Google image search, only the first photos of each gallery are indexed, why?

sdb · January 28, 2018

Hi!

Until now I've always had indexed only the first (approximately) 20 photos of each gallery on google images. Relatively good when searching with the related keywords, but only the first. I use collage landscape, the indexed photos correspond only to those that are displayed at the first webpage load. Therefore excluded all the others that load by scrolling down in the page (that are not loaded at the first moment).

Hope you've uderstand. Why does this happen? Is it something that only happens to me or is it so and I can't do anything? Maybe because google doesn't see the other photos? I haven't found other discussion about, here in the forum.
Personally, the first photos of each gallery are often the less important, especially for weddings where they represent the introduction of the locations or other details. The most important photos are generally in the middle and at the end of the page, the part that is not indexed.

I know it's not needed to add an image sitemap to google webmaster, right?
Since I'm making some changes to my site, at the moment I've a few photos indexed on google images, so I've to wait a bit for some results. But if in the meantime I can do something, it would be good!
Thank you.

Ferguson · January 29, 2018

I've got tens of thousands of images in Smugmug, and very, very few of them ever make google's index as images. I just did a search and it has maybe 100 or so.

Now I often see my images indexed, but usually when a media outlet uses one, those tend to get indexed quickly.

Pages in Smugmug get indexed more frequently and more quickly, but not images. Never understood it, just gave up.

sdb · January 29, 2018

Thank you for sharing your experience Fergusson.
In general, in your case which photos are indexed, always the first of each gallery as in my case, or ramdomly among all the photos in one gallery?

Any other experience regarding this issue? Can someone of SmugMug explain the reason, tell us if it's so by default or are we doing something wrong?

Ferguson · January 29, 2018

@sdb said:
Thank you for sharing your experience Fergusson.
In general, in your case which photos are indexed, always the first of each gallery as in my case, or ramdomly among all the photos in one gallery?

I can't see a pattern. I just did a search with "site" limited to smugmug, and the last week. I got only three photos (I have added a couple hundred from 3 sports events).

The three images that are listed as "two days ago" include two from June 2014 (hasn't changed since then) which were the 2nd and 10th in that gallery, and one from a smart gallery with a photo from 5/19/2017 and the 17th in that gallery, also hasn't changed.

I have no clue why it would grab these three images, unless someone perhaps had referenced a link to them in some blog or other web page. It's POSSIBLE that happened, but does not seem all that likely at least for two of them (one was of a old TV sitcom star at a baseball game in 2014 so maybe).

If I expand it to a month, I get maybe 50, and in an eyeball look through them, I do see a prevalence for the front of galleries; most are basketball games and there's way too many showing player intros and opening scenes to be random. Yet it is not nearly all the first shots in the gallery by any means, and again a random mix from old shots, e.g. 11/05/17 , 4/17/17.

I just have no idea what causes some to be linked, though in looking through this I think you may be right that it is early in the gallery.

I use Landscape Collage, for what it is worth, and a typical gallery for me has about 60-120 shots from a sporting event. One thing you might try if you are interested is see if Google still offers the "open as google" (or something like that) and see how SM presents the gallery to their robots (it is definitely not the way we see it, at least when I last looks). Maybe SM is truncating it. Maybe Google just gives up after a certain number.

If you search on SEO here, you will see this topic has been debated for years. And years.

sdb · January 30, 2018

Thanks again Fergusson for the detailed answer.

Clearly no one, not even the most expert of all experts, will ever dominate the deepest secrets of google! That said, I'm satisfied with photo indexing apart from the fact, really fundamental, that the only indexed photos are almost always the first ones in the gallery...in my case. One thing that I noticed, single photos from all the positions inside a gallery are indexed in the google web search, the classic one with links. Good, but not important as in image search.

Logically I don't ask that all the photos are perfectly indexed, it's impossible. But, to give a practical example, if 15/20 photos from a gallery are indexed on google images, I would like to be indexed randomly among the photos of the gallery. I also use c.landscape and don't know if, maybe, with other gallery styles you've more chance to be indexed....for example in the journal style there are more photos be loaded in the first page load.

