I don't know how effective this is but I've submitted all of the RSS feeds that Smugmug so kindly gives us as well as my own home made sitemap into Googles sitemap submission area.
Again, I don't know the effectiveness of this since I've only been using Google Analytics for about a week now but I did want to pass on the info in case anybody else wants to try the same thing...
Hmm, did you just create the site map using html within a gallery? If so, how did google recognise this? I thought it was supposed to be a single html file with a specific name uploaded to the homepage for google to read properly?
Okay, Google search of Light Dynamics Photography yields the following result. Unfortunately, when I click on it it takes me to the SmugMug home page which makes no sense to me. Any ideas why or what I can do to correct it? I know I need to do a LOT of SEO work but the fact that I wind up at Smug home does not bode well.
Thanks, Paul
Google Result:
Light Dynamics Photography - The photographic works of David ...
The ultimate in photo sharing. Easily create online photo albums. Share, store, organize and print.
galleries.lightdynamicsphoto.com/gallery/7844517_gDftu/1/525556878_3ERE3 - 45k -
Cached - Similar pages
Hmm, did you just create the site map using html within a gallery? If so, how did google recognise this? I thought it was supposed to be a single html file with a specific name uploaded to the homepage for google to read properly?
Ideally, yes. The best option is to have an xml sitemap file on your site and point google to it when you log in to google analytics but since there is not a way, as of yet, to upload xml files to SM we have to find workarounds. If you have set up a Google Analytics account then you can just tell it where to point to your sitemap.
For my sitemap I just made a new gallery and edited with html.
Ideally, yes. The best option is to have an xml sitemap file on your site and point google to it when you log in to google analytics but since there is not a way, as of yet, to upload xml files to SM we have to find workarounds. If you have set up a Google Analytics account then you can just tell it where to point to your sitemap.
For my sitemap I just made a new gallery and edited with html.
Hmm, did you just create the site map using html within a gallery? If so, how did google recognise this? I thought it was supposed to be a single html file with a specific name uploaded to the homepage for google to read properly?
Hello;
It's a few days late but i wanted to add something regarding Sitemaps. I'm pasting below what i took from Google's explanation (from here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=40318&hl=en). On that page Google also provides links to SiteMaps generator third party site/tools. I still wish SmugMug will tell us more about this issue.
However, i can assure you that Google knows (or will find) you sooner or later (including all your galleries) with or without a SiteMap; the problem is that NOBODY else will find you. I'll write and ask SM soon about these, but, without a way to control each of your Page Titles, and without your Keywords being visible to Google, Google will not rank you!!!
(yes, it will rank you according with the keywords that SmugMug stuffed your own site with - about photo sharing, etc).
About Sitemaps
Print
In general, there are two types of sitemaps. The first type of sitemap is a HTML page listing the pages of your site—often by section—and is meant to help users find the information they need.
XML Sitemaps—usually called Sitemaps, with a capital S—are a way for you to give Google information about your site. This is the type of Sitemap we'll be discussing in this article.
In its simplest terms, a Sitemap is a list of the pages on your website. Creating and submitting a Sitemap helps make sure that Google knows about all the pages on your site, including URLs that may not be discoverable by Google's normal crawling process.
Sitemaps are particularly helpful if:
Your site has dynamic content.
Your site has pages that aren't easily discovered by Googlebot during the crawl process - for example, pages featuring rich AJAX or Flash.
Your site is new and has few links to it. (Googlebot crawls the web by following links from one page to another, so if your site isn't well linked, it may be hard for us to discover it.)
Your site has a large archive of content pages that are not well linked to each other, or are not linked at all.
You can also use a Sitemap to provide Google with additional information about your pages, including:
How often the pages on your site change. For example, you might update your product page daily, but update your About Me page only once every few months.
The date each page was last modified.
The relative importance of pages on your site. For example, your home page might have a relative importance of 1.0, category pages have an importance of 0.8, and individual blog entries or product pages have an importance of 0.5. This priority only indicates the importance of a particular URL relative to other URLs on your site, and doesn't impact the ranking of your pages in search results.
