Embedding SmugMug Photos & Metadata - Google Image License

highluxphoto

Just wondering if anyone out there can throw any light on this:

I've reviewed and updated all my metadata for my SmugMug photos to make sure it's compatible with Google's beta Image License feature https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/image-license-metadata

Having updated all my images by republishing out of Lightroom, the metadata now appears to meet spec if I download an image from Smugmug and check it in https://getpmd.iptc.org/getiptcpmd.html - all the right fields are present.

However, If I embed (via HTML) the same image in my main (Wordpress) website and blog and then download and check the image in https://getpmd.iptc.org/getiptcpmd.html it only has some of the metadata present and not the stuff that's essential for it to appear licensable to Google image search.

Questions are: Is there a better way to embed the image so that it retains all metadata to be compatible with Google Image License? Is Smugmug stripping it out of embeds?

Thanks.

Shinrya

Following. Also keen to know more.

Djm3006

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TxTortoise

Haven't seen much from SmugMug on this, but this article by Photoshelter is really good.. I dropped my PS account, but do miss the SEO there, always much better tools and scores, no matter what I do to my SmugMug account.

https://bit.ly/2QKdZLb

highluxphoto

Thanks Ralph, yes there is some good information (and links) from PS there. I do think SM should be being a bit more proactive with this and informing users how to best take advantage of Google's new service. I've raised this with support and apparently someone from SEO will get back to me in a few days...

highluxphoto

Additional to my original post above, I also note that when I examine the 'Photo Details' > 'Camera Info' for any of my images, all my required Google Image License info displays fine (I updated it all via the Lightroom Plug in).

However when I go to 'Share' > 'Embed' > 'Size' > 'Jpeg', and then open that Jpeg in a new tab and inspect its metadata via https://getpmd.iptc.org/getiptcpmd.html the metadata that it displays is minimised and not even the latest version displayed in the master light box version on Smugmug.

Considering that sharing your Smugmug content on your blog is a recommended way to boost your SEO for smugmug content, it seems essential to me that all the metadata be retained in HTML embeds and Jpegs at all sizes and be up-to-date across the board.

jimh

SmugMug really, really needs to respond to this ASAP. I have about 700 images here and re-uploading all of them is not an option. Licensing is important to me. We need a way to insert these IPTC tags automatically, or at the very least, a way to 'bulk edit' our IPTC here on SM.

PhotoShelter is already doing this; no doubt there will be others. This can't become another can that SM kicks endlessly down the road. I'm going to look at other galleries, see what's available now, and set myself a drop-dead date for an official response by SmugMug, after which I'll start over at some other site with licensing support. C'mon SM!

Shinrya

I just sorted my images out the other day. Took me the best part of 12 hours to update all my IPTC tags, copyright info, captions, titles etc for my portfolio stuff. Decided in the end just to delete everything uploaded to my SM site and re-upload them all again. Then for the hell of it, decided to take all of those images and update them one by one on my Flickr page. That WAS time-consuming!
Quick visit over to Google Webmaster next and requested a re-index. Now to wait and see if any of this actually works!

jimh

No way am I going to hand edit all my tags, re-upload 700 photos, re-order them in all my galleries, and then find out later I need to change the licensing URLs for some reason. Gallery sites absolutely have to support this. I don't need it tomorrow, but I need a definite commitment from SM, not just "will be considered for a future update".

highluxphoto

Thanks Peter and Jim for your comments. Yes, Jim totally agree that SM is too quiet on this. It's a key issue for photographers trying to sell their work online and needs addressing by SM asap. I want to feel confident as a customer paying top dollar for their service that I'm getting the best exposure for images I can. Not feeling happy about this so far.

This was the latest I got from support:

_Thank you for getting back to us. The preview image sizes have minimal metadata - we do this to provide you with a fast loading times. Of course the new copyright metadata feature was not present so this may change. Since Google has just recently releasing the Google Image Licensing feature - we may change the way we deliver our metadata four our preview copies.

Our product team is also considering other ways of providing this information to Google automatically - but I am not sure when this is going to be ready.

In the meantime you could create a new gallery and upload low resolution images to it → allow originals → embed those originals on your third party website, with the required meta information._

jimh

Well at least it's a response, albeit far from the one we'd like to hear. Can't they just come out and say yes, we'll do this? Not asking for a release date, just an acknowledgement that this is a 'must have'.

I don't understand the suggested workaround - isn't it just a variation of "do it on your own site"?

Djm3006

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Shinrya

Should be a win win for Smugmug. Any images hosted on their platform that show up in Google search available for licensing can link back to our sites. Which means more potential sales for us, and the 15% cut for SM.

Not sure I buy the line about stripping metadata to "improve load times". Imbedded JPEG metadata has a negligible effect on file sizes (in my opinion anyways).