Pro user: automatic redirection from smugmug to my domain

Erick L

The first link is a text page I use to have before I moved to Smugmug. The content is now on a html page at Smugmug under a different URL but search results still point to the old page. When people click on it, they fall on my SM homepage or, nearly all the time, on a category page that looks empty because all the galleries in that category are unlisted. I lost 75% of my traffic since.

I use Google CSE as an internal search engine which has the same problem.

And the way SM handles titles, Google won't re-index my pages anytime soon. (BIG WINK!!!)

ivar

Erick L wrote:

The first link is a page I use to have before I moved to Smugmug. The content is now on a page at Smugmug but search results still point to the old page. When people click on it, they fall on my SM homepage or, nearly all the time, on a category page that looks empty because all the galleries in that category are unlisted. I lost 75% of my traffic since.

I use Google CSE as an internal search engine which has the same problem.

And the way SM handles titles, Google won't re-index my pages anytime soon. (BIG WINK!!!)

The first page does not exist anymore so you can not redirect it.

It is still cached at the search engines. Clicking the non-existing link will always bring you to the homepage, as our system has no idea what to do with a non-existing page.

For google, you can request a removal if the page does not exist anymore: www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals

I hope this helps.

Erick L

Ok, I guess I'm screwed. Any way to tell Google the old page has a new URL?

And again... PLEASE! Do something about the titles and descriptions. The only key word I've found that actually sends something to my current site is "Photo sharing".

ivar

Erick L wrote:

Ok, I guess I'm screwed. Any way to tell Google the old page has a new URL?

Not that I know.

Erick L wrote:

And again... PLEASE! Do something about the titles. The only key word I've found that actually sends something to my current site is "Photo sharing".

The titles are really not a life-changing thing, I'm sorry to say.

See http://wiki.smugmug.com/display/SmugMug/Maximize+Search+Engine+Findability for some good tips

I see you have your SmugMug address in your signature, change it to your custom domain if that's the one you want to use

Erick L

ivar wrote:

The titles are really not a life-changing thing, I'm sorry to say.

I disagree. It's one of the most important thing (EDIT :It's the MOST IMPORTANT!). I don't know much about websites but I know this, and my website was VERY succesful with search engines. Here's a reason why: http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=792870&postcount=40

And the fact that I found my website on Google.ca first page for "Photo sharing" proves title is important.

Same for description. I don't need a description on my galleries, but Google picks up a description made up by Smugmug, which has nothing to do with my website.

Anyway, sorry for drifting off-topic. I'm surprised SM staff don't understand how big this issue is.

Thank you.

Andy

Erick L wrote:

I'm surprised SM staff don't understand how big this issue is.

Thank you.

Ahhh but we do. And I talk till I'm blue in the face about maximizing findability.

Erick L

I don't see your point Andy. I'll talk about this until I'm blue in the face too.

I don't care one bit what people find when they search for my name or even borealphoto. Noboby searches for that except stalkers. I care what they see when when they search for "Red-breasted Nuthatch", or "Cyling Gaspésie" or any of the 1000 other keywords that bring people to my site.

Please, read this post carefully: http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=792870&postcount=40

I don't want to add a description on each gallery just to push the one made by Smugmug over because it adds clutter. There are enough photo captions, which I belive SM also use as alt tags (a good thing) to be picked up by SE as content. But Smugmug insists on adding its own description so that 's what people see on the seach result and don't click because it has nothing to do with their search (if I'm lucky to be seen in the first place).

EDIT: BTW, I have nothing against the maximizing findability page, except it's missing a huge aspect: the page title. Look at any SEO article. One thing they agree on is page title is THE most important thing on a page.

Erick L

From the article linked in the findability page:

You should always have a <code>title</code> tag for each page, as <code>title</code> is arguably the most important tag of them all.

Shima

I love this code for getting your smugmug stuff to forward to the proper domain. Awesome stuff!

jasoncaine

I have placed this in our site at:
www.littlestheroesproject.org
and that is what it will read on the main page, but anywhere after that it will change the reading in the header to littlestheroesproject.smugmug.com/thisandthat

How can I get that to stop?
Have I placed it in there incorrectly ... why cannot I not seem to get it to go?