Sitemaps provide additional information about your site to Google, complementing our normal methods of crawling the web. We expect they will help us crawl more of your site and in a more timely fashion, but we can't guarantee that URLs from your Sitemap will be added to the Google index. Sites are never penalized for submitting Sitemaps.
Google adheres to Sitemap Protocol 0.9 as defined by sitemaps.org. The Sitemap Protocol is a dialect of XML for summarizing Sitemap information that is relevant to web crawlers. Sitemaps created for Google using Sitemap Protocol 0.9 are therefore compatible with other search engines that adopt the standards of sitemaps.org.
While a standard Sitemap works for most sites, you can also create and submit specialized Sitemaps for certain types of content. These Sitemap formats are specific to Google and are not used by other search engines. Sitemap formats include:
Thanks for the response. It sounds like the Smugmug team are on the case with page titles, soon I hope....? Not sure about keywords and sitemaps though.
It would be even better if photos appeared in image searches.
I've been watching this thread closely and, like Chris, hope Smugmug is able to fix some of these issues soon. From my perspective, having images found readily by search engines is both basic and crucial. I know there is an issue with Smugmug images not being found, because I rarely see Smugmug sites turn up in image searches. Flickr, Pbase, and others turn up routinely. I know the problem isn't that Smugmug doesn't have the images in their system, so there must be some other issue.
Don't get the wrong impression, I'm a huge Smugmug fan. I truly hope there are answers to these challenges, and that we can all benefit from having our images found in the vast Internet wilderness. Otherwise, I'll be forced to rethink my strategy regarding image hosting, and I really don't want to do that. I know Andy and others are working hard on solutions, so I'll continue watching for a while, and trying every possible thing I can to help the situation on my end.
Not Sure What This Means
In my efforts to figure out why my images aren't being found, I tried running Met Tag Analyzer (http://www.scrubtheweb.com/cgi-bin/webtools/meta-check.cgi) on my smugmug URL. It points to issues with meta tag "keywords"; namely that some are repeated, and could cause my site to be "disqualified". I don't know what to make of this, and hope someone has some insight. None of the listed "keywords" were create by me, at least not intentionally. Note that the words "photo" and "gallery" are repeated several times. I don't use either of those in any keywords I've created.
- Note - Find the best keywords for your meta tags with Wordtracker's keyword suggestion tool. Warning! THIS TAG MAY BE DISQUALIFIED! REASON: We found the following keywords were repeated more than 5 times in the Meta Keywords Tag:
The word photo was repeated 8 times
The word gallery was repeated 6 times
Note: Excessive keyword stuffing can cause negative rankings on search engines. We would like to caution you regarding these multiple keywords. Status: This Tag is considered acceptable. Our recommended maximum number of characters for this tag is 874. Although we would never recommend you use this entire allowance because you may then suffer from keyword saturation. Let us show you how to achieve optimal keyword densities that will help you rank high in search engines. Fact #3:You have a choice! You can either pay the Pro's to optimize the Website for you, or you can learn to optimize your Website yourself. With the right tools and support anyone can do it!
In my efforts to figure out why my images aren't being found, I tried running Met Tag Analyzer (http://www.scrubtheweb.com/cgi-bin/webtools/meta-check.cgi) on my smugmug URL. It points to issues with meta tag "keywords"; namely that some are repeated, and could cause my site to be "disqualified". I don't know what to make of this, and hope someone has some insight. None of the listed "keywords" were create by me, at least not intentionally. Note that the words "photo" and "gallery" are repeated several times. I don't use either of those in any keywords I've created.
[/B]
Yeah, I've posted about this issue before. You can actually change your meta keywords for the gallery pages via the gallery control panel. Yet weirdly, there is no equivalent to this for the home page so you get stuck with all the smugmug keywords instead. That means that your homepage has the exact same keywords as every other smugmug users homepage. Google and other search engines penalize pages that have "duplicate content", so this can only contribute to poor search engine results! On the plus side, SEO experts claim that Google practically ignores the meta keywords due to the abuse of keyword stuffing. Hopefully we will soon be able to place our own keywords on the homepage. It just makes common sense and can't be that hard to fix.
