SmugMug search ?

cjyphoto

I was doing a search on the main Smugmug page when i noticed that my galleries are not turning up. For example, I have a gallery titled Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium. I should simply be able to type in Point Defiance in the search engine and that gallery should be listed. It is not. What is the deal? I'm gonna be pretty upset if Istart going through my galleries and find that they are not turning up in SmugMug search results.

Sheaf

cjyphoto wrote:

I was doing a search on the main Smugmug page when i noticed that my galleries are not turning up. For example, I have a gallery titled Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium. I should simply be able to type in Point Defiance in the search engine and that gallery should be listed. It is not. What is the deal? I'm gonna be pretty upset if Istart going through my galleries and find that they are not turning up in SmugMug search results.

It looks like you have that as a sub-category, not a gallery. Our search results don't currently show categories and sub-categories. Sorry!

cjyphoto

As someone who has come here from PBase this gallery vs category thing has to be the most annoying part of SmugMug. Why can we not have sub-galleries instead of sub-categories?

devbobo

cjy,

you have to remember that this isn't Pbase. Not every single feature is going to match one to one, between smumug or any other site.

But I must say that I believe that the Category/Sub category feature is far more powerful than sub-galleries.

Cheers,

David

Andy

cjyphoto wrote:

I was doing a search on the main Smugmug page when i noticed that my galleries are not turning up. For example, I have a gallery titled Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium. I should simply be able to type in Point Defiance in the search engine and that gallery should be listed. It is not. What is the deal? I'm gonna be pretty upset if Istart going through my galleries and find that they are not turning up in SmugMug search results.

Have you keyworded your photos, captioned them, and given all your galleries descriptions? Also, keyword your galleries, too. That aids in SmugMug searching.

If you do this, you'll find that your results will be found - not only in SmugMug but via Google and other search engines, too

cjyphoto

I know this is not PBase. I realized that months ago and yet I'm still here. : I'm trying to adjust, but this category vs gallery and lack of sub-galleries just does not click with me yet.

Yes, I keyword most of if not all of my pics. I'd say I get more hits due to Google than SmugMug's search engine according to StatCounter and I can see this may be one of the reasons why.

Andy

cjyphoto wrote:

I know this is not PBase. I realized that months ago and yet I'm still here. : I'm trying to adjust, but this category vs gallery and lack of sub-galleries just does not click with me yet.

Yes, I keyword most of if not all of my pics. I'd say I get more hits due to Google than SmugMug's search engine according to StatCounter and I can see this may be one of the reasons why.

And gallery keywords? (in the gallery customization menu?)

cjyphoto

Andy wrote:

And gallery keywords? (in the gallery customization menu?)

Yes I can add those keywords at the gallery level. That doesn't help at the so called category level though.

I'm not tryin' to make a big fuss. The only reason I found out about this was because a gallery I put up that was supposed to be private is getting more hits than my public galleries. "Point Defiance" was in the gallery title so I tried using the SmugMug Search to see if people were finding the gallery looking for Point Defiance Zoo images. After putting Point Defiance in not only did I not see the gallery I was looking for, I also did not see my Point Defiance gallery that I thought for sure would there.

Usually if I'm searching for a place or event I want to find the gallery. I don't usually look at the individual pictures in search results. I want the whole thing. Not little pieces.

I guess I'll try and work with this. Although I'll always know that it can be handled a little better than this.

Andy

cjyphoto wrote:

I guess I'll try and work with this. Although I'll always know that it can be handled a little better than this.

Tell us how, please! Don (Onethumb) reads Dgrin religiously and is very keen on having our site be as searchable as possible.

cjyphoto

Andy wrote:

Tell us how, please! Don (Onethumb) reads Dgrin religiously and is very keen on having our site be as searchable as possible.

Sub-Galleries. Simple as that.

This would be really helpful for event photographers. Especially repeating type events.

As an example I shoot for the Washington Ren Faire. This is a yearly event and has many different activities going on during the three weekend run of the faire.

The way I did it and still do on the other site is to create a main gallery. That would be the name of the event. In the sub-galleries below that I divide it into years. Below the yearly sub-galleries I create different groups.

This way when someone is searching for the Washington Ren Faire on that site they will find the main gallery page with the yearly sub-galleries below it.

Example: http://tinyurl.com/jg36d

The way SmugMug is currently configured this is not possible. I had to create a "Renaissance Faires" category which does not show up on the SmugMug seach engine. Then instead of being able to create galleries by year I had to create sub-categories by group which are also not found using SmugMug search. I was then finally able to create galleries that are visible to the SmugMug search engine. Of course these galleries do not have Ren Faire in the title (I guess I'll have to change that) so most people will not enter these gallery titles in the SmugMug search engine.

Example: http://tinyurl.com/kugsr

Like I said I don't expect SmugMug to change for me. I'll just have to work within the limitations of the site. I do believe searchable sub-galleries would be nice though.

ivar

cjyphoto wrote:

I was then finally able to create galleries that are visible to the SmugMug search engine. Of course these galleries do not have Ren Faire in the title (I guess I'll have to change that)

You don't have to put the words in the title for the smugmug search to find them. Make sure you keyword them with the words you want (in you 'customize gallery' page) and they will turn up regardless of what the title is.

Dna

cjyphoto wrote:

Like I said I don't expect SmugMug to change for me. I'll just have to work within the limitations of the site. I do believe searchable sub-galleries would be nice though.

Don't think of it as a limitation. Once I got my head around it, the cat, sub-cat and galleries system is very powerful and easy to sort. And even easier for the client to navigate. It stops you from having too many layer and confusing your clients.

Dna

cjyphoto

Look I understand keywording so please drop that. That is simply a work-around to inability of SmugMug search to find categories. Like I said earlier, I want to find the main gallery. Personally while searching I will dig down through the pages until the gallery results end. I don't bother looking for individual images which is what keywording provides.

I do not believe there can to many levels. Doing it the way SmugMug is currently set up and not trying to work around, my Ren Faire galleries would all be in one large gallery with hundreds of images and many pages. Are you telling me it would be easier for someone looking for a photo of themself or a certain activity to find in a gallery with a mass of photos and numerous pages? Instead of logically named sub-galleries.

I understand how Categories work. I just did not realize that SmugMug did not search for categories.

One reason that I am keeping my PBase account along with Smugmug is... People find it easier to navigate. My mother for example will not even look at my SmugMug site simply because it is harder for her to navigate.

I realize that searching for SmugMug default categories would be pointless. How about enabling the searching of unique or user created categories. That would be a step in the right direction.

Andy

cjyphoto wrote:

I do not believe there can to many levels.

As of now, we feel that you are in the minority, but who knows, that may change. Thanks for letting us know how important unlimited levels of gallery org are to you

I just don't see the search as such a problem. If folks looking for a Westchester Senior Portrait put that in SmugMug Search, they'll find my gallery. From there there is plenty of navigation for them to reach me. Same if they were searching for a photo of The Croton Reservoir

One reason that I am keeping my PBase account along with Smugmug is... People find it easier to navigate. My mother for example will not even look at my SmugMug site simply because it is harder for her to navigate.

You have a pro account, there are loads of navigation tricks that can be implemented, if you're interested, make a post in the customization forum and we'll get you the info

Thanks again for taking the time to post!