Is this an email from Google you're referring to? I'm guessing the email is from around Aug 18 as indicated in your post and it doesn't really apply anymore. There had been a temporary glitch around that date, but this should be long resolved.
And as Andy points out, your site is coming up in Google just fine.
Seeing some interesting results from Google lately. Used to be I'd search for my photos and find many, including some near the top of the results. Seems like that changed with the latest tweaks that Google made in their algorithm and I've not been able to adjust. In some cases Google is finding my photos on my blog and on Facebook, but not on Smugmug. Not sure why, not sure there is a solution, but just thought I'd add my experience to the discussion.
In some cases Google is finding my photos on my blog and on Facebook, but not on Smugmug. Not sure why, not sure there is a solution, but just thought I'd add my experience to the discussion.
Your gallery is set to protected yes. With right click protection enabled, Google Image search won't be able to add any of your photos.
If you search for:
oktoberfest bethlehem 2012 site:realife-photography.com
in the regular Google search, I can see the gallery and keyword galleries come up. So Google has the pages indexed.
I understand what you are saying, but I have always used right-click protection and it hasn't been an issue in the past. Also, I do have photos indexed, just not as many as in the past and also they are displayed lower in the search. If the right-click protect were the issue, wouldn't that mean they wouldn't be found at all?
For example, a search on Musikfest 2011 still has one of my photos on the first page, there used to be about 10:
I cannot say why these photos do show up in Google image search. In general, it's not advised to enable right click protection as many have reported that their photos are not getting added to Google image search with right click protection enabled.
I do not have any insight into the workings of Google (as few outside of Google really have) and I'm just sharing my suggestions with you on how you might be able to achieve the result you're looking for.
I cannot say why these photos do show up in Google image search. In general, it's not advised to enable right click protection as many have reported that their photos are not getting added to Google image search with right click protection enabled.
I do not have any insight into the workings of Google (as few outside of Google really have) and I'm just sharing my suggestions with you on how you might be able to achieve the result you're looking for.
Ok, this really worries me, because all of my images have RCP except for family ones. I thought we went through the whole RCP thing over a year ago, and that SmugMug made changes that then allowed those images to appear in Image searches. Prior to that, a bunch of people were noticing (like me) that their family photos or other non-RCP photos were showing up, but not those with RCP, i.e. all of our best photos. After that, things changed very drastically for the better & our photos (even with RCP) started coming up in image searches. I'll try to find that thread, but let's please find out if something's changed before guessing on this, because this is kind of major!
Well.. guess there is one way I can find out if it will help... I'll turn off RCP and see what happens. If my photos suddenly start appearing in searches I'll let folks know.
Turns out I was wrong. The protected setting should not influence whether Google image search shows your photos or not. Sorry about that.
@Turnitup1, check out this page for suggestions on getting your content better exposed in search engines. Google Image search is pickier on what content it adds from what I know. Having your content featured on blogs or other pages should help.
Turns out I was wrong. The protected setting should not influence whether Google image search shows your photos or not. Sorry about that.
@Turnitup1, check out this page for suggestions on getting your content better exposed in search engines. Google Image search is pickier on what content it adds from what I know. Having your content featured on blogs or other pages should help.
Oh sure, now you tell me :-) Well, the experiment doesn't seem to have worked, so confirming it probably doesn't matter.
Tried all the usual stuff within my control. Used to have good luck being found. As I said, GIS finds my photos on my blog, on Facebook... just seems to have trouble finding on SmugMug... still finds them sometimes, but no where near as well as about a year ago.
For my next trick... since I was un-protecting everything anyway, I'm "pinning" a bunch of photos with Pinterest. Trying to determine two things:
1) Will linking to SmugMug via Pinterest increase the potential for SmugMug photos to index via GIS
2) Will the Pinterest photos be found on Google better, worse or the same as the SmugMug photos
The blog appears to get an advantage because the photos are part of an overall test post. Not sure why FB appears to have an advantage over SmugMug though. Will be interesting to see if Pinterest does better than SmugMug.
Oh sure, now you tell me :-) Well, the experiment doesn't seem to have worked, so confirming it probably doesn't matter.
Tried all the usual stuff within my control. Used to have good luck being found. As I said, GIS finds my photos on my blog, on Facebook... just seems to have trouble finding on SmugMug... still finds them sometimes, but no where near as well as about a year ago.
For my next trick... since I was un-protecting everything anyway, I'm "pinning" a bunch of photos with Pinterest. Trying to determine two things:
1) Will linking to SmugMug via Pinterest increase the potential for SmugMug photos to index via GIS
2) Will the Pinterest photos be found on Google better, worse or the same as the SmugMug photos
The blog appears to get an advantage because the photos are part of an overall text post. Not sure why FB appears to have an advantage over SmugMug though. Will be interesting to see if Pinterest does better than SmugMug.
Well.. gave it a month. So far, when searching on "Musikfest 2012", 7+ photos were found that link back to my blog (3 on the first page of the search). Zero on the first 7 pages link back to Smugmug (didn't look any further). So far none link back to Pinterest. Looks like photos shared in the context of a relevant article have a major advantage.