Yeah, I've posted about this issue before. You can actually change your meta keywords for the gallery pages via the gallery control panel. Yet weirdly, there is no equivalent to this for the home page so you get stuck with all the smugmug keywords instead. That means that your homepage has the exact same keywords as every other smugmug users homepage. Google and other search engines penalize pages that have "duplicate content", so this can only contribute to poor search engine results! On the plus side, SEO experts claim that Google practically ignores the meta keywords due to the abuse of keyword stuffing. Hopefully we will soon be able to place our own keywords on the homepage. It just makes common sense and can't be that hard to fix.
Cheers,
Joel
Thanks Joel - that explains it, I think. The keywords in the report must be from the home page then. I do have my gallery keywords in place, and none of those show in the report. So I'm guessing it's looking at the home page. I'm still not sure if this is contributing to the problem of Google not finding images, but it still can't be ideal. Here's hoping we see a solution soon!
SmugMug Feture request forum - SEO topic
I have just seen the new SmugMug Feature request forum.
It's an excellent and great idea to let Smugmug users vote for their most wanted improvements. Thanks a lot.
I have to ask you. What is included in this planned improvement of SEO?
I just read "Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide" found on Google's SEO Starter Guide page and compared the recommendations with Smugmug.
Area's where Smugmug should be better includes - but not limited to:
Page titles,
Meta data,
URL-structure,
One URL per image
Navigation (HTML + XML Sitemap)
Anchor text
Use of heading tags
Image file names
Quality content
Duplicate versions of the same page.
Add to this the image size to be indexed.
Are all these issues covered in the planned improvement of SEO?
I ask, because one of the other suggestions is "Allow custom easy navigation URLs for galleries", and this is described in the URL structure section of "Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide".
So, is it possible to hear what kind of SEO improvement you have planned?
Personally I hope that it covers everything in the "Starter Guide" and includes some of the more advanced areas.
Thanks in advance.
(Sorry for my language - English is only my second language. I try hard to be more polite in my writing).
We won't comment on the details but it's all in the works. Stay tuned!
I take this as a NO to implement "custom easy navigation URLs for galleries" as a part of "Improve our search engine results (better SEO)", so I'll vote for this very reasonable SEO-friendly feature request too.
Richard KingRegistered UsersPosts: 3Beginner grinner
edited June 8, 2009
1. have content that google can read - lots of it - that is text TEXT TEXT TEXT. Not flash, not images and a limited ammount of text
2. use frendly URL's and file names
3. use good titles, descriptions and keywords
4. use the H1 tag properly
5. research your competition and unserstand why they are ranked well
6. make sure you get good, ontopic validated inbound links
I'm new at SmugMug and waiting another few days (or weeks) for the BIG 'Findability'/SEO change is not a big deal for me. One reason I say BIG, is because I think it's ain't easy for SmugMug to switch from the mentality of helping us have beautiful, sophisticated, customizable websites (which mainly serves our need express and exposed ourselves), into being a more 'Professional' tool to help serve our livelihood (Yellow Pages and Direct Mail have died; Search Engines are the marketing King).
I guess that some Pros may have already given up and left; I, however, spent so much time and energy on uploading 20,000 images and keywording them, that I just can't. Also, I like SmugMug and trust them to do the right thing, beautifully ...and soon!
Still, I want to bring a few points and a Wish list. I myself keep two other outdated websites for the mere purpose to link to my site here. I get four times more visits from them than from search engines. Well, not all of us can do that. Also I felt a bit misled when I followed SmugMug's advice “Keywords, Keywords, Keywords”, spent days on keywording my images and captions, only to find out that they are invisible to search engines!!!