I think you're speaking about webmaster tools (google search console) and the "Fetch and render". In past times I've also read here about, there are many threads as you say. I use it, verified with my site. I've also added the sitemap /sitemap-index.xml, even if the sitemap seems useful only for the links and not for the photos, given that the submitted photos are many and indexed are 0...which in reality is not true!
When I propose fetch and render new links of galleries the indexed status is always "Status Partial", as if google didn't see the whole gallery and photos. I imagine that, since I'm not an expert.An example, here 2 screenshots: the first of a recent gallery that I submitted and the second the related research on google images by typing "site:www....gallery link".
The result is good but as you can see the photos are only the first of the gallery. Here the link of the mentioned gallery.

On the left where is written how googlebot saw the page, googlebot stops seeing the gallery/photos at that point (corresponding to the first page load) even if there are still photos in the gallery. I don't know if the problem is in the mentioned blocked resources.
If you look at the second screenshot, and confront it with the photos in the link on my page, you can notice what I've sayed before...only the first are seen and indexed.

I hope that these considerations can be useful and that someone can say how we can remedy it.

Ferguson · January 30, 2018

I had a few minutes and tried mine. It's been years since I looked.

First, my site map was not shown as submitted. I'm certain I had done so long ago, but google appears to have forgotten. I resubmitted. I don't know if it will matter much.

Secondly, my site map was a bit out of date. The latest gallery I could find today (1/30/2018) was dated 1/21/2018. I have galleries uploaded on 1/26, 1/27 and 1/29. My GUESS is that Smugmug is generating them once a week or so. I'm not sure what is "normal" for this. I do know that the pages (and pages index better on SM than images for me) do not show the newer galleries either, e.g. site:www.captivephotons.com and "ASA" will return galleries from 2016 and 2017, but not the one I shot 1/26/2018. And if someone were looking for my shots, they would be looking for the most recent, so that is not really a good thing. Whether it is caused by the site map or not I do not know.

I realize the two statements above may be a bit at odds, since it wasn't submitted, but I think google was using it even though not submitted manually. So not sure if manual submission matters.

Third, as you found, when I did a fetch as google it stopped on image #23 of a gallery of 64 photos. Again -- right, wrong, expected? Certainly it would seem a cause of not seeing later images, but whether Google or SM caused it, I have no idea. I thought I remembered that SM provided non-javascript, static content when it was fetched by google, but that does not appear to be the case if you look at the HTML that page provides, so maybe it is just running up to the point where it's virtual monitor would expect to do a fetch of more images.

Personally I'm more concerned by seeing the lack of current content than I am by not seeing every image indexed. For me, image searches are less common, I think, than someone looking for an event. And frankly they don't come looking for them days or weeks later, but the same or next day.

But... I've rather given up. I'm not energetic enough to keep up with all the SEO recommendations. Google is kind of like the weather - we experience it, but we cannot understand it well, nor control it. Not sure where Smugmug fits into that analogy.

sdb · January 31, 2018

You did well to re-enter the sitemap. It's a very useful tool that, integrated to analytics, allows you to analyze visits to your site. And in theory indexing should improve.
By using the "fetch" tool, you can manually ask google to crawl (or recrawl if you've done some changes to a webpage) your URL. Anyway if you've entered a correct sitemap this will do automatically. Take a look here.

Personally I use the fetch tool after publishing a new webpage to see if there are any problems. And since the manual indexing request is an option associated with this tool and only involves a click...I click! Probably a waste of time, but it's just one second.

I understand that your needs are a bit different from mine. In your case the time factor is much more important, with clients searching for photos a few hours/days after an event. In my case it's not so important, since I want it to be well indexed in the long run.

I agree, the pages are better indexed than the photos. And this for a platform like SM is a bit strange...I hope in the future they can improve photo indexing.
Regarding the pages, in recent times it's a bit slower. Before, often happened to see the new page online within some hours/one day...it was very good! But I haven't any type of lack in indexed pages, all can be found on google, some in the first google pages, others more distant. Now, after adding the sitemap, check and see if the situation improves in the coming months.
I know (from my clients) that some found me through google images...so for me it's as important as web search.