Hi, I have recently signed up with http://www.searchbooster.com.au to boost the searchibilty of my site. But when they are trying to access my site to check any broken links they are getting the following error message:
Check Link Results Results for:http://www.jagmindersingh.com/ There was a problem while checking links: Your site contains a robots file that disallows Search Booster and Search Engines from scanning your site. If you would like to scan your site, please remove the robots file. This should be located at http://yoursite/robots.txt, We highly recommend you remove this file to allow all search engines to scan your site for better rankings.
And I have contacted Smugmug heros and they have advised me to post this here. And they also advised me that robots.txt can not be deleted. I am not familiar with all this but i just wanted to know how can I get http://www.searchbooster.com.au to access my site so that they can provide me the service that I have already paid for with them.
Hi, I have recently signed up with http://www.searchbooster.com.au to boost the searchibilty of my site. But when they are trying to access my site to check any broken links they are getting the following error message:
That's not a service you can use with SmugMug. I'm sorry.
Is it possible yet to modify the robots.txt file...or add it to different areas?
For example, there are areas of my site I'd like to prevent from being indexed that I cannot make private because I use their feeds.
Is it possible yet to modify the robots.txt file...or add it to different areas?
For example, there are areas of my site I'd like to prevent from being indexed that I cannot make private because I use their feeds.
That's not possible. You can only control search indexing with the 'hello world' setting and that's also linked to feeds.
That's not possible. You can only control search indexing with the 'hello world' setting and that's also linked to feeds.
Why owners of their own sites and domains are not able to edit the most important options, and have to use your files? What is an explanation from the legal and logical point of view?
Your keywords appear in the <meta> tags for the image - as well as on the page where the photo is displayed. The /keywords path is an alternative way to navigate your images, but it does not help with SEO - in fact it actually creates confusion because many of those pages end up being re-directs to other pages or send them on a nearly endless crawling expedition as they try to navigate through a ton of "virtual pages". So, while it may be a nice way for a human-user to browse through your content, it is not at all ideal for a web crawler to take that path.
As you can see there are thousands of links on that page and clicking any of them will take you to another page where additional keywords can be added or deleted in nearly endless combinations. That means the bots are spending all this time crawling these essentially spam links and not focusing on the primary photography pages.
Hope this helps!
- Greg
I was pointed to this thread today and stuck here (being aware that this post is 2.5 years old).
I came across an older thread the other day (~1 year ago), in which a Hero told that he was glad to hear that an users keyword page lately got index by google (after some issues).
SM (old and new) does not block the /keyword page for crawlers anymore.
Why is this that you unblock /keyword for crawler? Are crawlers behave different today or have your (amazons) systems nowadays a better performance?
Or is there still the same issues described above and for that you limited the # of max keywords / links to 1.000 for the new SM? If so, which impact is to expect for users which are creating their own /Keyword page with 2.000+ keywords / links?
Thanks for another Hero stepping in, in case Twoofy is not on-board anymore.
Need a SmugMug SEO Guru / Hero for CURRENT Answers to Sitemap Questions
Please, could we have a Hero or Guru or Higher-up who truly knows the current and latest info about SEO and our Site-maps to step in here? Many have asked for answers (for Legacy SmugMug and New SmugMug) to questions about SEO and Site-maps that have been asked persistently in this thread and several others. I see lots of people talking about it, but few definitive answers or explanations from those at SmugMug who can answer for sure. I don't want more guesses from those who aren't 100% sure what's going on, or guesswork about what we should possibly be doing & be seeing if we check our Site-maps.
So here are some questions, & my apologies-- I "stole" some of them from Caroline, a person earlier in this thread. Her post was #173 & got some answers then (Posts #174 & 175), but that was long ago, before New Smug. We want to know how all of this works in Legacy now, as well as how it's working in New SmugMug. Please either separate answers for the two sites (Old & New) or make it clear which you're referring to. Also, even though I think I know the answers to some of these, we all need a current place to direct people to for answers, as well as being sure my answers are correct. Questions: (hoping you can put answers in different color if possible... & thanks in advance!)
1. Where do I find my Site-map? (in Legacy and New SmugMug)
2. What should I be seeing in my Site-map?
3. Is there anything I should not be seeing in my Site-map?
4. How can I or you check to be sure that everything is OK with my Site-map?
5. If there's something wrong with my Site-map, what should I do?
6. If I need to re-submit it, how do I know if or when it should be re-submitted?
7. How do I actually re-submit it?
8. Jörg asked a question in Post #291 (Just before this) that never got answered: "SM (old and new) does not block the /keyword page for crawlers anymore." [Why? (he asks), Is this because crawlers behave differently today?] And he asks that because it was found at one point that it was much better for that page to be blocked. Answers?
9. We need definitive answers about RCP ? People seem to have found ( onboth Legacy and New SmugMug, I believe) that RCP does indeed negatively affect GIS (Google Image Search) now. If this is true, is there anything SmugMug can do differently to change this? Also, if this is true, what has changed? (I ask because to my memory, we had somehow tackled that problem in the past and ended up able to confidently keep our RCP on while still doing well in GIS) ?
10. Please direct people to the current best Help areas for raising their SEO. Most people probably know to increase their links (from elsewhere back to SmugMug). But where is SmugMug's other info about this topic?
