How To Maximize Your Findability (Search Engine Stuff)

Andy

OK, let's have your best tips here. And any questions. I'll be building on this thread with the best stuff that gets reported and posted.

We've introduced a new help page on this topic, too:
http://www.smugmug.com/help/search-engines

all the best tips are in there right now. More will be added to this thread, and this post, as they come up!

jefflennan

Andy wrote:

OK, let's have your best tips here. And any questions. I'll be building on this thread with the best stuff that gets reported and posted.

An important part of google's search indexing includes image names. it helps to give your images better names than the camera's default file names.

For example "molly_hunter_jumper_foxridge_farms.jpg" is better for search than "DSC-0012.jpg"

I am not knowledgeable enough though, on how smugmug handles image names when uploading. Andy, can you enlighten me and tell me if what I am suggesting here doesnt fly so well for us at smugmug?

Andy

jefflennan wrote:

An important part of google's search indexing includes image names. it helps to give your images better names than the camera's default file names.

For example "molly_hunter_jumper_foxridge_farms.jpg" is better for search than "DSC-0012.jpg"

I am not knowledgeable enough though, on how smugmug handles image names when uploading. Andy, can you enlighten me and tell me if what I am suggesting here doesnt fly so well for us at smugmug?

Hi, please read our keywords link

SmugMug Help-Keywords wrote:

To save you time, SmugMug also inspects your photo's filenames. IMG_9107 will be ignored. Auckland_9107 will be tagged with the keyword Auckland. You can always use the caption tool to change them.

harrysimpson

Promotion
Back in the ol' days I would insert keywords into the META tags of the first index html page. The search engine crawlers would parse these and that'd help to boost the standing in the search engines. Do the key words for the photos do the same thing on a smugmug page?

Andy

harrysimpson wrote:

Back in the ol' days I would insert keywords into the META tags of the first index html page. The search engine crawlers would parse these and that'd help to boost the standing in the search engines. Do the key words for the photos do the same thing on a smugmug page?

Yes. And more. SmugMug has such high search standing, that you're actually better off having it this way.

Keyword - everything!

dogwood

Put your name and/or other search info in the text of your footer.

Even though you may be "Joe Blow Photo", you should still add words (ie "joe blow photo, austin texas"). Also, another idea is to name your links from your blog, etc to your site using link

Andy

I have a lot of competition in the search world. Seems there's another Andy Williams

Well, for two years, I've been buried if you google my name. Like 3, 4, 5 pages back.

Not now. And all I've done is just what's posted in this thread.

reach4urstar

Long time lurker, first time poster
Quick question, and yes, I read the keyword section.

If I choose to not "display" my keywords on my home page, will the search engines still pick up the keywords in the individual photos?

I really don't care for the way the keywords look on my homepage.

Andy

reach4urstar wrote:

Quick question, and yes, I read the keyword section.

If I choose to not "display" my keywords on my home page, will the search engines still pick up the keywords in the individual photos?

I really don't care for the way the keywords look on my homepage.

they sure will

And, you can always get to your keywords, by adding this to your site name: /keyword

welcome to Dgrin!

tinachamberlain

Problems with Google Search
Hello Everyone. I'm knew to the forum and I was directed to this thread by the Help Desk. I'm hoping someone will be able to assist me.

I did a search of my name on Google earlier today just to see where I may be in their listings, and I found something interesting. A link showed up that goes to my back-end HTML code, or so it looks to me, of my smugmug site, and within the address shown on google is the word HACK.

The help desk is unable to assist me as it isn't a smugmug issue. They think it may be due to some RSS or Atom feeds pulling from my site, but I have no idea what those are or why they would be pulling from my site in the first place.

Is anybody here familiar with this issue or know how I can resolve it? Do I need to contact Google directly to have this issue resolved?

Thanks in advance for any assistance you may be able to provide me.

Tina

Andy

tinachamberlain wrote:

Hello Everyone. I'm knew to the forum and I was directed to this thread by the Help Desk. I'm hoping someone will be able to assist me.

I did a search of my name on Google earlier today just to see where I may be in their listings, and I found something interesting. A link showed up that goes to my back-end HTML code, or so it looks to me, of my smugmug site, and within the address shown on google is the word HACK.

The help desk is unable to assist me as it isn't a smugmug issue. They think it may be due to some RSS or Atom feeds pulling from my site, but I have no idea what those are or why they would be pulling from my site in the first place.

Is anybody here familiar with this issue or know how I can resolve it? Do I need to contact Google directly to have this issue resolved?

Thanks in advance for any assistance you may be able to provide me.