In you case it stopped the fetch on photo 23, in my mentioned link on photo 19. I've the same questions with no answers. I don't know how SM provide the pages to crawlers, anyway a possibility is that the problems depends on how the SM galleries are built. I don't want to think it, but it can be since the entire gallery is not uploaded in full in the first moment. When I see other photography websites, I notice that (almost) nobody uses a method similar to SM, the photos are always loaded on the gallery page from the beginning. And doing a tests with this pages, even some last photos of that gallery are indexed. Clearly the fact that the photos are loaded gradually by scrolling speeds up web browsing, but if this would mean a "castration" of indexing of the last photos, I'd rather slow down the page and load all the photos together.

I know from SM heroes that this option (load all the photos together) it's not possible, but if there were any method or CSS I would ask you to let me know. I would do a test with a gallery and then evaluate the results.

Your analogy on google and weather fits perfectly. I would say we all (not only SM) look for the clothing suitable for all weather conditions, knowing well that it doesn't exist.

Ferguson · January 31, 2018

@sdb, I gave it a try. I added a gallery last evening. This morning I did a fetch-as, got the gallery, then submit. Before, the page was not showing on a search specific to my site and time period. After still wasn't... it's been about two hours, no change.

I also found recommendations that in the search tools you list https and http separately, though I am a bit unclear where they differ and not (e.g. I just listed https and it shows crawl history). Interestingly if you query for robots.txt to get the sitemap setting, it gives http in http mode, and https in https mode, so I guess, maybe google sees whatever it encounters? I guess all this washes away once they do a redirect to https and http becomes moot.

However, I also found that inside the site maps, all the links (even if the site map is retrieved as https) are still http, so google is going to be forced from the site map back to http. Hopefully that's on their list to change now.

One thing I noticed that I probably knew from my last look but had forgotten (or maybe it changed). Each image gets submitted in each size as a separate image instance, and ALSO is submitted as a page with its full-page display format. So here is what a single image looks like:

