue later is not a metadata change — it is a rewrite, and on 123RF you cannot make it after acceptance.
Dates belong in the description, never in the keyword list
123RF states this without qualification: do not put dates of the event in the keyword list, and it is allowed in the description only. The rule survives into editorial work, where the date is a mandatory part of the caption — so the same information is required in one field and prohibited in the other. Contributors who build keyword lists by splitting their own captions tend to break this one automatically.
Editorial captions follow a fixed shape
Every editorial submission has to carry the venue, the date the image or event took place, and a clear description of who and what. 123RF then publishes a caption template per content type rather than leaving the format open:
- Event: Location, Date: Description of Event
- With a public figure: Location, Date – Description of Celebrity / Action of a Celebrity at an Event
- Venue: Location, Date: Description of Image
- Object: Location, Date – Description of Object
- Natural disaster: Location, Date – Description
Subjects 123RF will not let you keyword
The editorial guide carries a restriction that is easy to miss because it sits in a section about captions rather than policy. Sensitive issues are not to be keyworded — infidelity, anorexia, drug use and dieting are the examples given — and the warning is sharpest where the image involves a well-known person. The logic is defamation rather than taste: a keyword asserting that an identifiable individual is connected to one of those subjects is a claim, and the keyword field is a bad place to make claims.
Typos are permanent, which changes the order of the work
123RF's footage guide asks contributors to be meticulous about spelling, typing and grammar errors, and gives the reason outright: it is not possible to edit once images have been accepted. Most agencies let you go back and fix a keyword list years later. Here the submission is the final version, which inverts the usual workflow — the review has to happen before upload, because there is no after.
Combined with the review timing 123RF publishes — roughly three working days on average, up to five in peak periods, with accepted images appearing on site within twenty-four hours — a mistake costs a few days and then becomes permanent.
The order of work when metadata cannot be edited later
123RF states that keywords and descriptions cannot be edited once images are accepted, and that inadequately keyworded files are not reviewed at all. These five steps put every check before upload instead of after, which is the only place they can happen on this agency.
English only, and the reason it is strict
The instruction is identical across the photo, vector, footage and editorial guides: provide description and keywords in English. There is no local-language field to fall back on, which matters more on 123RF than it might elsewhere given how much of its catalogue is sourced from non-English-speaking markets. A local term for a dish, a festival or a garment goes in as its English description, with the local name only where it is genuinely the English term buyers use.
What this means for a multi-agency keyword list
123RF sits awkwardly next to the agencies with position-based ranking. Adobe Stock weights the first ten keywords heavily and caps at 49; Shutterstock takes 7 to 50; 123RF publishes a minimum of 7 and a recommendation of 30 to 50 without a stated ordering rule. One list of about forty ordered terms satisfies all three, as long as the destination-specific rules are applied on the way out rather than baked in — the brand name that is fine on a 123RF editorial file is not fine on the royalty-free copy of the same frame.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the minimum number of keywords on 123RF?
Seven per image, and the same minimum applies to video. 123RF's own keywording guide then describes about thirty to fifty relevant keywords as ideal, which is a much larger number than the rule requires. Seven passes submission and leaves the file thinly indexed, so the minimum is best treated as a floor rather than a target.
Does a two-word phrase count as one 123RF keyword or two?
One. 123RF states that keywords are separated by commas and that everything between commas is treated as a keyword or a key phrase. So "aerial view" occupies a single slot. This matters when you are aiming at the thirty-to-fifty range, because a list that looks long can be mostly phrases and cover far fewer distinct search terms than the count suggests.
Can I use brand names in 123RF keywords?
Only on editorial submissions. The royalty-free guide says copyrighted keywords of famous brands and names like Audi, McDonald's and Teflon should not be included. The editorial guide says exactly the reverse for editorial images, where those same terms plus real people's names are allowed. The licence type, not the picture, decides which rule applies.
Can I put the date of an event in 123RF keywords?
No. 123RF states plainly that dates of the event must not go in the keyword list, and that they are allowed in the description only. This applies to editorial work too, where the date is actually a required part of the caption. Putting it in both places is one of the easier ways to get an otherwise clean editorial submission flagged.
Can I edit 123RF keywords after an image is accepted?
No. 123RF tells footage contributors to be meticulous with keywords because it is not possible to edit them once images have been accepted. That makes a typo permanent and makes the pre-upload review the only review you get. It is also why re-optimising an old 123RF portfolio is not an option the way it is on several other agencies.
Does 123RF require keywords in English?
Yes. The instruction across the photo, vector, footage and editorial guides is the same: provide description and keywords in English. Local-language terms do not belong in the field even when the subject is strongly tied to a non-English-speaking market, and keywords also have to be free from spelling, typing and grammar errors, which are checked as part of adequacy.