Tina

Those are valid links. Good links, too.
They go to our feeds. More on feeds here:

http://www.smugmug.com/help/rss-atom-feeds

You'll increase your search hits by keywording every photo on your site. Until then, the feeds are higher relevance and show up higher.

tinachamberlain

Interesting information, thanks Andy!

Can you do me a favor, can you look at this link? http://tinachamberlain.smugmug.com/hack/feed.mg?Type=popularNickname&Data=tinachamberlain&format=atom03

That is the link that is showing up on the Google Search for my name Tina Chamberlain.

I guess I just don't see how that is going to help people get to my site and look at my pictures, since it's all in code.

Andy

tinachamberlain wrote:

Interesting information, thanks Andy!

Can you do me a favor, can you look at this link? http://tinachamberlain.smugmug.com/hack/feed.mg?Type=popularNickname&Data=tinachamberlain&format=atom03

That is the link that is showing up on the Google Search for my name Tina Chamberlain.

I guess I just don't see how that is going to help people get to my site and look at my pictures, since it's all in code.

Follow the link. It goes to a page like the attached. Then you click on the thumbnail and boom, they are on your site. What's not to like ?

tinachamberlain

I'm not sure how you're getting that. I'm using IE and below is what I see (2 different versions).

Version 1 is with the feed version not expanded.



Version 2 is with the feed version expanded.



I also tried to look at that link via Firefox and I still only see this code and no type of link that will bring me to my page.

If I'm coming across this issue, I can only imagine many other people are as well. Most people don't have feed readers, as it is still just a new trend, and I'm afraid that they find that link, see all this code, and never actually make it to my website.

Am I missing something????? I'm starting to feel really stupid.

tinachamberlain

Ok my husband actually figured this out for me. He went to this NovaFeed site and input that URL that was showing up and saw the same pictures you did.

So, I see why you say it is a good thing. Those with readers are actually able to go to my site, or at least to my most popular pictures, and not see all that code.

I guess I just have to hope that all the keywords I've added, and some of the google sitemaps I've installed, will assist me in the coming weeks/months to move my actual webpage up higher than this Feed page so it doesn't confuse those that either don't have a reader or don't realize that they need to go to a reader site and input that address.

Am I understanding it now? Please tell me I am.

Andy

tinachamberlain wrote:

Ok my husband actually figured this out for me. He went to this NovaFeed site and input that URL that was showing up and saw the same pictures you did.

So, I see why you say it is a good thing. Those with readers are actually able to go to my site, or at least to my most popular pictures, and not see all that code.

I guess I just have to hope that all the keywords I've added, and some of the google sitemaps I've installed, will assist me in the coming weeks/months to move my actual webpage up higher than this Feed page so it doesn't confuse those that either don't have a reader or don't realize that they need to go to a reader site and input that address.

Am I understanding it now? Please tell me I am.

IE7 is more feed-friendly and now folks are becoming more feed-aware. It's a good thing.

tinachamberlain

Thanks Andy. I hadn't upgraded to IE 7 yet, I was still using the older version. I just upgraded and I didn't have that code anymore.

photogmomma

Keywords and searching - LOTS of questions....
Okay, I've been mulling over keywords for the last week or two after reading this and a few other posts.... And I get it: keywords are important. How do I know I got it? Because I'm having DREAMS about them.... So... a few questions I need to ask:

• Is it really important to keyword my children? I mean, does anyone really need to find them? Does this help when they get lost at the mall? (Yes, I did have a dream about that!)
• I want to keyword all of my photos with my info. What should that read that will work best with searches on Google?
  • Crested Butte Photography? Photos? Photographer? All 3?
  • TippiePics? Andi Tippie, TippiePics? Each separately? All together?
  • "Andi Tippie, TippiePics, Crested Butte Portrait Photographer"?
  • Anything I'm missing (besides categorizing each photo)?
• Can you access keywords on a hidden OR a password protected gallery? (If I have a wedding, for example, it would be nice to throw every photo into one gallery and then key word them for access to each portion of the function - and then not allow the random public to access - passwords would be great. I don't care if the public SEES the keywords, I just don't want them seeing/ordering the photos!)

Other questions:

• I have a URL: www.tippiepics.com. But when I search my name on google, although I get my site, it says "tippiepics.smugmug.com". I honestly don't care one way or the other, but I want people to associate my photos with my personal URL. And yet I see the smugmug one pop up everywhere and I don't know what I shoudl do about it. (Everywhere meaning google, my analytics, adwords, etc.) It just seems I'm cutting my chances of my own URL showing up on google in half if half the time it's showing smugmug....
• Once I get my name/URL out there, how long before it starts to show up on google higher? I mean, generally. Sounds like it took Andy about a year. (That's fine, I just want to make sure I'm doing this right and know what to expect.)
• Once I DO get my name out there, should I expect to be making millions or just hundreds of thousands on my photos?

