Google maps and Geography ?

buso23

I've successfully installed Google Maps Api and geotagged a photo of mine but I can't find it in google maps, I can only find it through the start page of my website. Is this how this is meant to work ? I think that there is little to no value if I geotagg my photos so that only I can see them and a small smugmug group. I hope that I'm doing something wrong and that by geotagging our photos, they will be visible at the official google maps website.

Thanks, Ljupco

richpepp

buso23 wrote:

I've successfully installed Google Maps Api and geotagged a photo of mine but I can't find it in google maps, I can only find it through the start page of my website. Is this how this is meant to work ? I think that there is little to no value if I geotagg my photos so that only I can see them and a small smugmug group. I hope that I'm doing something wrong and that by geotagging our photos, they will be visible at the official google maps website.

As far as I know only photos uploaded to Panoramio will show up in Google maps. I guess this is so they have a bit of control of what shows up on their maps (e.g. no inappropriate images). I wouldn't say that geotagging in SmugMug isn't useful though, I really quite like it

Rich

Allen

buso23 wrote:

I've successfully installed Google Maps Api and geotagged a photo of mine but I can't find it in google maps, I can only find it through the start page of my website. Is this how this is meant to work ? I think that there is little to no value if I geotagg my photos so that only I can see them and a small smugmug group. I hope that I'm doing something wrong and that by geotagging our photos, they will be visible at the official google maps website.

Thanks, Ljupco

I have visitors coming from GoogleMaps finding one of my geotagged
photos. So there is a link back to Smugmug.

richpepp

Allen wrote:

I have visitors coming from GoogleMaps finding one of my geotagged
photos. So there is a link back to Smugmug.

Did you geotag the photo before uploading to SmugMug or directly in SmugMug? I wonder if that makes a difference?

Allen

richpepp wrote:

Did you geotag the photo before uploading to SmugMug or directly in SmugMug? I wonder if that makes a difference?

All done after upload to each photo.

richpepp

Allen wrote:

All done after upload to each photo.

I wonder what makes the difference then as our photos don't show up in the maps either. Thanks for the info.

buso23

Allen wrote:

I have visitors coming from GoogleMaps finding one of my geotagged
photos. So there is a link back to Smugmug.

Where did they find your images if they are not on the official google map web site ? I just find no reason to geotag my images if they are not visible on the official google map web site, why do you guys do it ?

Regards, Ljupco

Allen

buso23 wrote:

Where did they find your images if they are not on the official google map web site ? I just find no reason to geotag my images if they are not visible on the official google map web site, why do you guys do it ?

Regards, Ljupco

I noticed these in the "Referring URL:" in Statcounter.

buso23

Allen wrote:

I noticed these in the "Referring URL:" in Statcounter.

And why do you do it ? To keep a track just for you or .... ?

Regards, Ljupco

richpepp

buso23 wrote:

And why do you do it ? To keep a track just for you or .... ?

I don't understand why the stuff doesn't appear in Google maps, but we did it because our photos were from a wide area across eastern Europe and Asia and we had the smuggie map up on our home page to show where they were from. I pulled the map recently though as it appeared at the top of the page which made people have to scroll down the page to see the photos. I'll put it back once I've worked out how to put the map at the bottom of the page instead

Rich

Evan78

I believe Google only displays images from Panoramio. Here's a Google Maps blog post about uploading photos directly from Picasa to Panoramio. If they are requiring photos to be transferred from one google site to another, I doubt they're including images from non-google locations.

WinsomeWorks

Panoramio is gateway site for Google Earth
To have your photos show up on Google Earth, you have to first upload to Panoramio, and first set up an account there (it's free). I have one & have maybe a hundred or so photos on it. The photos get accepted or rejected through Panoramio's inspection team, and you can tag them with all kinds of keywords. Then, every 2 weeks or so, they upload the accepted photos to Google Earth.. Rejections are normally for photos that are too blurry or too close-up. They're not very picky otherwise. Google Maps isn't exactly the same thing as Google Earth; people get them mixed into one entity. To really have Google Earth's full capability on your computer, you need to download it. But these same photos from Panoramio/Google Earth do show up on Google Maps as well, if you check the "photos" box over on the right.

Panoramio started as a small Italian company, and is now basically the gateway for all the Google Earth photos. It's a lot of fun. They have a forum and contests as well, and it's a very international photo community. I wish SmugMug would have an "upload directly to Panoramio" agreement such as what Picasa has now set up. It sure would be nice to only have to geo-tag photos one time. If you do upload to Panoramio, make sure you're geo-locating the photo at the point where it was taken from. Don't locate the spot that's showing in the photo. Otherwise well-known landmarks get even more piled with shots. If you think about it, cameras are locating the point where the photo was taken as well, so it only makes sense. (I'm sure most of you know this, but you'd be surprised how many people try to argue with the location of Google Earth photos that are correctly located.

Anyway, yes, I'm confused too-- there is some way people can see your SmugMug photos on a map besides here on SmugMug, I believe. But I can't recall what it is. I know I found one of mine by accident when I was using some map, & then clicked through to the SmugMug gallery that the photo was in. But you're right, they're not on the regular Google Maps. I was wondering if it happened to me when I was on Yahoo, but right now I can't see any mapped photos on Yahoo either. There's gotta be some way people are seeing the photos mapped though, even though the person is on some other site. I hope a wise person will shed light on this.