Google Search on page contents inside Description Meta tag

jinspin

When I view page source on HTML pages in smugmug I see that smugmug puts the entire text page contents inside Description Meta tags.

Since google reads around first 160 characters of Description meta tag doesn't this mean Google will ignore the rest of the text page contents? So doesn't this hurt your google page ranking if rest of your page contents is ignored by google?

I spent a lot of time making content in HTML pages in smugmug so I am concerned about how google sees HTML smugmug pages so please advise. I don't want it to be waste of time. Thanks

bobbyhero

You can enter a site description in your Account Settings > Discover > Search. This *should* be used for your site's description (after Google re-indexes after a bit of time).

jinspin

bobbyhero wrote: »

You can enter a site description in your Account Settings > Discover > Search. This *should* be used for your site's description (after Google re-indexes after a bit of time).

I have already done updated that in Discover > Search

But In my homepage view source my entire page contents is inside "twitter:description" meta tag so I don't know how many characters google reads for that

<meta name="twitter:description" content="About Our Photography .... all my page contents text">

In any of my HTML pages (or anyone else's HTML smugmug pages) when you view page source my page contents is inside description meta tag

<meta name="description" content="Do you Want Photographer... all my page contents text">

I assume this is because we are told to paste html code into Description field when we create HTML pages in smugmug. But then google reads only first 160 characters in Description meta tag. This is what is troubling because then rest of content is not read by google.

Hikin' Mike

nevermind

Hikin' Mike

I would like to see a setting to add a metadata description in each of our Galleries, like we can do on the home page.

jinspin

Hikin' Mike wrote: »

I would like to see a setting to add a metadata description in each of our Galleries, like we can do on the home page.

Any smugmug heroes would like to answer my question please?

I also sent same question to smug help email and I got same answer that yes its in meta tag and that was it.
um duh!
I have replied if doing it this way was SEO google friendly and have not gotten reply yet to my astonishment.

Please just give it to me straight - smugmug HTML pages are or are not SEO friendly by putting all page text inside Description meta tag? Is google smart enough to know that for smugmug website there is actually page contents inside Description meta tag of HTML page. If google is not smart enough then it is good to know in designing our HTML pages that only first 160 characters is actually read by google.

I was thinking of converting my front end in Wordpress instead of using smugmug and then linking back to galleries. But after discussing with smugmug support the task of changing all my existing links n my website and blog to the smugmug pictures and gallieries is pretty daunting. I feel like i am SOL right now

mbonocore

Hi JinSpin,

Many articles, like this one, claim Google reads more than 160 characters.

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/meta-description-length-google-2011.html

Hope this helps!

Michael

bryanbrazil

mbonocore wrote: »

Hi JinSpin,

Many articles, like this one, claim Google reads more than 160 characters.

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/meta-description-length-google-2011.html

Hope this helps!

Michael

So, the limit is 256 characters. I don't see how that changes anything.

mbonocore

bryanbrazil wrote: »

So, the limit is 256 characters. I don't see how that changes anything.

256 is considerably longer than 160. Keep in mind, Google is constantly changing their search algorithm parameters, so in my opinion and research, any important information that you would like to be found should always be at the forefront, to guarantee it will always be located. I am not an SEO expert, but this is just information I have found and implemented, and it seems to work well for me.

Michael

denisegoldberg

Hikin' Mike wrote: »

I would like to see a setting to add a metadata description in each of our Galleries, like we can do on the home page.

Isn't that already available? If there is a description in a gallery that is placed in the metadata description for that page. I just checked my site - the description for the site is there on my home page but on other pages the description for the gallery is used.

--- Denise

jinspin

mbonocore wrote: »

256 is considerably longer than 160. Keep in mind, Google is constantly changing their search algorithm parameters, so in my opinion and research, any important information that you would like to be found should always be at the forefront, to guarantee it will always be located. I am not an SEO expert, but this is just information I have found and implemented, and it seems to work well for me.

Michael

I am not SEO expert either but this seems really obvious now that this sounds like really bad design from SEO standpoint how smugug puts everything into description meta tag. description meta tag is separate and serves different functionality than your page contents. So basically google search sees you have long description tag and no page content. Even in your homepage all page contents is in meta tag when you view page source so anything after 160-256 characters is ignored by google and forces you to put all important text up front and restricts your page design. Your HTML page design is now stuffing all important keywords in first 160 or 256 characters which is really not much and makes your writing sound forced

There are many articles like below that says how google reads your page contents for relevance. Now all that is out the window because everything you wrote is in your description tag. Anything after 160 or even 256 characters will not get read by google and really restricts how you design your HTML pages in smugmug because you have to put important stuff up front to be read by google and everything else is ignored. For example if you have FAQ HTML page like I do you may have some important content questions/answers in middle or last part of page but none of that is read by google and this is not good for SEO.

http://www.webpronews.com/google-on-how-much-content-you-should-have-on-your-home-page-2011-06

