How to control what Google search displays?

ouki

I have made SEO setting to "Google Search visibility: Home Page Only". Google picks up the homepage and displays some junks like "xx galleries with xxxxx photos blah blah..." How do I make it display some useful info such us "We are specialized in portraits photography...."? If not possible, I'd prefer it doesn't display anything at all.

Here is an example of google searching using keyward "ouki photo"

---

ouki photo - San Diego Photographer Jack Wang
www.oukiphoto.com/
SharePhotos : 72 galleries with 6600 photos. Photos. 72 galleries with 6600 photos. Updated: Aug 05, 2012 10:10pm PST. Family : 3 galleries with 89 photos · Family ...

---

I'd like to replace the highlighted RED with "we are specialized in portraits photography and ....." Please help.

bobbyhero

You should fill out the Tools > Account Settings > Discovery > Search site description, and meta tag boxes. You could also add more descriptive text to your Homepage (i.e. via the BioBox, etc) so that when Google indexes the homepage, it has more meaningful (i.e. descriptive) text to draw from.

For more information on this, check out:
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93327

If you have additional questions, feel free to contact a Hero:
http://help.smugmug.com

Andy

In addition to what Bobby says, BE SURE to fill out every album description - that's a HUGE part of what google sees and indexes.

ouki

@Bobby,
I already had the "Site Description" and "Meta keywards" setup in the SEO setting a while back. Google is not picking up my meta keywords.

@Andy,
I do not want Google to find any of my albums except for the ones exposed to the public on the homepage. If I knew where Google is looking, I can definitely put the info I wanted to be displayed.

Please help.

rainforest1155

What are you searching for? Depending on the search term, Google may display the relevant section where it shows instead of the site description.
Note that "meta keywords" won't be displayed anywhere. If Google picks up on such things at all anymore, they would be used internally and not displayed anywhere.

How long back did you add it? It can be weeks or even months for Google to update their index.

ouki

I understood Google may or may not use the meta keyword to index. I made the change a month ago and I believe Google indexing has refreshed my site because the website title has been updated with my latest change.

See attached screenshot. The keyword I used to search was "ouki photo". I have a few questions-

1. Google grabbed both of my custom domain and Smugmug domain. Is there a way only letting Google pick up my custom domain? (oukiphoto.com)

2. As you see the highlighted description under first Google search result. It says "Photos 72 galleries with 6000 photos blah blah ...." It is not any of my album's description. Looks more like Smugmug statistics that I have no control. How do I control what displays here? If I can't control, I'd rather not showing Smugmug stats that how many galleries I have.

3. Under the second Google search result with smumug.com domain, it says "Welcome to Ouki Photography, I'm Jack....". This description is from the original Bio page. I have customized my site "not" to use and show the original Bio page. In fact, there is no link to the original Bio page on my entire site. How Google still sees it? I'd rather Google picks up the info that's on the site.

Any advise would be greatly appreceiated.

rainforest1155

If you don't want the content from the bio to show, you could remove or replace it with other content. You can find the bio field in the account settings > me > profile section.

When did you add / change the homepage meta description? It may be weeks before Google comes by your homepage to update it. Keep in mind that your custom domain and SmugMug address are two separate sites to Google so if it updates the index for one, it may not update it for the other.

With the bio description in place, it may be that Google favors that over your homepage meta description.

ouki

Thanks for your replies, guys. Unfortunately I'm still struggling figuring out how "Hello World" enable or disable works together with the global SEO Google search visibility settings.

Here is my settings:
Global SEO--> Google Search visibility YES
Albums that I DO NOT want Google visibility: Privacy: PUBLIC, Hello World: NO.
Albums that I DO want Google visibility: Privacy: PUBLIC, Hello World: YES

Google search on keyword "ouki photo". The result shows my main page, and the "Childhood-Hui" album or "Red Rock Canyon National park" album. These albums are absolutely should NOT be visible by Google. The albums that I wanted Google to see, ("Portfolio (and all the galleries under it)", "Guestbook", "Contact"...) none showed up in result.

Please advise.

www.oukiphoto.com

denisegoldberg

ouki wrote: »

Here is my settings:
Global SEO--> Google Search visibility YES
Albums that I DO NOT want Google visibility: Privacy: PUBLIC, Hello World: NO.
Albums that I DO want Google visibility: Privacy: PUBLIC, Hello World: YES

Google search on keyword "ouki photo". The result shows my main page, and the "Childhood-Hui" album or "Red Rock Canyon National park" album. These albums are absolutely should NOT be visible by Google. The albums that I wanted Google to see, ("Portfolio (and all the galleries under it)", "Guestbook", "Contact"...) none showed up in result.