A few more points: My website with SmugMug contains a lot of [junk] words that are not supposed to be seen by search engines, but they ARE and are being indexed! I'm not talking about keywords promoting SmugMug stuffed into the Keywords meta tag (Google doesn't even look at them), i'm talking about keywords I found under "Below are the most common keywords Google found when crawling your site" in my Google Webmaster Tools. Words like “your bio”, prev, foil, approval, blogs, critique, filmstrip, hide, journal, etc, etc, etc. Google is so confused with my website that when I checked in my Google Webmaster Tools for “Similar Sites” I found them from all over the place!
I was told that SM cannot help with (or let me have) a Google XML Sitemap; can I, at list, tell Goggle not to follow certain links (like Help page)?
After spending a lot of time on building a comments and wish list, I recently received and read PhotoShelter's SEO Toolkit. It's very very interesting and helpful, and i'm bringing here the main points they mentioned (as well as what they do "to help") in their 40 something pages kit. Here it is:
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]PhotoShelter employs many techniques that directly affect how images are coded in web pages – and our tactical recommendations are designed to help improve your image search results as well.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]SEO is not rocket science. All the effective methodologies for improving SEO take time and planning, but ultimately they provide end users with a better search experience.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Note that off-page factors are the largest driver of rankings.[/FONT]
• [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Off-page factors (75% of weight)[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif] • Trust and authority of the domain[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Page titles are the descriptive text at the top of your web browser window, and are considered the most important on-page factor.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Put your most important keywords first. Google gives priority to the order of words in the title.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Use your keyword list to inform your page titles.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Create unique page titles for every page in your website. (and I expect categories' pages too)[/FONT]
• [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Automatically set your page titles using data like gallery names to generate unique titles.[/FONT]
• [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Automatically append your site name at the end of the title.[/FONT]
• [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Automatically append “ – Images” to the names of your galleries.[/FONT]
• [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Allow you to override the page titles on specific pages so that you can keyword optimize.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Keyword use in the URL[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Google likes human-readable URLs because they can give a user a clue as to what the link is, and they help reinforce important keywords.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]PhotoShelter automatically set up keyworded URLs for each of your galleries based on the gallery name.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Description in “ALT” tags[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]The HTML code for inserting an image has an ALT (alternate) attribute that allows the photographer to describe the image since computers can’t tell what is in a photo. For example:[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]BAD: [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]GOD: [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Make sure that you caption your images.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Make sure that your website software extracts captions and inserts them into the ALT tag (or gives you a way to manually populate the ALT tag).[/FONT]
•[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]PotoShelter automatically inserts your IPTC Description into the ALT tag for both thumbnails and larger images. You can add or edit IPTC descriptions in PhotoShelter or in common software like Photoshop, Lightroom, Photo Mechanic, or Aperture.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Meta tags are bits of HTML code that are invisible to users but viewable by search engines. The meta description tag gives you a way to describe a web page apart from what’s viewable on the page. And it’s[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]this meta description that appears under the page title in search results. Most experts suggest meta descriptions of no more than 150 characters because that’s about what Google displays in a search result. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Make sure your website software allows you to fill out the meta description on every page.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Make sure your meta descriptions are not identical to what’s actually readable on the page.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Use your keyword list to inform your description.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Use full sentences, not a list of keywords, to accurately describe what a viewer can expect from this page.[/FONT]
• [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Allow you to insert custom meta descriptions on key pages.[/FONT]