Incidentally, there are a few questions in this thread: http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=238976 that need answers too; people are seeing different things in Legacy & New SmugMug & wondering about that, with the supposedly "Fixed" sitemap-galleryimages or something... they're evidently only showing in New SmugMug?
10. Please direct people to the current best Help areas for raising their SEO.[/B] Most people probably know to increase their links (from elsewhere back to SmugMug). But where is SmugMug's other info about this topic?
I'm not sure people need to be "directed" -- SmugMug has a great self-help portal. Simply typing in SEO in the help search box yields you all the info. Have you tried SM's help pages before you ask questions on Dgrin? Always a good idea.
No guru, no hero, but guess I have some answers, even when most of them already to find in here (dgrin). But splattered around because people ask here and there and again in a 3rd thread, because they don't remember where they asked first
1. Where do I find my Site-map? (in Legacy and New SmugMug)
Launch domainname.tld/sitemap-index.xml.
There you see a sitemap-index.gz (new and old SM) and a sitemap-galleryimages.gz (new SM only). Download the files, unzip and have a look to them. Sitemaps are update once a week.
2. -> 5. See Andy's reply.
6. If I need to re-submit it, how do I know if or when it should be re-submitted?
7. How do I actually re-submit it?
There is no need to submit or resubmit it, as long it is mentioned at the end of your robots.txt (which is the case with SM), Crawler will find it their self.
You only would submit a sitemap for domains in which the sitemap is not mentioned in the robots.txt or when you for a reason have an additional sitemap.
8. Jörg asked a question in Post #291 (Just before this) that never got answered: "SM (old and new) does not block the /keyword page for crawlers anymore." [Why? (he asks), Is this because crawlers behave differently today?] And he asks that because it was found at one point that it was much better for that page to be blocked. Answers?
Answer still open. But since it is not blocked via robots.txt, I believe it is crawl-able.
9. We need definitive answers about RCP ? People seem to have found ( on both Legacy and New SmugMug, I believe) that RCP does indeed negatively affect GIS (Google Image Search) now. If this is true, is there anything SmugMug can do differently to change this? Also, if this is true, what has changed? (I ask because to my memory, we had somehow tackled that problem in the past and
ended up able to confidently keep our RCP on while still doing well in GIS) ?
Was official answered a month ago - as I told you IMHO before in another thread - by Michael Bonocore -> http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1894906&postcount=22
This means, you will find links to your images in Google, but no or only a few "previews" in "Google Images". Since google IMHO haven't changed a thing, it always was like this.
And I also believe there is no way around this for SM, but this is no drama.
Like I said, I asked this stuff because this thread, which according to the title of it ( ! ) is the place to go on this entire forum if you have sitemap questions. And it had not been updated by a current SmugMug guru for a long long time. And like I said, I did not ask this stuff simply for my own benefit. I wanted updated, current, post-New-SmugMug info to be placed here at the top of the thread! Yes, I'm aware there's a Help section. That's why I mentioned it. There are Help sections for most things on this forum. But we still have the forum for some reason, right?! Some of the answers given make it sound like it's all self-explanatory, and yet only a couple short weeks ago, many people were wondering why they didn't have certain parts of their site-maps or something... I mean... I frankly don't even truly know what half this stuff is, so I'm trying to help us all educate ourselves, by asking what may sound like stupid questions to one person & to the next will be valuable information. And thank you both, but I would still like to hear from a current bonafide SmugMug guru.
So... one unanswered question: why does only New SmugMug have this: sitemap-galleryimages.gz and what does it mean, what is it for, and should we also be having it on Old SmugMug ? I believe that part was a recent addition to New SmugMug? (although some random people had it awhile ago...?)
And as far as RCP, yeah, there've been some vague answers, but not from one of the SEO gurus (I'm not sure Bonocore would be one) , and not about parts of the question. I know that we had this RCP problem before, where it did highly affect (negatively) our prominence in GIS. However, like I said, at that time SmugMug did something to "fix" that. Now I want to know what is or isn't being done to fix it, and whether or not there is any "fix" for it. Because I know for a fact that RCP is a partial deterrent to some people, even if not for all.
SmugMug's RCP decision in April 2011 - re: Google Image Search
So I dug around, & you can follow a lot of discussion right here in this thread around pages 6-10 or later, about the RCP thing. And here is the post by Baldy in April 2011 that shows you it was a definite decision on SmugMug's part (after lots of internal SEO discussion) that they allow Google-bots to crawl images with RCP: http://dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1589537&postcount=86 So yes, I was partially right-- it wasn't even just SmugMug doing or not doing something... they actually made a decision to allow crawling (after having not allowed it) So now the question is, please, SmugMug SEO-Gurus... have you gone back on that decision? Are you doing something different? What's going on? People want to know! (and I'd like to know for both New and Legacy SmugMug!)
So I dug around, & you can follow a lot of discussion right here in this thread around pages 6-10 or later, about the RCP thing. And here is the post by Baldy in April 2011 that shows you it was a definite decision on SmugMug's part (after lots of internal SEO discussion) that they allow Google-bots to crawl images with RCP: http://dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1589537&postcount=86 So yes, I was partially right-- it wasn't even just SmugMug doing or not doing something... they actually made a decision to allow crawling (after having not allowed it) So now the question is, please, SmugMug SEO-Gurus... have you gone back on that decision? Are you doing something different? What's going on? People want to know! (and I'd like to know for both New and Legacy SmugMug!)
