Need to use Google Search Console to get indexed?

jimh

After a year on SM, Google Analytics says my site gets seen less often than Bigfoot. So I looked into Search Console, and it shows just 35 pages indexed, seemingly at random, out of my 600 photos. It says only 15 of those came from the sitemap, and that 4 pages have unspecified 'crawl errors'. Hundreds are 'excluded'. And most worrisome is that SC shows the number of indexed pages is declining, and is now only a fraction of what it was a few months ago.

I thought that SM would magically get my gallery and photo pages indexed by Google over time, but it's not happening. Search Console isn't easy to learn; all the online 'tutorials' seem to be out of date, and everyone really wants to sell their SEO products and services.

I've started learning about Search Console, and submitting my pages manually. But is something just basically 'wrong' here, that I need to find and fix?

leftquark

SmugMug does everything we can do to set up your site to be crawled by Google, Bing, etc, but there are many outside factors that go into whether they actual do and where they rank your pages. We submit full sitemaps that include your entire folder/gallery/photo structure to them, in addition to submitting all the public photos. We make sure to deliver all your content over https to avoid Google reducing your ranking scores. We deliver mobile friendly versions and add other markdown to identify various bits for search engines to crawl.

Google will take that sitemap and perform some analysis on whether they believe those pages are relevant enough to index and keep, and if so, then they determine where it ranks. Very often they look at a particular site and don't see things they determine as "relevancy" and opt to not index the page. The best thing you can do is get your site and its links all over the internet. When Google sees your site referenced they start believing that it's relevant, at which point they begin to keep the index of your site and its pages. Without that it doesn't score high enough for them to keep.

Have you taken any steps to get your site linked across the internet?

jimh

"The best thing you can do is get your site and its links all over the internet."

LOL... Well jeez, if I knew how to do that, I'd be doing great. I probably don't have a single backlink anywhere other than Facebook, and those are useless. Like many photographers I've spent time researching how to get backlinks, and the consensus is, you probably have to get photos published on web sites for related topics, and get attributions that include your URL. I really don't know of anything else.

On a few occasions, I've been contacted by art consultants wanting to use a photo; I ask them where and how they found me, and they say a Google search took them to [another big POD site], where I also have my photos. So somehow I'm getting indexed there, to some degree, but not on SM. That's what I'd like to change

leftquark

Here's a few tips on generating some attribution:

• Forum links like posting here on DGrin can add backlinks that aren't ignored.
• Posting on your own blog. Yes, a SM blog is one of the top feature requests, but even better than posting on your own blog, would be posting on a medium or wordpress hosted blog where you can take advantage of their domain authority to link back to your URL.
• Guest posting on someone elses blog.
• Submitting articles to photography teaching websites like Digital Photography School, or even PetaPixel, DP Review, etc
• Commenting on other peoples articles / blog posts and using examples of your photos to describe your point (not just putting your URL as a signature, but using it as content: for example on a blog post about compositional elements to use your photo as an example of one)

Allen

@leftquark said:
... in addition to submitting all the public photos....

Every photo link is changed to "photos.smugmug.com", no reference to our site.
So Smug gets all the search results?

jimh

I thought that forum posts, everywhere, were 'nofollow' so links were of no value. Not so?

There seems to be consensus that a blog with links to your gallery is worthwhile. I'm a bit skeptical though. Google could somehow detect common ownership of the blog and gallery, and ignore those links - or even punish you for them.

The web has changed a lot over the years - what worked then, doesn't work today. So much of the action is inside the walled garden of Facebook, where backlinks don't matter, and while you might get 100 'likes on a post', no one ever clicks on that link to your gallery site.

Allen

What's really bad is after browsing around then going to Facebook they remove all the previous browser history.
Hitting "back" does not work. Right clicking back arrow show nothing.
I have to open history in top menu to see any.

jimh

I have a FB photography page, and have spent a way too much money on boosted posts over the last year or so. It's easy to get hundreds of 'likes' and a few nice comments. Of the people who 'liked' your post, maybe 1% can be induced to 'like' your page and follow you. Out of thousands of 'likes', absolutely no on ever clicks on a link to your web site. Bottom line is, there's no bottom line.