<url>
    <loc>http://www.captivephotons.com/Events/FGCUMBB/FIU121116/i-mdcP8Gm/</loc>
    <lastmod>2016-12-11T21:41:16-08:00</lastmod>
    <priority>0.4</priority>
    <image:image>
      <image:loc>http://www.captivephotons.com/Events/FGCUMBB/FIU121116/i-mdcP8Gm/0/6b4f8cfd/L/FGCU%20v%20FIU%2012-11-2016%20-%20DD5_3673_79743-L.jpg</image:loc>
      <image:family_friendly>yes</image:family_friendly>
      <image:keyword>basketball</image:keyword>
      <image:keyword>fgcu</image:keyword>
      <image:title>FGCU v FIU 12/11/2016</image:title>
      <image:creation_date>2016-12-11T20:17:57-08:00</image:creation_date>
      <image:geo_location>26.47120555555600,-81.76472777777800</image:geo_location>
      <image:rights_usage>All rights reserved</image:rights_usage>
      <image:collection url="http://www.captivephotons.com/Events/FGCUMBB/FIU121116">FIU 12/11/2016</image:collection>
      <image:author>Linwood Ferguson</image:author>
      <image:copyright>Linwood Ferguson</image:copyright>
      <image:instance>
        <image:width>3297</image:width>
        <image:height>4120</image:height>
        <image:url>http://www.captivephotons.com/Events/FGCUMBB/FIU121116/i-mdcP8Gm/0/6b4f8cfd/O/FGCU%20v%20FIU%2012-11-2016%20-%20DD5_3673_79743.jpg</image:url>
      </image:instance>
      <image:instance>
        <image:width>80</image:width>
        <image:height>100</image:height>
        <image:url>http://www.captivephotons.com/Events/FGCUMBB/FIU121116/i-mdcP8Gm/0/6b4f8cfd/Ti/FGCU%20v%20FIU%2012-11-2016%20-%20DD5_3673_79743-Ti.jpg</image:url>
      </image:instance>
      <image:instance>
        <image:width>120</image:width>
        <image:height>150</image:height>
        <image:url>http://www.captivephotons.com/Events/FGCUMBB/FIU121116/i-mdcP8Gm/0/6b4f8cfd/Th/FGCU%20v%20FIU%2012-11-2016%20-%20DD5_3673_79743-Th.jpg</image:url>
      </image:instance>
      <image:instance>
        <image:width>3073</image:width>
        <image:height>3840</image:height>
        <image:url>http://www.captivephotons.com/Events/FGCUMBB/FIU121116/i-mdcP8Gm/0/6b4f8cfd/4K/FGCU%20v%20FIU%2012-11-2016%20-%20DD5_3673_79743-4K.jpg</image:url>
      </image:instance>
      <image:instance>
        <image:width>2049</image:width>
        <image:height>2560</image:height>
        <image:url>http://www.captivephotons.com/Events/FGCUMBB/FIU121116/i-mdcP8Gm/0/6b4f8cfd/X5/FGCU%20v%20FIU%2012-11-2016%20-%20DD5_3673_79743-X5.jpg</image:url>
      </image:instance>
      <image:instance>
        <image:width>1639</image:width>
        <image:height>2048</image:height>
        <image:url>http://www.captivephotons.com/Events/FGCUMBB/FIU121116/i-mdcP8Gm/0/6b4f8cfd/X4/FGCU%20v%20FIU%2012-11-2016%20-%20DD5_3673_79743-X4.jpg</image:url>
      </image:instance>
      <image:instance>
        <image:width>960</image:width>
        <image:height>1200</image:height>
        <image:url>http://www.captivephotons.com/Events/FGCUMBB/FIU121116/i-mdcP8Gm/0/6b4f8cfd/X3/FGCU%20v%20FIU%2012-11-2016%20-%20DD5_3673_79743-X3.jpg</image:url>
      </image:instance>
      <image:instance>
        <image:width>768</image:width>
        <image:height>960</image:height>
        <image:url>http://www.captivephotons.com/Events/FGCUMBB/FIU121116/i-mdcP8Gm/0/6b4f8cfd/X2/FGCU%20v%20FIU%2012-11-2016%20-%20DD5_3673_79743-X2.jpg</image:url>
      </image:instance>
      <image:instance>
        <image:width>614</image:width>
        <image:height>768</image:height>
        <image:url>http://www.captivephotons.com/Events/FGCUMBB/FIU121116/i-mdcP8Gm/0/6b4f8cfd/XL/FGCU%20v%20FIU%2012-11-2016%20-%20DD5_3673_79743-XL.jpg</image:url>
      </image:instance>
      <image:instance>
        <image:width>480</image:width>
        <image:height>600</image:height>
        <image:url>http://www.captivephotons.com/Events/FGCUMBB/FIU121116/i-mdcP8Gm/0/6b4f8cfd/L/FGCU%20v%20FIU%2012-11-2016%20-%20DD5_3673_79743-L.jpg</image:url>
      </image:instance>
      <image:instance>
        <image:width>360</image:width>
        <image:height>450</image:height>
        <image:url>http://www.captivephotons.com/Events/FGCUMBB/FIU121116/i-mdcP8Gm/0/6b4f8cfd/M/FGCU%20v%20FIU%2012-11-2016%20-%20DD5_3673_79743-M.jpg</image:url>
      </image:instance>
      <image:instance>
        <image:width>240</image:width>
        <image:height>300</image:height>
        <image:url>http://www.captivephotons.com/Events/FGCUMBB/FIU121116/i-mdcP8Gm/0/6b4f8cfd/S/FGCU%20v%20FIU%2012-11-2016%20-%20DD5_3673_79743-S.jpg</image:url>
      </image:instance>
      <image:exif>
        <image:camera_maker>NIKON CORPORATION</image:camera_maker>
        <image:camera_model>NIKON D5</image:camera_model>
      </image:exif>
    </image:image>
  </url>

Good, bad, indifferent that it's so complicated as opposed to a single image URL? I have no idea.

In particular, does adding each image as a separate page actually detract from the "real" pages, since now rather than a few hundred pages Google things I have almost 70,000?

And clearly is is refusing to index all 70,000.

sdb · February 1, 2018

About http and https it's a totally obscure topic for me...until now I knew that https was more related to secure connections for payments, email, etc.