• [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Automatically insert gallery descriptions into gallery pages.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Meta keyword tag[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]In addition to description tags, you can insert specific keyword tags into your page level metadata. These tags apply to the web page itself, not the meta data on specific images. Most SEO experts agree that the[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]meta keyword field isn’t given much weight, because historically is has been abused by those engaging in “keyword spamming.” Nevertheless, some believe that it may have an incremental benefit. Since keywords[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]are helpful in finding your images on your own site, it makes sense to integrate those image keywords into the meta keyword field. [note how our Meta Keyword tags are stuffed with SmugMug's Photo sharing keywords].[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Make sure your website software supports the meta keyword field.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Enter keywords that describe each and every image into the IPTC Keyword field in your photo software (e.g. Photoshop, Lightroom, Photo Mechanic, Aperture) if your website software can extract this information for the meta keyword field.[/FONT]
• [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Automatically add your IPTC keywords into the meta keyword fields of your website.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Keywords on the visible page[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Keywords, especially conceptual ones, are helpful to search engines and humans alike. For a text search, on-page keyword lists may not have a highly material impact to search rankings (again because of the potential for “keyword spamming”). However, it is factored in. For a Google Image search, on the other hand, on-page keywords provide important descriptive text surrounding the image. Although adding keywords and captions are the bane of photographers, we strongly suggest the inclusion of this information on the page.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Recent comments by Google indicate that, as search engines evolve, they will continue to look deeper at images’ metadata. With this in mind, adding keywords and captions to your images’ IPTC fields may also give you a head start on the next generation of SEO.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Take the time to add keywords into your images.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Make sure this information is also displayed on your webpages.[/FONT]
• [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Automatically extract your keyword metadata from your images and display them as text on your PhotoShelter pages. (You can choose not to display keywords too.)[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Create and Register a Sitemap[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]A sitemap is like a table of contents to search engines. Google has a tool called Google Webmaster, which allows you to register a sitemap which acts like a “hints” file of what exists on the site and its importance.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Use website software that allows you to create and register a [XML] sitemap.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Register your sitemap with Google Webmaster.[/FONT]
• [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Creates a sitemap of your galleries in your website customization directory which you can register with Google Webmaster. For example: http://pa.photoshelter.com/c/keithbedford/sitemap.xml[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]I Hope all the above was helpful and am hoping to hear from SmugMug soon.[/FONT]
It's been a while since I popped into these forums. Just decided to try and get my site sorted as I've only had 1 sale in the last 2 years, been a bit busy with work and stuff lately to really get stuck into optimising my site. Glad to see the SM are on the case about image searches. Looking forward to hearing what you guys come up with.
I take this as a NO to implement "custom easy navigation URLs for galleries" as a part of "Improve our search engine results (better SEO)", so I'll vote for this very reasonable SEO-friendly feature request too.
You'll want to subscribe to our Release Notes blog, so that you don't miss a single update from SmugMug http://blogs.smugmug.com/release-notes/ at the bottom, there's a link for Entries (RSS) - put that in your favorite feed reader.
Meta Tags & Bio Text
Okay, so I have been through so many threads concerning SEO and keywords. I also came across some software and an article that I found very usefull.
After using the free tools, I was able to check my site for crawler details. (what the crawlers see) I was suprised to find errors in my code and a few keyword / meta problems. I am thinking that this is affecting my search results. It says that my keywords for my main page are basically smug mug keywords such as: photo networking; photo storage etc. Instead of what Smugmug says that my keywords are. Will search engines get the correct keywords for my page?
Also my meta tag description for my page is bleeding into my slideshow code. It is giving me a bad rating for "too many words" as it is including the slideshow code. I have gone ahead and enclosed my meta tag in the bio box and I hid the bio text as described in the tutorials. Any suggestions? Is my code wrong?
'What Good Is the Best-Looking Website Without any Visitors?'
<o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="place"></o:smarttagtype><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id=ieooui></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> To Andy and whoever is in charge of Smugmug.com;
<o:p> </o:p>
Andy; thanks for reading my post I left on June 9<sup>th</sup>. I’m sure the SEO changes which some of us are so desperately waiting for and which will bring SmugMug closer to being a professional BUSINESS hosting server (like PhotoShelter.com for example), will come one day. However, by the amount of interest and energy most of your subscribers put into beautifying/customizing their websites, and the tremendous amount of dedication, effort and energy SmugMug, in return, puts in helping that cause, I know it will take a lot of mental change for SmugMug to reach that.
<o:p> </o:p>
The very small number of subscribers on this blog, who are concerned with internet marketing (our LIVELIHOOD!), as well as SmugMug’s responses (and no response), like the way Chris H was [finally] answered, is the best proof to the prevailing attitude of “we are Artists first, Livelihood/business is second (if at all)”.