When did you change the Hello World settings? If the change was recent that might explain the search results.

I don't see any text in any of your portfolio galleries, and I don't see any keywords. Your Red Rock gallery does include a description - and Google lives on text.

--- Denise

ouki

denisegoldberg wrote: »

When did you change the Hello World settings? If the change was recent that might explain the search results.

I don't see any text in any of your portfolio galleries, and I don't see any keywords. Your Red Rock gallery does include a description - and Google lives on text.

--- Denise

Regardless with or without keywords, Red Rock gallery should never be visible by Google when Hello World set to NO. Is my logic right?

denisegoldberg

ouki wrote: »

Regardless with or without keywords, Red Rock gallery should never be visible by Google when Hello World set to NO. Is my logic right?

I believe it depends on when you changed Hello World to No. If it was recent you probably need to wait for Google to reindex your site.

--- Denise

ouki

denisegoldberg wrote: »

I believe it depends on when you changed Hello World to No. If it was recent you probably need to wait for Google to reindex your site.

--- Denise

I made the gloabl SEO Google visibility change from Homepage Only to YES three days ago. That was instructed by the Smugmug support. Before then, none of my galleries were visible to Google. And it was what I wanted because they don't even have a link on my website.

I know Google has refreshed the indexing for my page because the latest changes I made appeared in the search result.

ouki

It seems the gallery "Hello World" disable never worked for me. Can someone confirm wheather it worked for you? I am getting frustrated because Google is picking up more and more my galleries that I don't ever want them to show up on Google.

I also used Google Webmaster Tool to confirm my theory was correct. Google provides a test feature that validates if a link is visible by Google. All my galleries that I set Hello World to NO are still visible by Google. Please help!

rainforest1155

You have your account settings > discovery > search > Google search visibility setting set to yes. That means Google will index your galleries unless you have the gallery specific hello world setting set to no.
If you don't want Google to index any further galleries, you would have to change the Google search visibility setting to "homepage only".
That would prevent Google from indexing further galleries. Note that galleries already indexed will take time for Google to remove. That may be weeks or months depending on when Google checks the gallery again.

Note that on the HelpDesk we told you that setting Google search visibiltiy to yes would allow Google to index all your public galleries (that are set to hello world - use site-wide setting). We also instructed you how you can change the settings for your galleries.

The issue seems to be that you did change the global setting to allow Google to index galleries before tackling the galleries and that allowed Google to index some of your galleries.

I'm sorry, but it'll take time for Google to notice the change and to remove galleries from the index that you didn't want indexed. You could try putting in a removal request for the search results in question. That might help speed the process up.

ouki

rainforest1155 wrote: »

The issue seems to be that you did change the global setting to allow Google to index galleries before tackling the galleries and that allowed Google to index some of your galleries.

Not true. All my galleries except for the 5 having direct links on my homepage always had Hello World set to No the entire time. I never ever wanted them to be Google searchable since they were uploaded.

rainforest1155 wrote: »

I'm sorry, but it'll take time for Google to notice the change and to remove galleries from the index that you didn't want indexed. You could try putting in a removal request for the search results in question. That might help speed the process up.

It would have been easy if it was just taking some time. I am seeing more and more galleries exposed to Google even Hello World set to No when uploaded in 2011. I started seeing this Google trend since HelpDesk advised me to turn on SEO-->Google visibility ON. To me, gallery level Hello World set to NO is not doing its job at all.

rainforest1155

ouki wrote: »

Not true. All my galleries except for the 5 having direct links on my homepage always had Hello World set to No the entire time. I never ever wanted them to be Google searchable since they were uploaded.

I suggest that we keep the exchange on the HelpDesk and not in the public forum. If you have further questions or concerns, reply back to the HelpDesk ticket.

ouki

rainforest1155 wrote: »

I suggest that we keep the exchange on the HelpDesk and not in the public forum. If you have further questions or concerns, reply back to the HelpDesk ticket.

I'm sorry for the inconvenience. HelpDesk did not provide a solution other than "please wait a week and see." I'm still seeing Google indexing my new galleries set Hello World to No. Until my issue is resolved, I have no option but finding help from the public forums.

mishenka

How come? Helpdesk is not comfortable bringing up the issue onto a public forum? Ouki -can you be so kind to update us on any progress (or lack thereof)?

I am seeing strange behavior as well - I am not a seo pro, so if anyone can advise I would really appreciate it.