Of course they allow crawler to crawl images - but I assume those discussion were about normal google web. This results are presented as a normal link in normal Google web. Not in Google Images. Distinct here or ask Baldy about that.
I believe its not a question of allowing it. But a technical one. First thing is, images are switched (call it as you like) to be a background image when RCP is on. Google does not index background images.
2nd: since there is a transparent gif in front of your images, when in question Google will index this transparent gif. (for sure not) "spacer.gif" or "transparent.gif" would be "elements non grata" if I would code for Google, right?
Which is something also was explained several times in several threads around. If you want your images to be seen in Google Images, there is no other way than to disable RCP or to set up a Blog or similar and crosslink. If you can live with only the links in Google Web, you are fine.
I also told (you if I am right), that I have been with SM in 2009 until ~2011 before and of course I had RCP enabled all the time, even when I should have knew it better (its not a protection, not at all and from a SEO perspective, even counterproductive) and my images never showed up in Google Images (different from Fineart, since there is no RCP)
And they didn't show up when I started here again end of July until I removed RCP ~ August 2nd week. This is called empiricism...
I am fine and happy now, SEO related.
So... one unanswered question: why does only New SmugMug have this: sitemap-galleryimages.gz and what does it mean, what is it for, and should we also be having it on Old SmugMug ? I believe that part was a recent addition to New SmugMug? (although some random people had it awhile ago...?)
Yepp, only some had it at that time. Which was another glitch and is fixed now. Some peoples site stuck somewhere between in the migration process when unveiled, like mine.
I believe this sitemap makes it easier for crawlers to index our images. In there all keywords are listed and links to different image sizes etc. pp. (the later might depend on the design some choose):
To be honest: I wouldn't rely to long to Legacy. SM didn't tell yet when Legacy will not be supported anymore or is discontinued, but it is to foresee they will discontinue it sooner or later.
I believe they can't have their dev team working much longer than 12 to 18 month on two versions of SM. Same for the costs for a support team, which have to support two versions (and - sic! - of course is getting irritated by this), storage (paying Amazon S3 for several Peta bytes storage respectively for the transfer out to SM's clients, is not cheap at all) etc. pp.
If I would be them I would give customers another 6 months from the day when most dramas AKA problems are solved, stop Legacy and concentrate on new SM.
Jörg, most of the time, I'm just quoting or repeating what I've already read here. I am not clear on whether "crawling" is the same thing as "indexing". But here was some of the history, and I still don't know what SmugMug is allowing now. (on New or Legacy) Because, yes, it evidently is true that they need to allow some types of indexing. Google doesn't make every decision for us/them. Here's some earlier convo. Amazing how fast we forget (and I myself read all this at the time, & still forgot!) :
My understanding is that (with the search engine's permission) Smugmug generates a static size HTML page view for crawlers because the crawlers don't see everything that is generated by the regular Ajax/Javascript views. So, they're already detecting crawlers and adapting. They can certainly adapt more.
It's likely not a hard technology problem to solve - I think the conundrum is more about what do site owners want/expect? If you want your images in Google images, then RCP won't work because your images will be displayed with RCP in Google. I've personally never liked RCP since it's so easily bypassed it generates a false sense of security (witness the number of sites with RCP on and originals enabled). I think the only clear solution is to offer four choices:
( ) Normal right-click protection with no search engine indexing (e.g. images not found or displayed in Google Images)
( ) Partial right-click protection with search engine indexing (right-click protection will apply on Smugmug, but not on the search sites - e.g. images will be indexed by Google images and will display there without right-click protection)
(o) No right-click protection with search engine indexing.
( ) No right-click protection with no search engine indexing.
Note: Right-click protection is only a mild deterrent. It is not a full solution for image security or image theft. Some combination of image watermarks, limiting the maximum viewable size and gallery passwords should be used for more thorough protection.
So my understanding is that Smug decided in April 2011 to allow that 2nd one: ( ) Partial right-click protection with search engine indexing (right-click protection will apply on Smugmug, but not on the search sites - e.g. images will be indexed by Google images and will display there without right-click protection) We know this because of Baldy's statement below: --Anna Lisa
Okay, the decision is we're going to let Google index images with right click protection. Working on the change now and we'll let you know when it's live.
The reasoning is the customers we've spoken to still want the right-click warning but also want Google to index their images even when they understand that it's another back door to foiling RCP, just like screen captures are.
We're also working on a number of other changes to indexing single images for Google image search that I wish I could talk about but can't at this time. But hopefully in the weeks and months ahead you'll see improvements wrt Google image search.
One thing that I can talk about is image URLs will soon end in your-image-name.jpg, which Google likes better than the current scheme.
But we don't know if they've changed this indexing policy since then, or if they simply haven't figured out what to do with New Smug yet, or what. If they haven't changed it, why is RCP once again having a negative impact on our SEO? (in Legacy as well as in New Smug) Back at that time, in 2011, a bunch of us noticed distinct improvements in how many images showed in GIS after the new decision. But now it seems that RCP is being applied even to the images in GIS, right? If it's not finding them? IF so, I for one would like to see this changed back to the way they'd decided to do it in 2011. It sounded like most Smuggers they interviewed at the time agreed.