I took some time this morning to read about here in the forum in the related thread and in the web. From what I understood, Google is directing the links for all websites to have SSL connections and that sites with https will also be better indexed. Since SM is making the transition in this period there may be delays in the general indexing of SM sites, and in fact this explains why the process is slower now. Anyway if this transition will bring us benefits, I'm happy SM will do it.

Personally, before change/add the https to google webmaster and analytics, I'll wait until the transition to https for my site (and all the SM sites) will be ended and when, by clicking on my website via a search engine, it will automatically open with the SSL connection. For now it's still http, like all the other SM sites. If I try write https manually it works.
Or should I add it already from now to analytics and webmaster tools? I don't know.

Yes, I know, each image is submitted in each size as a separate image relating to a separate link. On one hand it could reduce the visibility of the real page that we would like to see indexed. On the other it can help, I think, for general indexing, although as you say Google probably don't want to index all the single photos...and who knows for which criterion Google chooses one or another!

Ferguson · February 1, 2018

@sdb said:
Yes, I know, each image is submitted in each size as a separate image relating to a separate link. On one hand it could reduce the visibility of the real page that we would like to see indexed. On the other it can help, I think, for general indexing, although as you say Google probably don't want to index all the single photos...and who knows for which criterion Google chooses one or another!

But I wonder (and I really do not know, this is a question) if submitting the GALLERY as the page, and within that page each image as images, would not be better?

sdb · February 1, 2018

By logic yes, but probably the structure of SM is different from what our logic would be.

Another thing, I've received just a few hours ago an email from google webmaster tools. A new version will be online soon, but you can check from now the new look and a couple of features. A very good thing is that now you can see the link of the pages which are indexed, the indexing date and the pages that report errors. Before it wasn't possible.

Hikin' Mike · February 1, 2018

@Ferguson & @sdb

Have you ever typed in 'site:your-website-here' into Google to see how many pages and images are indexed?

I only use SM for galleries. My regular website handles the everything else, including a blog. I'm a landscape/nature photographer. When I go out and take photos, I post a few photos each day on my blog. I must admit, I don't embed the photos from my SM galleries to my WP site, I upload those using the Media Library in WP. But you can embed them. Google like new content. Google will index my recent blog entry AND the photos.

I typed in both my SM and WP sites and looked at the images. I would say a 10:1 ratio (WP to SM). If you want your images to be found online, I would suggest creating a blog.

Ferguson · February 1, 2018

@Hikin' Mike oh sure, in fact that is how I am checking things. I see the same. If a newspaper picks up a photo and posts it (with credit), I see it in google in minutes, or no more than an hour or two. Posting it in SM may or may not ever appear. I am not too surprised that SM does not want to quickly index hundreds of photos in a new gallery at a single go; what concerns me about SM is that the gallery itself does not appear rapidly at all. So someone looking for shots from a specific sporting event cannot find them for a week or three.

I am wondering (guessing) this may relate to the rather lethargic update rate of the sitemap?

Hikin' Mike · February 2, 2018

I'm not a SEO expert, but sitemaps are not as important as it was 10-15 years ago. The last site I created (WP), I didn't even bother with a sitemap. My content is indexed. I do know that bots only crawl for a short time on each site, so it may take a very long time to index a whole site....or never at all. IMO, if you really need to get your images indexed fast, blog it.

sdb · February 2, 2018

@Hikin' Mike Mike, me too, I use very often the site:.... search to check the status of the link and photos on google.

(to summarize, I had to repeat some things already written, sorry!)

My blog is on wordpress.com where I unfortunaly can't upload in bulk the photos from SM, like in your case where you use the related plugin. I can embeed the photo from SM to wordpress.com, but if I've a gallery with many photos I've to do it manually for each photo and it gets really stressful. I also upload the photos to media library in wordpress, because I think it's useful for SEO if I upload there other photos and embed them.
I know that blogging often is google friendly for SEO...but in my case I use it to tell my follower when I've uploaded a new work on SM. And something for personal article, but leave this out of our matters. Not so often. I admit that until know I haven't used it so much. Now I've just updated the layout, and after finishing my updates on my site I'll work on the blog. Although I've a lot less photos on the blog, in relation on google images there is a greater percentage of photos in favor of wordpress.

Until now, these were my steps for blogging:
1) new gallery on SM site
2) new article with one cover foto (uploaded to wordpress media) and the link to SM site where the people can see the full gallery.