Thanks in advance!

Andy

photogmomma wrote:

Okay, I've been mulling over keywords for the last week or two after reading this and a few other posts.... And I get it: keywords are important. How do I know I got it? Because I'm having DREAMS about them.... So... a few questions I need to ask:

• Is it really important to keyword my children? I mean, does anyone really need to find them? Does this help when they get lost at the mall? (Yes, I did have a dream about that!)
• I want to keyword all of my photos with my info. What should that read that will work best with searches on Google?
  • Crested Butte Photography? Photos? Photographer? All 3?
  • TippiePics? Andi Tippie, TippiePics? Each separately? All together?
  • "Andi Tippie, TippiePics, Crested Butte Portrait Photographer"?
  • Anything I'm missing (besides categorizing each photo)?
• Can you access keywords on a hidden OR a password protected gallery? (If I have a wedding, for example, it would be nice to throw every photo into one gallery and then key word them for access to each portion of the function - and then not allow the random public to access - passwords would be great. I don't care if the public SEES the keywords, I just don't want them seeing/ordering the photos!)

Other questions:

• I have a URL: www.tippiepics.com. But when I search my name on google, although I get my site, it says "tippiepics.smugmug.com". I honestly don't care one way or the other, but I want people to associate my photos with my personal URL. And yet I see the smugmug one pop up everywhere and I don't know what I shoudl do about it. (Everywhere meaning google, my analytics, adwords, etc.) It just seems I'm cutting my chances of my own URL showing up on google in half if half the time it's showing smugmug....
• Once I get my name/URL out there, how long before it starts to show up on google higher? I mean, generally. Sounds like it took Andy about a year. (That's fine, I just want to make sure I'm doing this right and know what to expect.)
• Once I DO get my name out there, should I expect to be making millions or just hundreds of thousands on my photos?

Thanks in advance!

1. don't keyword your children
2. make keywords unique to the photos and galleries.
3. your customname will pop up. there's a way to register it with google, google for that.
4. persistence pays. search for westchester senior portrait and see what you get. I live in a huge county, lots of photographers. And I'm just outside NYC with even more photographers. Persistence pays.

timbuff10

help
Hello,

I am new too and just set up my site at timsamples.smugmug.com/

I have been putting in many keywords using the bulk option for each photo, as well as putting them on the individual photos. An example would by my picture of the Iwo Jima USMC Memorial near Washington DC, some of the keywords I used were "USMC" "Iwo Jima Memorial" "Washington DC", and so on...

My problem is, I am yet to be able to find my photos if I go to the smugmug homepage and type in those exact keywords in the search field. I have also tried this for my other galleries that I created for some of my Airplane photos of Frontier Airlines.

Am I missing something with the use of keywords?

I have read the faq and instructions for keywords and believe I am doing everything correctly. I am also using quotation marks for all of my keywords typing them in just as I listed above there.

Any help?

Thanks!

Scotbot

Hi folks, my gallery is here: http://www.scottwylie.co.uk

I've replaced my previous gallery, which I wrote myself, with Smugmug and what an improvement in speed and the user interface!

When I search Google's index of pags from my site it finds this:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=www.scottwylie.co.uk&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&filter=0

A lot of the results just say:

Photography - Scott Wylie - powered by smugmug

[SIZE=-1]The ultimate in photo sharing. Easily create online photo albums. Share, store, organize and print.

It's picking the second part up from this code:
[/SIZE]****** name="description" content="The ultimate in photo sharing. Easily create online photo albums. Share, store, organize and print." />
****** name="keywords" content="online photo albums, petc etc etc ting, hosting" />
****** name="robots" content="all, index, follow" />

1) [1st question removed because I found the answer]

2) If I add text to the page (eg a gallery description) is Google likely to pick this up and ignore the HTML description tag contents, or at least include the text? I mean, perhaps Google has used the contents of the description tag because there's no other text on the page that it can use?

Many thanks in advance, Scott.

Scala

The ultimate in photo sharing. Easily create online photo albums. Share, store, organize and print.

The last time I asked about having the possibility to customize the meta description tag, Don replied that they'd rather not since it's not really used by search engines (anymore). The fact that your pages (and mine too) constantly come up like that in Google would suggest otherwise. So would this newsgroup post by a Google representative.