Google tells us the bigger image we feed them, the more likely they are to index it. Thumbnails are pretty much guaranteed to be ignored. It's about the quality of experience they can provide their customers.
(that quote was in answer to this question below from someone, & Baldy's later clarification said that "Google wants images to be 800x600", but at the time, SmugMug was actually serving them "smaller ones" than that) We don't know what size. The original question was: 'Is there a reason that when using RCP you can't limit Google Images to only index the gallery thumbnails instead of the larger images? Just thinking that maybe this would then still provide a path to the gallery containing the larger image without creating another way to foil RCP. I agree that if someone really wants to steal an image RCP isn't going to help much, but why make it easy for the more "technically challenged" to do it.'
As stated in an other thread I am again not able to reply with direct quotes - wonder why. So the following might look funny.
Originally Posted by Baldy Google tells us the bigger image we feed them, the more likely they are to index it. Thumbnails are pretty much guaranteed to be ignored. It's about the quality of experience they can provide their customers.
Hm, what can I tell? I might question a statement of a CEO! I can tell from own direct experience: some don't like that much.
I don't question you, but the statements made in the past by Heroes and CEOs which might didn't distinct. So SM feeds Google with all of our images? As large as possible? If so...
Why...
Why I see more thumbnails for your RCPed Legacy site -> http://tinyurl.com/qbv6y94 and more larger images for my non-RCPed new site? -> http://tinyurl.com/ohf7yk4
I only have ~230 images uploaded yet (at the moment Google shows ~150 links/results, not all indexed yet), how many images you have on your site? Shouldn't there be more images in a larger size for your site visible in Google Images? Your site is up for how many years?
Hey, since I wonder what is needed to convince you,why not un-RCP one or two galleries (and also maybe change gallery style) and check yourself the before/after effect in Google Images by launching "site:http://www.winsomeworks.com/" after ~two weeks and tell us about your experiences?
I am curious about the result.
As stated in an other thread I am again not able to reply with direct quotes - wonder why. So the following might look funny. Hm, what can I tell? I might question a statement of a CEO! I can tell from own direct experience: some don't like that much. ....... .
Good sir, I'm not arguing with you. I certainly believe (from seeing the lack of my own images in GIS) that RCP is definitely having a bad effect in GIS. I'm only saying that there was a time when we saw our RCPed images come back in full force in GIS. (& it may have been brief; I don't know) But that's why I'm asking SmugMug to please clarify what they're feeding to Google right now for both types of sites, Old & New. But yes, I'm quoting the CEO when saying that there is evidently a few choices that SmugMug can (& did, & does) make about what to feed Google. And who knows about Bing or the others! No one seems to even mention them.
If SmugMug feels a need to poll people again about their preference, that's fine but I doubt they have time for that right now! But back in 2011, they did, & the great majority of people wanted RCP ability here to not carry through to Google if that was going to keep their images out of GIS, which it was. I'd guess if they poll again, that's again what most would want. The problem was that before Baldy announced what they had been doing earlier (on this thread), most people didn't even have a clue that this whole thing was the reason their images weren't showing up in GIS. You can read all that surprise, back around posts #58 on.
Yes, what you're seeing with thumbnails & all, I agree... it makes me think (once again) that something's changed. But I would like to know exactly, precisely, what SmugMug is doing now. And it would be nice to know why they didn't let us know if/when something was re-decided, since there have been lots of questions flying around about RCP / SEO.
Here, btw, for extra clarity, is Baldy's statement before the decision to change what they offer Google: "Apologies if I missed this, but it appears we do something that's non-obvious to most people. It sounds like we need to do a much better job of making it known, or we need to change it. And it is that when you turn on right click protection, we don't let Google index your images. The reason is it's a security back door. Google will index your image, but when people view them on Google's image search results, they'd be able to right-click and download from there. Another thing, which we're changing, is how the URL is formed without the original-image-name.jpg at the end. That change is in test right now and should help (the change will not be applied to hide owner galleries)." Then there was a lot of surprisehttp://dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1586521&postcount=58 from long-time customers http://dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1586522&postcount=59&http://dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1586539&postcount=60 who know this site inside & out, & later a decision to change that, referenced in my Post #300. http://dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1911986&postcount=300 But what now? We don't know.
Yeah, cuz I'm pretty sure the help desk is sitting around twiddling their thumbs right now & is just waiting for individual questions about sitemaps, RCP & SEO! However, someone popping in here for 10 min. could give hundreds of folks the lowdown in one fell swoop. Just, ya know, if they wanted to. I mean, there's nothing top-secret here, right? The whole (well, 2-3 yr.) history of this is here in the thread; I just figure up-to-date info & clarity would be lots better to point people to than old rumors, half-truths & poor memories that fly around the forums.
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Really
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And as Andy points out, your site is coming up in Google just fine.