Pinterest, Twitter, yada yada yada.

What I want to find is a place where people are actively discussing what works, today, and what doesn't. Should I spend weeks learning all about Wordpress and creating a blog, only to find that I did it wrong, and it doesn't move the needle?

Hikin' Mike

If you are trying to find out what a particular search engine has indexed, I would type in "site:yourwebsite' and see what is indexed. IMO, that is more accurate the GSC.

What is your website?

jimh

Hikin Mike, site:www.jimhphoto.com has always shown about the same coverage as GSC in my case. Currently it's a 30 or so pages including a few individual photos seemingly chosen at random. What concerns me more than the small number of indexed pages is that the number is steadily declining, not going up. According to GSC I had 150 indexed pages just 3 months ago, and presumably more before that, although GSC doesn't go back any further. It seems like Google really has implemented the "right to be forgotten" as the EU demanded. :-)

Hikin' Mike

I never cared about how many images were indexed. I concerned myself with indexing pages. That was just me. I use DuckDuckGo.com as my default engine. Surprising to see yo don't have any images indexed. So I checked mine (gallery.imagesinthebackcountry.com). Only one. Since I only use SM for my galleries, I checked my main website (WordPress) and I have a bunch because I also use a blog. So, if you are really trying to get your images indexed, you might want to add a real blog.

You might want to look at the 'SEO for the Photographer' link in my signature. Some material may be dated, but things like Title pages may help as I see you don't have one on your home page.

jimh

Mike, I've read your post, in fact that was my starting point. But there must be a boat I'm missing with regard to a "Title page" as I don't see any option for that on SM. I have descriptive text and a logo on my home page, and the browser tab shows "Jim Hughes, Minneapolis Photographer". I've filled in the SEO Settings for my account - homepage Meta description, etc. What other "Title page" option am I missing?

Hikin' Mike

@jimh said:
Mike, I've read your post, in fact that was my starting point. But there must be a boat I'm missing with regard to a "Title page" as I don't see any option for that on SM. I have descriptive text and a logo on my home page, and the browser tab shows "Jim Hughes, Minneapolis Photographer". I've filled in the SEO Settings for my account - homepage Meta description, etc. What other "Title page" option am I missing?

While you're viewing the customization on your home page, 'Add Content Blocks > Text > Title'.

Hikin' Mike

@Allen said:
Every photo link is changed to "photos.smugmug.com", no reference to our site.
So Smug gets all the search results?

I just typed in 'site:photos.smugmug.com' and nothing showed up.

Allen

Everywhere one of my photos shows up anywhere it is listed as photos.smugmug.com.
No way back or connection to my site.
I use Blogger so at least it gets extremely better Google search results.
But I have to manually change the Smugmug shared links in the html from:
https://photos.smugmug.com/Birds/2019-Birding/Birding-2019-October/2019-10-24-Riverlands-Migratory-Bird-Sanctuary/i-SjKhTn6/2/f6c546e4/S/7D5A8843_7D3-1-S.jpg
to
https://www.photosbyat.com/photos/i-SjKhTn6/2/f6c546e4/S/7D5A8843_7D3-1-S.jpg
in the html. Assuming the html is what Google sees on the page.

jimh

Mike, inspecting the HTML showed I already had a title tag by default. But I tried adding a 'Title' content block to the main page and unfortunately found out that feature works very poorly.

The first time I tried it, it added my text in the head element as a title tag. But my initial title contained a typo, and I found I couldn't fix it. Even if I removed that content block, the misspelled title tag remained in the HTML and was displayed in the browser tab.

Eventually I figured this out. In Account Settings/Discovery/Search there's a field for Site Meta Title. This gives you a title tag, you don't need the Content block unless you want it visible on your page. If you create a Title content block it overrides the Site Meta field - but only the first time, after that it's stuck. So I fixed things by deleting the Content block and putting what I wanted in Site Meta Title.