I love smugmug but this has me really concerned for long term that your smugmug HTML pages including home page are not SEO friendly. I would love to change my homepage to normal HTML page on web hosting site but i would have to change all my existing smugmug gallery and photo links using new subdomain like photos.mywebsite.com/gallery_123 instead of existing mywebsite.com/gallery_123
Since I have existing img src links of images on my blog i would have to changes all those links too using new subdomain which is a lot with hundreds of blog posts. unless there is redirect someone knows about to go to your subdomain automatically? Or come to think of it maybe I can do Find and Replace to new subdomain for all my img src links for each blog post which would make it quicker.

mishenka

JinSpin,
What you wrote ("bad design from SEO standpoint") makes sense. But wait and see how Michael (or one of the Support Heroes) will come right by and justify the design and explain to you why it is good for you or, at least, for the majority of their customers

jinspin

mishenka wrote: »

JinSpin,
What you wrote ("bad design from SEO standpoint") makes sense. But wait and see how Michael (or one of the Support Heroes) will come right by and justify the design and explain to you why it is good for you or, at least, for the majority of their customers

I would hope there is good reason for it and it is SEO friendly because that would save me a lot of time and migration work. But the fact that it is taking this long to get definitive answer from help support or the boards from hero has me worried. the answer should be be pretty straight forward yes or no. smugmug started as photo gallery company and maybe html pages were just kludgy work around and bolted on. But i think people deserve to know the answer if they care about SEO for their website.

Hikin' Mike

denisegoldberg wrote: »

Isn't that already available? If there is a description in a gallery that is placed in the metadata description for that page. I just checked my site - the description for the site is there on my home page but on other pages the description for the gallery is used.

--- Denise

Not that I can see, unless I'm missing something. There is no separate <metadata description /> and a description (content).

denisegoldberg

Hikin' Mike wrote: »

Not that I can see, unless I'm missing something. There is no separate <metadata description /> and a description (content).

You're right, there is only the meta description. It appears to contain text from the gallery description though.

--- Denise

mbonocore

JinSpin

Can you let me know your SmugMug site, and the exact pages you are referring too? Thank you.

Michael

mishenka

While you are looking into this issue - please use one of my pages as another example of what JinSpin describes. Meta tag contains the text portion of the html code entered into the Description box of the page: http://www.michaelshapirophotography.com/Photography/Gallery

Here is the meta tag for the above page:

<meta name="description" content="PHOTOGRAPHY Favorites People Not People Cuteness Factor ...scapes Photo Roulette - everyday stuff The Art of Exposure Washington DC RENT Five Guys Named Moe Guest Photographers Want to be here? Want to be here? Want to be here? Want to be here?"/>

jinspin

Also I have couple of HTML smugmug pages if you click any of my About links

My text page contents is wrapped in these tags
<meta name="description" content=
<meta property="og:description" content=

on homepage my text is wrapped in

<meta name="twitter:description" content

I believe this happens on every smugmug website homepage and HTML page, not just mine.

I appreciate someone from smugmug looking into this. Thanks

Smug Eric

So the problem with both the links you gave us mishenka and jinspin. The gallery description and the bio box on the homepage were designed to be a place to add text that can be picked up as the meta description for your site.

How you both are using it as an html page is a hack that it wasn't designed for. It works rather well which is why it is used so often. So what you are seeing is those boxes working as designed even with the code you are adding to them.

I've tried a few different ways of adding tags to the gallery description to force it to read other text as the meta description but they aren't working. I can't seem to find a way to hack the existing hack to get the results you are looking for.

mishenka

Smug Eric wrote: »

So the problem with both the links you gave us mishenka and jinspin. The gallery description and the bio box on the homepage were designed to be a place to add text that can be picked up as the meta description for your site.

How you both are using it as an html page is a hack that it wasn't designed for. It works rather well which is why it is used so often. So what you are seeing is those boxes working as designed even with the code you are adding to them.

I've tried a few different ways of adding tags to the gallery description to force it to read other text as the meta description but they aren't working. I can't seem to find a way to hack the existing hack to get the results you are looking for.

Ouch! Was it meant as an example of how to put your foot in your mouth? Do SmugMug's employees replies are posted directly in real time without any delay for a general counsel review? Or, at least, Michael Bonocore's review? It is amazing how Mr. Chris MacAskill implies that the company's lawyers are preventing him or Michael Bonocore to update customer on long expected improvements and changes to the system but, at the same time, Help Desk personnel are allowed to provide information that contradicts with the official website's help page.

Smug Eric

The main reason it's in our help pages is because it works. Simple as that. It may not have been designed that way initially, but if you later find another way that something can work why not let others know? Which is why it's in our help pages. To try and help as many people looking for a solution like that as possible.

mishenka

Smug Eric wrote: »

The main reason it's in our help pages is because it works. Simple as that. It may not have been designed that way initially, but if you later find another way that something can work why not let others know? Which is why it's in our help pages. To try and help as many people looking for a solution like that as possible.