DrDavid

Erick L wrote:

The first link is a text page I use to have before I moved to Smugmug. The content is now on a html page at Smugmug under a different URL but search results still point to the old page. When people click on it, they fall on my SM homepage or, nearly all the time, on a category page that looks empty because all the galleries in that category are unlisted. I lost 75% of my traffic since.

I use Google CSE as an internal search engine which has the same problem.

And the way SM handles titles, Google won't re-index my pages anytime soon. (BIG WINK!!!)

Maybe use a vanity URL to redirect it...?

David

Erick L

DrDavid wrote:

Maybe use a vanity URL to redirect it...?

Maybe... but my old URLs have a .htm extension and most have several levels like borealphoto.com/level1/level2/page.htm. Is this possible?

Thanks.

DrDavid

Erick L wrote:

Maybe... but my old URLs have a .htm extension and most have several levels like borealphoto.com/level1/level2/page.htm. Is this possible?

Thanks.

I can actually do it, but, it requires a lot of trickery, and access to an apache webserver. Basically, you need to use something called, "mod_rewrite".. For example this:

http://www.borealphoto.com/level1/level2/blah.htm

turns into:

http://www.borealphoto.com/

or

http://www.borealphoto.com/gallery/13432532_asdfa

or whatever you want.

To do it, you need some way of having your traffic hit the apache server first, then get redirected to smugmug. So, your "custom domain" on smugmug may need to be photos.borealphoto.com, but, to the user typing www., it will be a seamless redirect to photos.

It's a huge hack, but, it can be done.

David

mrcoons

I was just wondering why this works on some links but not others. musicman5.smugmug.com forwards to www.musicman5photos.com so that is not a problem. But when I go to one of my blogs and click on various links I get varying results.

http://musicman5.smugmug.com/gallery/3639596/1/208044788 gets changed to http://www.musicman5photos.com/gallery/3716111/1/213924254 no problem. But the following link does not change http://musicman5.smugmug.com/gallery/3639601/1/207946831.

These links can be found at http://nchsmb.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-06-25T19%3A03%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=15



On a similar theme I also noticed that this address http://musicman5.smugmug.com/gallery/3716118/1/213941616 gets changed to this address http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/3716118/1/213941616#213941616_y47jL -- why is that?

denisegoldberg

mrcoons wrote:

On a similar theme I also noticed that this address http://musicman5.smugmug.com/gallery/3716118/1/213941616 gets changed to this address http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/3716118/1/213941616#213941616_y47jL -- why is that?

That is usually caused by having hide owner set to yes on the gallery.

--- Denise

mrcoons

denisegoldberg wrote:

That is usually caused by having hide owner set to yes on the gallery.

--- Denise

Sure did. That must be the only gallery I ever turned that on it. Thanks Denise!

mozpolat

devbobo wrote:

Hey Sergio,

yes it is possible, add the code below to your js (and insert ur domain names)...

Updated: Now supports both nickname.smugmug.com and www.nickname.smugmug.com

 
function redirectPath() { 
  re = /((www.)?introversion.smugmug.com)/; 
  tmp = window.location.href; 
  if (re.test(tmp)) { 
    tmp = tmp.replace(re, '[URL="http://www.introversion.com.au/"]www.introversion.com.au[/URL]'); 
    window.location.href = tmp; 
  } 
}
redirectPath();  

Cheers,

David

This works great thank you. But I have another problem. I have flash slide show on my home page. Some of my friends cannot see it because their company blocked media sharing web sites including smugmug.com.

So It seems flash slide show uses nickname.smugmug.com instead of my domain name. Is there any way to solve that?

thanks.

Pshots

Hi andy

Is it possible to build a code as well for this :

When I put pshots-photography.com in the bar there come error page -
I or the customers have to put www.pshots-photography.com in the bar .

Is there a solution for this as well !


p.s. other thing - Thx for your great Photographing NY Guide its a great Book!
I received it last days ! :ivar

denisegoldberg

Pshots wrote: »

When I put pshots-photography.com in the bar there come error page - I or the customers have to put www.pshots-photography.com in the bar .

Is there a solution for this as well !

See the section "How to drop the 'www'" on the help page at http://www.smugmug.com/help/professional-accounts.

--- Denise