Pages that I dont want - Keywords

mbridge87

Hi all,

What I actually mean by that title is "pages that I don't want visitors to see".

If you do a google search for me you will find loads of pages that I have not created that display keywords. Please take a look at this:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=max+bridge+photograhper&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb&gfe_rd=cr&ei=zIs2VOm3CcWq8we5roCQAg#rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&q=max+bridge+photographer&spell=1

As you can see searching for my name + photographer brings up these odd pages which I would really prefer a visitor not see. It's confusing and I can see it putting people off.

Is there any way that I can stop people viewing these pages but still reap the benefits of keywords?

To be honest, I did see a thread on this topic and I have also emailed Smugmug about this but the thread was old (ish) and I'd love to hear what the experts on here think about the issue.

Thanks in advance

rainforest1155

Hi Max,

Do you refer to the keyword pages? Keyword galleries are automatically generated from keywords you add to photos. They link photos with the same keywords together, which can not only be helpful to your visitors who are trying to locate more photos based on a keyword, but also help SmugMug search and external search engines.

As we mention here, relevant photo keywords are very important for site's search ranking, e.g. on Google. However, you or us, we don't have any control over the way Google ranks pages. Otherwise, everyone would attempt to control their Google results, which of course would not work and in the end wouldn't be good for Google's users.

Here's also what I already replied to you on the subject via email a little while ago: Keyword pages are indexed by design as otherwise you'd lose the SEO boost from the keywords completely. So it's not possible to exclude those from Google. Google is all about giving a person using their search the best results for the search term they entered. That's part of the Google (and most other search engines) ranking. And you have to keep in mind that if a person comes to your site through a search engine, they may be looking for something very specific and the faster they can find it, the longer they may stay. If they don't see what they're looking for right away or within a few clicks, they might just leave and move on to another search result. So it's actually in your best interest that Google points visitors to the specific content they may be looking for.

If you really don't wish them to be included in search, your only option would be to remove the keywords from your photos. It's not possible to hide the keyword results from Google.

mbridge87

Hi Sebastian,

Sorry, seems as though we're talking a lot lately.

Yeah it is the keyword pages we chatted about a little while ago. Sorry to being it up again, I had someone mention it to me today and say that they had found it confusing hence I thought I'd post here quickly and see what others thought.

I understand the importance of the keywords, that's why I use them, I just don't like the look of these messy pages that people often seem to land on. Of course if the choice is either to remove the keywords or keep the pages I will keep the pages.

Thanks again for the response.

leftquark

[QUOTE=mbridge87;1973073I understand the importance of the keywords, that's why I use them, I just don't like the look of these messy pages that people often seem to land on.[/QUOTE]

Hi Max,
We could try to use some CSS to format these in a way that is more to your liking. Is there something in particular you would like to change? For example, we could remove the keywords section entirely and just let it look like a gallery:

/* Hide the keywords section at the top */
.sm-gallery-header .sm-gallery-keywords {
  display: none;
}

Let me know if there's anything else you'd like to change on the page or if you'd like to show some of the keyword sections but not others.

mbridge87

Hi Leftquark,

So sorry I didn't reply sooner! I've been knee deep in designing my blog and writing some opening articles. Totally forgot about this.

I did have the idea to hide the Keywords, however, I was under the impression that Google penalized such behavior? I did some research on the matter and as opinions were divided I thought it best to err on the side of caution.

If you feel there would be no SEO / Google penalty I will definitely implement some CSS to hide most elements on that page.

Sorry again for the delay in my response, I really do appreciate the help.

leftquark

You are correct ... although Google's algorithm for determining page rank is somewhat "voodoo magic", they have gotten smart and will look at CSS when scanning a page. They will see the CSS to hide the page and make a neutral or negative decision based on that. Perhaps, however, you want this page to drop in rank, and therefore would be a good thing. For whatever reason, you've made your keyword the most important page in Google's mind. Your best bet is to try to decrease the keyword pages rank while increasing the value of your homepage. I realize this isn't an easy thing to fix