SmugMug Support Hero
For reference: http://www.realife-photography.com/Musikfest/2012/Oktoberfest-2012/25957732_HkRSfP#!i=2152823564&k=hdBZqMP
https://www.google.com/search?q=oktoberfest+bethlehem+2012&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=0EmsUJD0HtON0QG2-oHYAQ&biw=1920&bih=936&sei=2UmsUP22AfOs0AHrjIDwDQ
If you search for:
oktoberfest bethlehem 2012 site:realife-photography.com
in the regular Google search, I can see the gallery and keyword galleries come up. So Google has the pages indexed.
EDIT: Please see this post for an update.
SmugMug Support Hero
I understand what you are saying, but I have always used right-click protection and it hasn't been an issue in the past. Also, I do have photos indexed, just not as many as in the past and also they are displayed lower in the search. If the right-click protect were the issue, wouldn't that mean they wouldn't be found at all?
For example, a search on Musikfest 2011 still has one of my photos on the first page, there used to be about 10:
https://www.google.com/search?q=musikfest+2011&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=Bg&tbo=d&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=IMisUJ3ZBs-30AGjl4CoCg&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAA&biw=1920&bih=914
I do not have any insight into the workings of Google (as few outside of Google really have) and I'm just sharing my suggestions with you on how you might be able to achieve the result you're looking for.
EDIT: Please see this post for an update.
SmugMug Support Hero
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
@Turnitup1, check out this page for suggestions on getting your content better exposed in search engines. Google Image search is pickier on what content it adds from what I know. Having your content featured on blogs or other pages should help.
SmugMug Support Hero
Oh sure, now you tell me :-) Well, the experiment doesn't seem to have worked, so confirming it probably doesn't matter.
Tried all the usual stuff within my control. Used to have good luck being found. As I said, GIS finds my photos on my blog, on Facebook... just seems to have trouble finding on SmugMug... still finds them sometimes, but no where near as well as about a year ago.
For my next trick... since I was un-protecting everything anyway, I'm "pinning" a bunch of photos with Pinterest. Trying to determine two things:
1) Will linking to SmugMug via Pinterest increase the potential for SmugMug photos to index via GIS
2) Will the Pinterest photos be found on Google better, worse or the same as the SmugMug photos
The blog appears to get an advantage because the photos are part of an overall test post. Not sure why FB appears to have an advantage over SmugMug though. Will be interesting to see if Pinterest does better than SmugMug.
Well.. gave it a month. So far, when searching on "Musikfest 2012", 7+ photos were found that link back to my blog (3 on the first page of the search). Zero on the first 7 pages link back to Smugmug (didn't look any further). So far none link back to Pinterest. Looks like photos shared in the context of a relevant article have a major advantage.
Check Link Results
Results for: http://www.jagmindersingh.com/
There was a problem while checking links:
Your site contains a robots file that disallows Search Booster and Search Engines from scanning your site. If you would like to scan your site, please remove the robots file. This should be located at http://yoursite/robots.txt, We highly recommend you remove this file to allow all search engines to scan your site for better rankings.
And I have contacted Smugmug heros and they have advised me to post this here. And they also advised me that robots.txt can not be deleted. I am not familiar with all this but i just wanted to know how can I get http://www.searchbooster.com.au to access my site so that they can provide me the service that I have already paid for with them.
Thanks
Though there should be no need to use any such service with SmugMug in the first place as search engines can index your site fine. We even generate a sitemap that's used by big search engines like Google to allow them to index your site more efficiently.
All you need to do is to add the content, like captions and keywords on individual photos. Check out the following two help pages for details:
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/84519-how-can-i-maximize-my-search-engine-relevance-
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93327-will-search-engines-find-my-smugmug-site-
SmugMug Support Hero
For example, there are areas of my site I'd like to prevent from being indexed that I cannot make private because I use their feeds.
anything can be amazing
SmugMug Support Hero
Why owners of their own sites and domains are not able to edit the most important options, and have to use your files? What is an explanation from the legal and logical point of view?
Why is this that you unblock /keyword for crawler? Are crawlers behave different today or have your (amazons) systems nowadays a better performance?
Or is there still the same issues described above and for that you limited the # of max keywords / links to 1.000 for the new SM? If so, which impact is to expect for users which are creating their own /Keyword page with 2.000+ keywords / links?
Thanks for another Hero stepping in, in case Twoofy is not on-board anymore.
Please, could we have a Hero or Guru or Higher-up who truly knows the current and latest info about SEO and our Site-maps to step in here? Many have asked for answers (for Legacy SmugMug and New SmugMug) to questions about SEO and Site-maps that have been asked persistently in this thread and several others. I see lots of people talking about it, but few definitive answers or explanations from those at SmugMug who can answer for sure. I don't want more guesses from those who aren't 100% sure what's going on, or guesswork about what we should possibly be doing & be seeing if we check our Site-maps.
So here are some questions, & my apologies-- I "stole" some of them from Caroline, a person earlier in this thread. Her post was #173 & got some answers then (Posts #174 & 175), but that was long ago, before New Smug. We want to know how all of this works in Legacy now, as well as how it's working in New SmugMug. Please either separate answers for the two sites (Old & New) or make it clear which you're referring to. Also, even though I think I know the answers to some of these, we all need a current place to direct people to for answers, as well as being sure my answers are correct. Questions: (hoping you can put answers in different color if possible... & thanks in advance!)