I so wish that my site wouldn't look like a photo sharing and printing service on Google. Either simply remove the meta description tag from pro users at least or make it customizable. Please!
[SIZE=-1]
[/SIZE]

Scotbot

Scala wrote:

The last time I asked about having the possibility to customize the meta description tag, Don replied that they'd rather not since it's not really used by search engines (anymore). The fact that your pages (and mine too) constantly come up like that in Google would suggest otherwise. So would this newsgroup post by a Google representative.

I so wish that my site wouldn't look like a photo sharing and printing service on Google. Either simply remove the meta description tag from pro users at least or make it customizable. Please!
[SIZE=-1]
[/SIZE]

I think what they're saying is that you should use the meta description tag when the search terms don't appear on the page text. I've put the gallery and image captions in now and will see what happens.

BeachBill

Scala wrote:

The last time I asked about having the possibility to customize the meta description tag, Don replied that they'd rather not since it's not really used by search engines (anymore). The fact that your pages (and mine too) constantly come up like that in Google would suggest otherwise. So would this newsgroup post by a Google representative.

I so wish that my site wouldn't look like a photo sharing and printing service on Google. Either simply remove the meta description tag from pro users at least or make it customizable. Please!
[SIZE=-1]
[/SIZE]

I think all of us who understand this problem should come together and let Smugmug know that we care about this issue and would like it "fixed". I would accept either of your suggestions, but making it customizable would be best.

To be clear, the meta description on the home page is the issue. We cannot change that one. All gallery pages are okay as the "gallery description" is converted to a meta description on the gallery pages.

Attention Sumgmug: Just add a "site description" field to the control panel Customization Settings and then use whatever we put there as the meta description on any page (home page or whatever) that doesn't currently have a customizable description (such as the gallery pages) and the problem will be solved.

caroline

BeachBill wrote:

I think all of us who understand this problem should come together and let Smugmug know that we care about this issue and would like it "fixed". I would accept either of your suggestions, but making it customizable would be best.

To be clear, the meta description on the home page is the issue. We cannot change that one. All gallery pages are okay as the "gallery description" is converted to a meta description on the gallery pages.

Attention Sumgmug: Just add a "site description" field to the control panel Customization Settings and then use whatever we put there as the meta description on any page (home page or whatever) that doesn't currently have a customizable description (such as the gallery pages) and the problem will be solved.

I would like to add my support for this. I'm quite new to Smugmug and very pleased and satisfied with it - this is not a big gripe for me but i do agree.

Caroline

warren

caption search
Does Smugmug's own search capabilities automatically include the contents of captions, or just keywords and file name? What I'm getting at is whether or not I need to repeat parts of a caption in keywords.

Also add my vote to a changeable description meta tag.

Thanks.

Warren

Andy

warren wrote:

Does Smugmug's own search capabilities automatically include the contents of captions, or just keywords and file name? What I'm getting at is whether or not I need to repeat parts of a caption in keywords.

Also add my vote to a changeable description meta tag.

Thanks.

Warren

You do not need to repeat, our search will do captions, gallery description, and keywords.

Danspage

How many kewords?
How many kewords are good? If you have to many is it bad?
On many of my photos I put 20+ keywords.
is that to much. Do you have to have to put " " around the word?

Keywords
"blue water lily" "flower" "flowers" "garden" "botanical gardens " "denver colorado " "daniel p woods" "stock photo" "stock photos" "stock photography" "flowergarden" "botanicalgardens" " botanical gardens " "denver colorado" "nature photography " "stock photo database" "fine art print" "macro photography" "photo database" "library photo" "protection" "conservation" "environmental" "horticulture"

Is this right????

When I google my name i get only 30 images. I HAVE OVER 1000 PHOTOS,WHAT UP WITH THAT?

Martino

Go Away Keywords!
Hello,

I am adding keywords to each photo to raise my Google hits. I have "Hide" keywords in my control panel, but they are still appearing in my galleries. Here is an example: http://www.lafotodolce.com/gallery/2606780#136682407

Please help me banish these pesky little words while still getting searched... )

Thank you!

Andy

Martino wrote:

Hello,

I am adding keywords to each photo to raise my Google hits. I have "Hide" keywords in my control panel, but they are still appearing in my galleries. Here is an example: http://www.lafotodolce.com/gallery/2606780#136682407

Please help me banish these pesky little words while still getting searched... )

Thank you!

from our basic FAQ:
http://www.smugmug.com/help/customize-faq.mg
#27
put this in your CSS:


#photoKeywords {display: none;}

Martino

Andy wrote:

from our basic FAQ:
http://www.smugmug.com/help/customize-faq.mg
#27
put this in your CSS:


#photoKeywords {display: none;}

THANK YOU ANDY!!! You are always so helpful and spot on! It worked perfectly! BRILLIANT SUPPORT!!!!!