So, it was NOT designed for the purpose of customization initially? What does that mysterious phrase "...complete control with CSS and HTML..." refers to then in the image below? When a feature like that is promised on the product description page, the first thing an educated consumer does is confirming how this promise is implemented and delivered. Advanced Customization page is only a part of a "complete control" promise:)

Smug Eric

You do have the complete control through the advanced customizer. You could create in the Custom Header or footer a div that holds all the html you want to show on a specific page. Then in your CSS you could hide it on the rest of your pages. But using the gallery description winds up being a simpler way of going about it, even though that wasn't its purpose initially.

mishenka

... and then with EVERY request for a single page an html of ALL the pages will be loaded into users browser just to be subsequently hidden with css instruction? Brilliant idea:) Sorry for picking on you – but you know that this is not even remotely logical or efficient engineering solution. Is that really what was actually meant when “...complete control with CSS and HTML...” words were written on the product advertisement page????

Smug Eric

I guess I'm not really following your complaint here. Is it that one way that works inadvertently and an second way that is a bit clunky but also works doesn't fit the exact verbiage on our marketing page in a way that is satisfactory?

mishenka

"... in a way that is satisfactory?" - No.

One way that is clunky, the one that makes the custom html code for the entire site load for every single page - is NOT satisfactory. It directly impedes my website's performance. By the way - I applaud you for admitting it is a clunky way:) hope you won't get in trouble for that.

Another way, the one that works inadvertently (and you discovered it and shared with the community and made it an official way) has potential negative impact on site discoverability and search engine ranking/indexing as being discussed in this forum.

Smug Eric

I guess that's where I got confused. You were linking help pages and marketing pages that didn't seem to have much to do with the topic of how this specific hack affected any SEO rankings. Because adding the code to your Custom Header and hiding it on pages it's not needed may not be the simplest, or even the best designed way to go about it. But that wouldn't affect the pages SEO and the description could be used as designed.

And to worry , I won't be getting in any sort of trouble for any of that. As one of a few customization heroes I have to work my way around things in our system every single day. If I can't call it clunky then I'm not sure who can. But thanks for your concern.

All I can really do at this point though is direct you to Baldy's post from earlier today:

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=233530

As for the OP's issue, and others with the same issue. While the Advanced Customization option may not be the best, it will fix what you are seeing. You may also want to in addition, or instead of making that change, add good meta tag information for your account in the Account Settings ~> Discovery ~> Search portion of your site if you haven't already. That will help search engines rank your site and display a meaningful description for it.

Also I haven't played much with any of the other search engines equivalents to Google's webmaster tools:

www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

But getting directly involved in what the search engine is seeing for your site can make a big difference as well.

jinspin

sorry I have been out of the loop working on my website and just saw new messages.
I have had a feeling this HTML page was a hack.
I think for courtesy sake that there should be a big disclaimer that indicates to people how the website's discoverability will be affected by how the HTML smugmug page is setup. That POSSIBLY the only first 160 characters of smugmug HTML will be read by google and the rest of the page contents will be ignored because they are in meta tags.
I think most people like me did not know this when creating their smugmug html pages as their homepage and INVESTED A LOT OF TIME in making their homepage and other HTML pages. They think this will be like normal HTML pages and not hacked HTML pages affecting their SEO. 160 characters is like 3-4 sentences you know so it can be very limiting. Even businesses who invested their business website with smugmug html homepages can have their search affected. I have read that the homepage is the most important page that google crawls on.
But I have moved my homepage to hosting site with REAL HTML pages and using smugmug as galleries only. And today I have fixed all my subsequent broken links to galleries with global 301 redirect I think I am golden now {Applause}

mbonocore

jinspin wrote: »

sorry I have been out of the loop working on my website and just saw new messages.
I have had a feeling this HTML page was a hack.
I think for courtesy sake that there should be a big disclaimer that indicates to people how the website's discoverability will be affected by how the HTML smugmug page is setup. That POSSIBLY the only first 160 characters of smugmug HTML will be read by google and the rest of the page contents will be ignored because they are in meta tags.
I think most people like me did not know this when creating their smugmug html pages as their homepage and INVESTED A LOT OF TIME in making their homepage and other HTML pages. They think this will be like normal HTML pages and not hacked HTML pages affecting their SEO. 160 characters is like 3-4 sentences you know so it can be very limiting. Even businesses who invested their business website with smugmug html homepages can have their search affected. I have read that the homepage is the most important page that google crawls on.
But I have moved my homepage to hosting site with REAL HTML pages and using smugmug as galleries only. And today I have fixed all my subsequent broken links to galleries with global 301 redirect I think I am golden now {Applause}

Good to hear. Sorry for the confusion. I will work with our writers to see if we can update those pages to reflect what you describe.

Thanks!

Michael

mishenka

mbonocore wrote: »

... I will work with our writers to see if we can update those pages to reflect what you describe.

Thanks!

Michael

.... many many unpleasant debates and confusions could have been avoided on these pages if the written information coincided with the reality. I think it is a great step (sync written info with the way the system really works), Michael, while the company is working on a new, bigger, and better things.