<o:p> </o:p>
A few weeks ago I got an email from 1and1.com, the company I registered all my domains names with. They are promoting a new Web Hosting Advertising package, they ask, “What Good Is the Best-Looking Website Without any Visitors?”…
<o:p> </o:p>
As I wrote before, I maintain two independent websites (which I have full control over), for the sole purpose of directing Internet searchers to my SmugMug's site (they bring 80-90% of my visitors). Not every pro subscriber (who cares about marketing his/her business online) can afford that…
<o:p> </o:p>
Let’s talk business (yes, it’s my business, and the more I do you do too); …and please, don’t ask me to subscribe to any ‘updates’ RSS’… I need to know if and approximately when, any of the following six items will be implemented:
<o:p> </o:p>
(1) - Pages’ Title (- Most important!). I want to be able to control each and every page’s Title’s <st1:place w:st="on">Meta</st1:place> tag (Home page, individual category pages, individual gallery pages, etc). If you just take my galleries’ names and use that as my titles (like you do now but without [‘my nickname : photos’] preceding it, I’m happy and satisfied. (Just don’t forget to let me control my Home page and Categories’ pages).
(2) - Visible Keywords. Let Google (and other search engines) SEEmy Keywords (which you justifiably stress their importance), my files’ names, and my Captions. (I followed your advice “Keywords, Keywords, Keywords” and spent enormous amount of time on that; please don’t let me feel misled anymore…). Also, inserting the file name or caption into the ‘Alt’ tag in each image (and thumbnails) will be ‘nice’.
(3) - Help Google find my galleries with a XML Sitemap. Currently Google sees (and index) only part of my galleries! (Instead it, somehow, reaches individual images!) Please let us/help us create a XML Site Map.
(4) - Wrong Keywords; (SmugMug’s keywords as well as those which shouldn’t be visible). I know that after being able to control all my Pages’ titles this will be less of a problem (I don’t mind having “Powered by SmugMug.com” at the end of my Titles, if you want). Also, Google doesn’t pay much attention to the Keywords Meta Tag, but I still want to have my keywords there, instead of SmugMug’s. Also, please make sure to hide those Customizing/owner-View’s phrases that are not supposed to be seen by search engines (but they are seen and being indexed). The following are Words I found under "Most common keywords Google found when crawling your site" in my Google Webmaster Tools: bio (it sees the H3 Heading “Your Bio”), prev, foil, approval, blogs, critique, filmstrip, rate, rating, slideshow, spammers, stars, style, hide, journal, bio, etc. (Google is still confused with my website content and purpose).
(5) - Meta Description tag. Let me control the Meta Description of each page. Currently the whole Bio (in Home Page) and Gallery Descriptions are being duplicated into the Meta Description tag. In Search results Google displays the first 150 characters of the Description which I can control. Still my Meta Description tags are way too long.
(6) - Gallery names. Google likes human-readable URLs because they can give a user a clue as to what the link is, and they help reinforce important keywords. Please help Google and me by giving the galleries meaningful names (ideally, my gallery names; you can add a code to the end if necessary)
<o:p> </o:p>
Thank you for your time; you are the best and I know you can be even better (at least regarding my concerns).
Amos, thanks for posting - some cool changes are afoot, and we expect already-good to turn into awesome as far as SEO goes.
Stay tuned - not much longer now
Tanks Andy; i guess we'll have to wait [patiently] and see. I have an urgent(?) question, though - i'm presently creating links of my 250 galleries in my other two websites. If, however, SmugMug delivers soon on my #6 SEO item (naming galleries with human-readable names), i'll wait with my ork as not to copy/paste all those links again.
(Also, is there a diference between copying the browser's address and the 'get link' address, which seems to be different at times?)
<input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden">
Comments
Hmm, did you just create the site map using html within a gallery? If so, how did google recognise this? I thought it was supposed to be a single html file with a specific name uploaded to the homepage for google to read properly?
Become a fan of Chris Humphreys Photography
Thanks, Paul
Google Result:
Light Dynamics Photography - The photographic works of David ...