Hikin' Mike

@jimh said:
Mike, inspecting the HTML showed I already had a title tag by default. But I tried adding a 'Title' content block to the main page and unfortunately found out that feature works very poorly. The first time I tried it, it added my text in the head element as a title tag. But my initial title contained a typo, and now I can't change it - if I remove that content block, the visible element on the page goes away but the title tag remains in the HTML, including the typo, and is displayed in the browser tab. There now seems to be no way to get rid of it or modify it.

You already have a text block. Why can't you add a Title Block above it? Guess I don't understand.

FWIW, I use one HTML/CSS Block on my gallery page. No title or text blocks.

jimh

Mike, I did add a Title content block, but as I tried to explain, it doesn't seem to work very well - you get stuck with your initial entry and can't get rid of it.

What I think I figured out is that for SEO purposes all you need is the Account Settings/Discovery/Search/Site Meta Title. That gives you a title tag which shows up in the browser tab. All the Content Block adds is to make a title visible on the page at whatever size and position you give it. It also sticks that initial entry into Account Settings/Discovery/Search/Site Meta Title, but only the first time. So I'm sticking with just Account Settings/Discovery/Search/Site Meta Title and forgetting about the Title content block.

Hope that all makes sense. It was a bit confusing.

Right now I'm thinking that SEO efforts with SM alone are probably futile, and I'll have to get a Wordpress site going.

Hikin' Mike

@jimh said:
Mike, I did add a Title content block, but as I tried to explain, it doesn't seem to work very well - you get stuck with your initial entry and can't get rid of it.

That's what I don't understand. You should be able to change the title text. Perhaps you need to e-mail the Help Desk?

What I think I figured out is that for SEO purposes all you need is the Account Settings/Discovery/Search/Site Meta Title. That gives you a title tag which shows up in the browser tab. All the Content Block adds is to make a title visible on the page at whatever size and position you give it. It also sticks that initial entry into Account Settings/Discovery/Search/Site Meta Title, but only the first time. So I'm sticking with just Account Settings/Discovery/Search/Site Meta Title and forgetting about the Title content block.

That is wrong. Just adding stuff in your Account Settings stuff is useless, IMO. Google like words on a page.

Right now I'm thinking that SEO efforts with SM alone are probably futile, and I'll have to get a Wordpress site going.

Having a WordPress blog should help. Keep your SM site and create a WordPress blog as a Sub Domain i.e 'blog.jimhphoto.com'.

jimh

Mike, based on my inspection of the HTML, you get a title tag either way, but the implementation of the Content Block is buggy as I described. It's just another way to get that same meta tag. Yes it also puts text in the body of the page but I don't think that's any different from the description and other text I already have. I could easily be wrong about this however.

It sounds like a blog is just about the only thing an ordinary photographer can do today to improve search visibility - unless you have connections with people who can give you more powerful backlinks.

Hikin' Mike

Just to be more clear. When you go to 'Discovery > Search > Site Meta Title', those words are important. The Homepage Meta Description is not.

Having a Title Element on your home page is a good thing. I just added a Title Block and I was able to edit it's title, so it can be done.

jimh

But when you go back and edit that title block, does the text in your browser tab really change? For me it did not. Then go back to 'Discovery > Search > Site Meta Title' and you'll see it's been changed to whatever you put in the Content Block when you created it.

Hikin' Mike

@jimh said:
But when you go back and edit that title block, does the text in your browser tab really change? For me it did not. Then go back to 'Discovery > Search > Site Meta Title' and you'll see it's been changed to whatever you put in the Content Block when you created it.

The 'Site Meta Title' in your Account Settings and the home page title page are two different things. Currently your Site Meta Title shows 'Minneapolis Photographer Jim Hughes'. Nobody is going to search for your name. I would pick some different keywords for that, no more than about 65-70 characters.

For your page title, the one I mentioned to add via a block, does indeed use the same title from the Site Meta Title. You can use that or change it. I picked two different keywords on my site.

jimh

What I found, in a nutshell, is that if you add a Title Content Block to your home page, and put text in it, that same text is also punched in as your Site Meta Title under Settings/Discovery. But only once - after that, changing the Content Block does not affect the Site Meta Title. That seems to be just a bug.

The SEO goal for me is to come up in searches for Minneapolis Photography, that's what sells best for me. So I'll make that my Meta Title for now.

jimh

[deleted]