smugmug "browse" - can I opt out?

dmc

I know google will bring people to my site.... not what I want or need, but not that big a deal and I know you (smugmug) can't stop it.

But what about Smugmug's browse feature... I have been getting alot of hits from this "feature" and I don't see why this can't be optional for me. I don't want to lock down my site, but why provide additional avenues to my pictures when I have no explicit desire to share them with the general public?

Again, I believe I represent the silent majority of your customers who want to easily share pictures with our families, or whoever we invite to our sites.... Having our pictures be offered up by some search engine (smugmug in this case) is not desired, wanted, appreciated, needed, and quite frankly, creepy.

Andy

dmc wrote:

I know google will bring people to my site.... not what I want or need, but not that big a deal and I know you (smugmug) can't stop it.

But what about Smugmug's browse feature... I have been getting alot of hits from this "feature" and I don't see why this can't be optional for me. I don't want to lock down my site, but why provide additional avenues to my pictures when I have no explicit desire to share them with the general public?

Again, I believe I represent the silent majority of your customers who want to easily share pictures with our families, or whoever we invite to our sites.... Having our pictures be offered up by some search engine (smugmug in this case) is not desired, wanted, appreciated, needed, and quite frankly, creepy.

Hi DMC, thanks for writing. Yes, indeed, there is an "opt-out" - private galleries. If your photos are public, they are available for searching through "browse," "search," and "keywords." If you make the galleries private, they won't appear in smugmug's search, nor in search engines like Google, nor by searching keywords or browsing subjects.

http://www.smugmug.com/help/private-albums

I know this is not the answer you want, but it's the way the system works now. Onethumb has stated an interest in exploring this issue further:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=6021&page=2

shaunco

I would also like to have public galleries that do not show up in the smugmug browse feature. Using "private" is too private for me. What I want is to be able to make galleries visible if someone comes directly to .smugmug.com, but not visible in "browse".

-Shaun

shaunco

The worst part is that I am FORCED to have my pages indexed, due to the


tag that is injected in to the header of all of my pages... so, even in the customization, if I put:


Most indexers only use the first meta/robots tag they find, so I am SOL.

I could "possibly" live with the browse (well, I really can't...), but forcing bot indexing is crap.

-Shaun