1. Where do I find my Site-map? (in Legacy and New SmugMug)
2. What should I be seeing in my Site-map?
3. Is there anything I should not be seeing in my Site-map?
4. How can I or you check to be sure that everything is OK with my Site-map?
5. If there's something wrong with my Site-map, what should I do?
6. If I need to re-submit it, how do I know if or when it should be re-submitted?
7. How do I actually re-submit it?
8. Jörg asked a question in Post #291 (Just before this) that never got answered: "SM (old and new) does not block the /keyword page for crawlers anymore." [Why? (he asks), Is this because crawlers behave differently today?] And he asks that because it was found at one point that it was much better for that page to be blocked. Answers?
9. We need definitive answers about RCP ? People seem to have found ( on both Legacy and New SmugMug, I believe) that RCP does indeed negatively affect GIS (Google Image Search) now. If this is true, is there anything SmugMug can do differently to change this? Also, if this is true, what has changed? (I ask because to my memory, we had somehow tackled that problem in the past and ended up able to confidently keep our RCP on while still doing well in GIS) ?
10. Please direct people to the current best Help areas for raising their SEO. Most people probably know to increase their links (from elsewhere back to SmugMug). But where is SmugMug's other info about this topic?
Incidentally, there are a few questions in this thread: http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=238976 that need answers too; people are seeing different things in Legacy & New SmugMug & wondering about that, with the supposedly "Fixed" sitemap-galleryimages or something... they're evidently only showing in New SmugMug?
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
I'm not sure people need to be "directed" -- SmugMug has a great self-help portal. Simply typing in SEO in the help search box yields you all the info. Have you tried SM's help pages before you ask questions on Dgrin? Always a good idea.
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/1229846
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93327
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/84519
This answer has been given lots in this thread, but here you go:
{yoursite}.smugmug.com/sitemap-index.xml
yourdomain.com/sitemap-index.xml
Looks like this:
<sitemapindex xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9 http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9/siteindex.xsd">
<sitemap>
<loc>http://www.moonriverphotography.com/sitemap-base.xml.gz</loc>
<lastmod>2013-08-30T14:59:05-07:00</lastmod>
</sitemap>
<sitemap>
<loc>http://www.moonriverphotography.com/sitemap-galleryimages.xml.gz
</loc>
<lastmod>2013-08-30T14:59:11-07:00</lastmod>
</sitemap>
</sitemapindex>
If you see references to Unicorns, I'd be nervous. Seriously, SM controls the sitemap and they only put in what is needed.
Unnecessary question, you know how to do this, just look at Questions 1 and 2
http://help.smugmug.com and email the heroes. Webmaster tools on Google. But it's unlikely that you'd have to do this.
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There you see a sitemap-index.gz (new and old SM) and a sitemap-galleryimages.gz (new SM only). Download the files, unzip and have a look to them. Sitemaps are update once a week.
2. -> 5. See Andy's reply.
There is no need to submit or resubmit it, as long it is mentioned at the end of your robots.txt (which is the case with SM), Crawler will find it their self.
You only would submit a sitemap for domains in which the sitemap is not mentioned in the robots.txt or when you for a reason have an additional sitemap.
Answer still open. But since it is not blocked via robots.txt, I believe it is crawl-able. Was official answered a month ago - as I told you IMHO before in another thread - by Michael Bonocore -> http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1894906&postcount=22
This means, you will find links to your images in Google, but no or only a few "previews" in "Google Images". Since google IMHO haven't changed a thing, it always was like this.
And I also believe there is no way around this for SM, but this is no drama.
So... one unanswered question: why does only New SmugMug have this: sitemap-galleryimages.gz and what does it mean, what is it for, and should we also be having it on Old SmugMug ? I believe that part was a recent addition to New SmugMug? (although some random people had it awhile ago...?)
And as far as RCP, yeah, there've been some vague answers, but not from one of the SEO gurus (I'm not sure Bonocore would be one) , and not about parts of the question. I know that we had this RCP problem before, where it did highly affect (negatively) our prominence in GIS. However, like I said, at that time SmugMug did something to "fix" that. Now I want to know what is or isn't being done to fix it, and whether or not there is any "fix" for it. Because I know for a fact that RCP is a partial deterrent to some people, even if not for all.
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
So I dug around, & you can follow a lot of discussion right here in this thread around pages 6-10 or later, about the RCP thing. And here is the post by Baldy in April 2011 that shows you it was a definite decision on SmugMug's part (after lots of internal SEO discussion) that they allow Google-bots to crawl images with RCP: http://dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1589537&postcount=86 So yes, I was partially right-- it wasn't even just SmugMug doing or not doing something... they actually made a decision to allow crawling (after having not allowed it) So now the question is, please, SmugMug SEO-Gurus... have you gone back on that decision? Are you doing something different? What's going on? People want to know! (and I'd like to know for both New and Legacy SmugMug!)
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
I believe its not a question of allowing it. But a technical one. First thing is, images are switched (call it as you like) to be a background image when RCP is on. Google does not index background images.
2nd: since there is a transparent gif in front of your images, when in question Google will index this transparent gif. (for sure not) "spacer.gif" or "transparent.gif" would be "elements non grata" if I would code for Google, right?