The Google Search Visibility on my site has been set to Yes. Until a few days ago I had nothing in my Homepage Meta Description. When searching on google for "Michael Shapiro Photography" the description for the site was a short sentence from my custom html code. It is irrelevant what it was - the main thing is it was the text picked up from MY custom html.

A few days ago I finally placed a phrase into the Homepage Meta Description field. When I search google with the same phrase as above I the descripiton that Google displays now is all about SmugMug:
"Michael Shapiro's Home. Gallery Categories. Photography : 6 galleries with 54 photos. Photography. Photo Sharing · About SmugMug · API · Browse Photos ..."

I really really don't like this phrase as the description for my site in a search engine. I doubt I did anything to cause it -as I said I only finally added the phrase into the Homepage Meta Description field and all of a sudden the google started to see Smugmug whereas before I placed anything into Homepage Meta Description field google actually saw MY text.

Any ideas? Please?

ouki

Mishenka,

My issue did not get worked out. I simply gave up. Here is my experience:

After I insisting escalating the issue, I got this response:
"Our C.E.O. and Chief Geek replied already. Here's what he said: "We've generated his sitemaps various times in the last month, including a full rebuild on August 18th (and earlier once or twice in the month)." He also said it looked perfectly normal to him. So chances are that we need to just leave the SmugIsland settings as is, that way Google can index your site again as you want it to be. "

I was not convinced because I am also a programmer and I could see in the source code that my private galleries are allowing Google to index. So I insisted having someone to review the case again. After working with a guy in Germany, he told me that it is "impossible" to accomplish what I wanted to do. That's fine, at least we found the answer. So I set my global SEO to "Homepage only".

After waited another couple of weeks, I still don't see the Google result I expected. So I opened a new ticket and asked why I still don't see the expected result, here is their response: "Those are likely cached pages. So try clearing your browser cache. Also, Google may have them cached up as well, so it can take some time before those pages disappear from search results."

I'm moving on. What I'm going to do is create and host my public facing website somewhere else that I have full access to the source code. If I continue using Smugmug, they'll just be my backend storage.

mishenka

Thanks for the update Ouki! How long ago did you change from "Yes" to "Home Page Only" setting for the Google Search Visibility? What I am seeing right now when googling on a phrase "ouki photo" is this:
your website, first in the list and the following description, which is in the "description" meta of your html:
"San Diego Photographer Jack Wang. We are about creative portraits, family, wedding, fashion and lifestyle photography. Studio and on-location."

I wish I can have at least that as well, So far the only difference I see btwn your and my site setup is that I have the Google Search Visibility set to Yes whereas you have it to "Homepage Only".

ouki

mishenka wrote: »

I wish I can have at least that as well, So far the only difference I see btwn your and my site setup is that I have the Google Search Visibility set to Yes whereas you have it to "Homepage Only".

It appears that when you set Google visibility to YES, it'll grab a lot Smugmug junks such as xxx galleries xxx photos.. I found it in hard way and Smugmug helpdesk could never tell me why. What I found was that changing global visibility to Homepage only or No can avoid a lot of issues. If you only wanted Google to find your main page, here is what I suggest-

- Make global SEO Hello World setting to "Homepage Only"
- If you haven't already, update your website description and meta keywords. Description is more important. Google no longer looks at meta keywords.
- Make sure individual gallerie uses the global setting instead of overwriting it.
- To validate it, check a gallery's source code. If you do not want Google to find it, source code should say "<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow, noarchive, nosnippet" />". And vers vesa.
- Wait a week and you should start seeing the differences. I found Google is pretty fast on indexing websites.

Hope it helps.

mishenka

Thanks for all the advice! After checking results in different search engines it appears that Google still have older, cashed version of the description in it's search results, Bing and Yahoo do have a newer version which comes straight from my meta tags. Thanks again for all the help and advice!

ouki

I waited a month now. Google still sees the galleries that I absolutely do not want search engine visibility. See attached screenshot when Google search using keyword "ouki photo".

I have Global SEO set to HomePage ONLY. Please advise.

dbd

ouki wrote: »

I waited a month now. Google still sees the galleries that I absolutely do not want search engine visibility. See attached screenshot when Google search using keyword "ouki photo".

I have Global SEO set to HomePage ONLY. Please advise.

My "ouki photo" google search today does not show the portion of your screenshot within the red box. Have you cleared your cache?

Dale B. Dalrymple

ouki

dbd wrote: »

My "ouki photo" google search today does not show the portion of your screenshot within the red box. Have you cleared your cache?

Dale B. Dalrymple

Yes, it seems to be improving... I still see one gallery there. I'll see how it goes next week.