Sharegroups, Navigation & Privacy

jdhill

I'm a new user experiencing unwanted lack of privacy using sharegroups. Perhaps I'm not fully understanding how they work, dispite searching help and this forum.

My general preference is for a fully private presence on SM - no passwords, but not visible to searches, etc. I recognize that anyone with a link into my pages can browse around within limits, and that's a risk I'm ok with.

1. A seach on SM of my name finds my home page, sparse as it is. Is there any way to prevent a search from finding me?

2. All my gallaries are private. I created a sharegroup containing 2 of those galleries and provided a link to friends to that sharegroup. So far, so good. But when a visitor goes from the sharegroup to view one of the galleries, there is no way to get back directly to the sharegroup and thus to the other galleries. This is the navigational problem. The "path" at the upper left of the page shows only name>catagory>gallery which is no help. Clicking on the catagory denys access and gives the correct messages about its galleries being private. If entering via a sharegroup, I need a way for a visitor to return easily to the sharegroup to view other sharegroup galleries.

3. But -- clicking on the name in that path goes to my home page where I find there is a section called "sharegroup" under which is listed "recently visited" and a link to my sharegroup. This seems to be a public page (although I wish it were not) and I am concerned about this easy access to some of my gallaries even without an external link. The same home page is available via the search feature and thus access to private galleries.

I love the sharegroup feature, but would like to have some better privacy control. Any thoughts? Thanks. Jeff.

Andy

jdhill wrote:

I'm a new user experiencing unwanted lack of privacy using sharegroups. Perhaps I'm not fully understanding how they work, dispite searching help and this forum.

My general preference is for a fully private presence on SM - no passwords, but not visible to searches, etc. I recognize that anyone with a link into my pages can browse around within limits, and that's a risk I'm ok with.

1. A seach on SM of my name finds my home page, sparse as it is. Is there any way to prevent a search from finding me?

Yes, put a password on your whole site:
http://www.smugmug.com/help/site-security

2. All my gallaries are private. I created a sharegroup containing 2 of those galleries and provided a link to friends to that sharegroup. So far, so good. But when a visitor goes from the sharegroup to view one of the galleries, there is no way to get back directly to the sharegroup and thus to the other galleries. This is the navigational problem. The "path" at the upper left of the page shows only name>catagory>gallery which is no help. Clicking on the catagory denys access and gives the correct messages about its galleries being private. If entering via a sharegroup, I need a way for a visitor to return easily to the sharegroup to view other sharegroup galleries.

3. But -- clicking on the name in that path goes to my home page where I find there is a section called "sharegroup" under which is listed "recently visited" and a link to my sharegroup.

This is only for you, it's based on a cookie since you visited the page. Another visitor won't see that.

Does this help?

jdhill

Thanks, Andy. That's helpful.

I'll experiment with the password effects.

The cookie explanation helps and I've confirmed that it works. (I was blown away by the number items that turned up in a search for "smugmug" on my hard drives! Lots that included the text "google". Wow!)

However, I still have the "navigation" problem - i.e. how permit sharegroup visitors to move from one gallery to another within the the sharegroup? or do they have to move up to the home page and "recent sharegroups"? or just use the "back" button on the browser? The 1st method is not at all intuitive and the latter only so-so. Perhaps I need to add some directions to the gallery description. Not all of my older visitors will figure it out (althought I suspect anyone under 30 will have no problem!). Sharegroups are a great feature, but they don't seem to have the mature navigational features of catagories, subcatagories and galleries. (ps - it would be great if security / privacy settings could be applied consistently to catagories, subcatagories and sharegroups just as for galleries.)

I'm still in awe of your ability to respond so effectively. It's one of the reasons I chose this site. Thanks.

And Cheers. Jeff.

Andy

jdhill wrote:

Thanks, Andy. That's helpful.

I'll experiment with the password effects.

The cookie explanation helps and I've confirmed that it works. (I was blown away by the number items that turned up in a search for "smugmug" on my hard drives! Lots that included the text "google". Wow!)

However, I still have the "navigation" problem

Yeah, there's not a good answer for this, I'm sorry.

I'm still in awe of your ability to respond so effectively. It's one of the reasons I chose this site. Thanks.

And Cheers. Jeff.

Our pleasure!