Which is something also was explained several times in several threads around. If you want your images to be seen in Google Images, there is no other way than to disable RCP or to set up a Blog or similar and crosslink. If you can live with only the links in Google Web, you are fine.
I also told (you if I am right), that I have been with SM in 2009 until ~2011 before and of course I had RCP enabled all the time, even when I should have knew it better (its not a protection, not at all and from a SEO perspective, even counterproductive) and my images never showed up in Google Images (different from Fineart, since there is no RCP)
And they didn't show up when I started here again end of July until I removed RCP ~ August 2nd week. This is called empiricism...
I am fine and happy now, SEO related.
I believe this sitemap makes it easier for crawlers to index our images. In there all keywords are listed and links to different image sizes etc. pp. (the later might depend on the design some choose): To be honest: I wouldn't rely to long to Legacy. SM didn't tell yet when Legacy will not be supported anymore or is discontinued, but it is to foresee they will discontinue it sooner or later.
I believe they can't have their dev team working much longer than 12 to 18 month on two versions of SM. Same for the costs for a support team, which have to support two versions (and - sic! - of course is getting irritated by this), storage (paying Amazon S3 for several Peta bytes storage respectively for the transfer out to SM's clients, is not cheap at all) etc. pp.
If I would be them I would give customers another 6 months from the day when most dramas AKA problems are solved, stop Legacy and concentrate on new SM.
So my understanding is that Smug decided in April 2011 to allow that 2nd one: ( ) Partial right-click protection with search engine indexing (right-click protection will apply on Smugmug, but not on the search sites - e.g. images will be indexed by Google images and will display there without right-click protection) We know this because of Baldy's statement below: --Anna Lisa
But we don't know if they've changed this indexing policy since then, or if they simply haven't figured out what to do with New Smug yet, or what. If they haven't changed it, why is RCP once again having a negative impact on our SEO? (in Legacy as well as in New Smug) Back at that time, in 2011, a bunch of us noticed distinct improvements in how many images showed in GIS after the new decision. But now it seems that RCP is being applied even to the images in GIS, right? If it's not finding them? IF so, I for one would like to see this changed back to the way they'd decided to do it in 2011. It sounded like most Smuggers they interviewed at the time agreed.
(that quote was in answer to this question below from someone, & Baldy's later clarification said that "Google wants images to be 800x600", but at the time, SmugMug was actually serving them "smaller ones" than that) We don't know what size. The original question was: 'Is there a reason that when using RCP you can't limit Google Images to only index the gallery thumbnails instead of the larger images? Just thinking that maybe this would then still provide a path to the gallery containing the larger image without creating another way to foil RCP. I agree that if someone really wants to steal an image RCP isn't going to help much, but why make it easy for the more "technically challenged" to do it.'
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
Hm, what can I tell? I might question a statement of a CEO! I can tell from own direct experience: some don't like that much.
I don't question you, but the statements made in the past by Heroes and CEOs which might didn't distinct. So SM feeds Google with all of our images? As large as possible? If so...
Why...
Why I see more thumbnails for your RCPed Legacy site -> http://tinyurl.com/qbv6y94 and more larger images for my non-RCPed new site? -> http://tinyurl.com/ohf7yk4
I only have ~230 images uploaded yet (at the moment Google shows ~150 links/results, not all indexed yet), how many images you have on your site? Shouldn't there be more images in a larger size for your site visible in Google Images? Your site is up for how many years?
Hey, since I wonder what is needed to convince you,why not un-RCP one or two galleries (and also maybe change gallery style) and check yourself the before/after effect in Google Images by launching "site:http://www.winsomeworks.com/" after ~two weeks and tell us about your experiences?
I am curious about the result.
If SmugMug feels a need to poll people again about their preference, that's fine but I doubt they have time for that right now! But back in 2011, they did, & the great majority of people wanted RCP ability here to not carry through to Google if that was going to keep their images out of GIS, which it was. I'd guess if they poll again, that's again what most would want. The problem was that before Baldy announced what they had been doing earlier (on this thread), most people didn't even have a clue that this whole thing was the reason their images weren't showing up in GIS. You can read all that surprise, back around posts #58 on.
Yes, what you're seeing with thumbnails & all, I agree... it makes me think (once again) that something's changed. But I would like to know exactly, precisely, what SmugMug is doing now. And it would be nice to know why they didn't let us know if/when something was re-decided, since there have been lots of questions flying around about RCP / SEO.
Here, btw, for extra clarity, is Baldy's statement before the decision to change what they offer Google: "Apologies if I missed this, but it appears we do something that's non-obvious to most people. It sounds like we need to do a much better job of making it known, or we need to change it. And it is that when you turn on right click protection, we don't let Google index your images. The reason is it's a security back door. Google will index your image, but when people view them on Google's image search results, they'd be able to right-click and download from there. Another thing, which we're changing, is how the URL is formed without the original-image-name.jpg at the end. That change is in test right now and should help (the change will not be applied to hide owner galleries)." Then there was a lot of surprise http://dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1586521&postcount=58 from long-time customers http://dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1586522&postcount=59 & http://dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1586539&postcount=60 who know this site inside & out, & later a decision to change that, referenced in my Post #300. http://dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1911986&postcount=300 But what now? We don't know.
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
Then write the help desk
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DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com