Gallery keywords - questions, clarifications on their use & SEO

WinsomeWorks

Could someone definitively tell me some info about gallery keywords? Notice, I don't mean photo keywords (the ones under a photo). I mean the keywords that we can put in "Settings" for each gallery. I've asked about them before, but haven't gotten definitive answers to my satisfaction. Most people don't seem sure about this feature. There's not a lot of info about them around here. So:

1. Exactly where do gallery keywords get used or seen?

2. Should plurals be included, or not?

3. On sites such as delicious.com, we're instructed to always put two-word phrases together because they are then seen as a unit by search engines. (instead of New York, it's newyork) I don't do this on my regular photo keywords. But should I be doing it on gallery keywords?

4. Are these keywords coming up in the main search boxes on SmugMug, or only the individual photo keywords? I haven't tested this out, and really don't know the answer.

5. Related to #4-- if I put gallery keywords on an "unlisted" gallery, will that then make it too easy for people to accidentally stumble on the url for it because it could get found in a search?

6. SEO -- What else (besides what I've already asked) is there to know about gallery keywords and SEO ?

7. On our "All keywords" page-- do gallery keywords show up too?

Thanks for any enlightenment!

jfriend

I can take one of these. An unlisted gallery will not be shown on your site for search engines to find. If a search engine doesn't find it, it doesn't index it.

The only way the search engine could find it is if you or someone else linked to it yourself either on your own Smugmug site or on some other web site or forum or anything public on the internet.

If the search engine does find it, then it is supposed to obey the SmugIslands settings in gallery settings (which can be configured to not index).

So, in answer to your question, adding gallery keywords has nothing to do with whether the gallery is indexed by a search engine or not.

Andy

Gallery keywords DO NOT show on any page (our help pages say this, too). They show in your page source:
and are useful for search engines, and SmugSearch.

Don't worry about plurals.

See my example in the grab above, then go put some keywords in your gallery keywords box, gallery settings. Then view the page source.

Luc De Jaeger

Just as a sidebar...

SEO is a mystery for many webmasters raising lots of myths and (false?) promises everywhere. SE like Google will never ever release their core secrets and will never reveal what they are indexing and ranking in what way. Occasionally, they will post some hints and tips, but not "the real thing" or not the whole package of rules... Businesses may claim they can help you to gain top rankings in Google but most often this is a scam.

Is it meta descriptions or tags, external links, Facebook likes or facebook shares that help... We will never know for sure!

Imho Smugmug does not do well in Google Images but it does exceptionally well in Google internet search (that's what I found out when doing some Google searches). The same problem seems to be true for lots of other photo hosting sites like Zenfolio (they seem not to do well at all in Google) but not for Flickr. Flickr does exceptionally well in Google Image search, but not so well in Google Internet search (it depends though as some Flickr accounts are doing exceptionally well too in internet search...).

Clearly, photos are not the same as content-rich and informative web sites that need html-content to be spidered and indexed. The strategy must be different, even if we just don't know exactly what makes the difference, except for the tags. Photos must be tagged to be recognized but this clearly is not sufficient to feed the Google bot... Anyway, even galleries must be tagged. The more tags the better (IF they are related).

I learned lots, if not heaps, from my other e-commerce site management who have lots of success, making us, webmasters of e-commerce web sites successful too IN THE LONG RUN. Yes, you will need patience (a virtue that is non-existant today because everyone wants everything instantly...).

Social media are important (and may gain importance too) though the Facebook share buttons and Facebook like buttons should not be overrated. The buttons are mandatory to increase the odds of being spidered by the SE but don't expect the world out of it as it does not work the way people think it should.

SEO is not a static thing but, as everythging in this world, dynamic and non-lineair. What works today will not work anymore tomorrow...

We MUST be willing to adapt and change, follow the dynamic and non-lineair Universe instead of keeping a static and lineair view on everything. I'm grateful Smugmug finally featured the Facebook Like button in our favor (as an opt-out) and I hope the Facebook Share button will also follow (alas, most people don't make any difference between both, if they know the difference at all...).

Imho Smugmug is not an expert in the fields of SEO (there are almost no experts in this fields honestly -- only the engineers working at the SE know what they are doing and why). So, don't blame Smugmug, I'm 100% sure they are doing everyting they can to help us with all the information they can gather. Compared to Flickr, Smugmug may still do somethings wrong (don't ask me what exactly) because they don't do well in Google image searches. Perhaps the engineers at Flickr know more than the ones working at Smugmug but it may be a coincidence as well...

Anyway, I'd suggest to tag everything you can correctly, the images and the galleries as well -- even if you don't think it is necessary. Perhaps this may be important for people searching the Smugmug photos. Perhaps this may be important for future changes in SEO algorithms in case it's not already used in the current indexing and rankings.

Also know that from the millions of photos that can be found on the internet, there can only be one at the first place during a certain time span. We all want it to be ours, but, well let's be realistic here too...

I'm doing exceptionally well at the Google Internet search with my Smugmug site (I'm not doing good at the image search, even if I noticed the Google Image bot visited my Smugmug site...). But I don't really care as most people still seem to search the internet instead of photos...

Luc