For my last article, I tried something different, I've uploaded the same text and photos (same file name, etc) in the SM gallery and in the blog article, to check which one will be better indexed. Now, after 12 days, you can find both link in google search. In google images some photos from SM gallery but 0 from my wordpress blog...I don't know why.

For me it's not so important to have it online soon as for @Ferguson, even if more time is needed I prefer it good indexed in time. Fergusson, I've seen you've a blog, although not updated. I think for you what Mike says can be very good. More photos,on SM + blog, more possibilities to be found earlier.

A couple of final questions/considerations.
1) For my blog I've probabily to change my strategy. For now, I use FB page and Instagram for publishing new photos and create audience...but it doesn't help indexing my site and blog. In my field (weddings, engagement, etc), nobody uses the blog as a facebook or instagram board and I'd not like to do it.
2) To push up the SM site it would be better to embed the photos in the wordpress blog?I can do it if I do as I have done so far, by publishing a cover photo in the blog (or just some) and redirecting to my site (and not in the case where I publish all the photos in the gallery). Or it can be better to add the photos to media library of wordpress? This is a question that makes me think a lot...
3) I've read that duplicate content on two different sites (as in the last case just described for SM+blog) is not well seen by google. Right? Even if they come from the same owner? As long as google understands that one is the site and the other the blog.

Thanks in advance for any answer and suggestion!

Hikin' Mike · February 2, 2018

@sdb

If you are only doing a service (weddings, engagements etc), what does it matter if your pictures are indexed? You aren't selling them to the public? I would only be concerned about being found if I search for your location and your specialties in Google. I doubt a prospective bride isn't going to search images in Google, unless I'm missing something.

Ferguson · February 2, 2018

@Hikin' Mike said:
@sdb

If you are only doing a service (weddings, engagements etc), what does it matter if your pictures are indexed? You aren't selling them to the public? I would only be concerned about being found if I search for your location and your specialties in Google. I doubt a prospective bride isn't going to search images in Google, unless I'm missing something.

That apples to me, sort of. What people are looking for is my GALLERY from an event, not individual images from the event. Frankly indexing individual images is nice, but hardly something I would count on.

What's more and more annoying to me is the galleries are taking a long time to index. Interestingly I looked for a game from 1/30 and found it (didn't find it last time). And my site map has NOT updated to include it yet, so Google found it without the site map. Now it did have a link on my home page, it it also had a link on the school's web page. I frankly think those links on the schools are what end up triggering it -- the school's pages come up in hours if not minutes. If they put my name on a shot, I can see it same day, yet the gallery from which they pulled it may take a week to show up.

sdb · February 5, 2018

@Hikin' Mike
Yes, I don't sell photos online and the most important for me is link indexing as you say. But I noticed that a part of visits to my site is done through google images. For some keywords my photos are among the first, this is why I'd like all the photos of a gallery could be seen and had a chance to be indexed, not just the first ones of gallery. Simply this.

@Ferguson
Indexing of the entire galleries in my case is not a problem, is quite fast +/- one day. Not in this last time, probably for the already mentioned reasons, but I hope it will return as before after the http/https question.
For your case, however, try to fully use the blog and increase link sharing.

Some colleagues that work on events like you adopt this tactic:
1) they create the gallery page related to an event some days before (writing inside some phrases like..."will be soon available after the event, stay in touch"...or something else): gallery is indexed before the event;
2) before or during the event, they inform the organizers of the existing link and ask (when possible) to include it on their website;
3) in this way they have a lot more chances to be visible before or during the event and also to be found and sell photos after the event.

I don't know if you already work/worked in this way. Otherwise try, it could be a solution.

Ferguson · February 5, 2018

@sdb, I get that (the blog aspect). That does not remove the question of WHY pages on Smugmug are so slow to index otherwise, and in particular whether the inclusion of a "page" for each image contributes to the issue.

After all, let's say Google is willing to crawl 100 pages a day on your site. If your site had 300 pages total, the results are much faster than if it has 60,000 pages due to the inclusion of a page for each image.

Google image search, only the first photos of each gallery are indexed, why?

Comments