The ultimate in photo sharing. Easily create online photo albums. Share, store, organize and print.
galleries.lightdynamicsphoto.com/gallery/7844517_gDftu/1/525556878_3ERE3 - 45k -
Cached - Similar pages
"There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs. " ... Ansel Adams
Ideally, yes. The best option is to have an xml sitemap file on your site and point google to it when you log in to google analytics but since there is not a way, as of yet, to upload xml files to SM we have to find workarounds. If you have set up a Google Analytics account then you can just tell it where to point to your sitemap.
For my sitemap I just made a new gallery and edited with html.
I hope this helps.
Shawn
http://www.shawnsharpphotography.com
That's good thanks. I'd be interested to know whether you think this has improved your google searchability?
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I'd be interested to know as well!! haha. In all seriousness though I know that SEO takes time to see results. Its more of an art than a science. Anyway, here are my search results based on Firefox's Rank Checker plugin:<TABLE border=1 cellSpacing=1 cellPadding=1 width=1>
<TBODY>
<TD height=3 width=3>Keyword
</TD>
<TD width=3>Google.com position
</TD>
<TD width=3>Google.com URL</TD>
<TD width=3>Yahoo (United States)
position
</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725 width=3>Yahoo URL</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725 width=3>Live position</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725 width=3>Live URL</TD>
</TR>
<TR height=3>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725 height=3>alabama wedding
photographer
</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>-</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725></TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725 align=3Dright>28</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>http://shawnsharpphotography.com/</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725 align=3Dright>29</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>http://shawnsharpphotography.com/</TD>
</TR>
<TR height=3>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725 height=3>Birmingham wedd=
ing
</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>-</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725></TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725 align=3Dright>114</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>http://shawnsharpphotography.com/</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725 align=3Dright>3</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>http://shawnsharpphotography.com/</TD>
</TR>
<TR height=3>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725 height=3>wedding</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>-</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725></TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>-</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725></TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>-</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725></TD>
</TR>
<TR height=3>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725 height=3>alabama wedding
</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>-</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725></TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725 align=3Dright>111</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>http://shawnsharpphotography.com/</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725 align=3Dright>31</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>http://shawnsharpphotography.com/</TD>
</TR>
<TR height=3>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725 height=3>birmingham wedd=
ing
photography
</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>-</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725></TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725 align=3Dright>12</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>http://shawnsharpphotography.com/</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725 align=3Dright>17</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>http://shawnsharpphotography.com/</TD>
</TR>
<TR height=3>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725 height=3>birmingham wedd=
ing
photographer
</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>-</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725></TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>-</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725></TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>-</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725></TD>
</TR>
<TR height=3>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725 height=3>birmingham phot=
ographer
</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>-</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725></TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>-</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725></TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>-</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725></TD>
</TR>
<TR height=3>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725 height=3>alabama photogr=
apher
</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>-</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725></TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>-</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725></TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>-</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725></TD>
</TR>
<TR height=3>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725 height=3>alabama wedding
photography
</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>-</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725></TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>-</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725></TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725>-</TD>
<TD class=3Dxl1517725></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
I hope this helps,
Shawn
http://www.ShawnSharpPhotography.com
Hello;
It's a few days late but i wanted to add something regarding Sitemaps. I'm pasting below what i took from Google's explanation (from here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=40318&hl=en). On that page Google also provides links to SiteMaps generator third party site/tools. I still wish SmugMug will tell us more about this issue.
However, i can assure you that Google knows (or will find) you sooner or later (including all your galleries) with or without a SiteMap; the problem is that NOBODY else will find you. I'll write and ask SM soon about these, but, without a way to control each of your Page Titles, and without your Keywords being visible to Google, Google will not rank you!!!
(yes, it will rank you according with the keywords that SmugMug stuffed your own site with - about photo sharing, etc).
About Sitemaps
Print
In general, there are two types of sitemaps. The first type of sitemap is a HTML page listing the pages of your site—often by section—and is meant to help users find the information they need.
XML Sitemaps—usually called Sitemaps, with a capital S—are a way for you to give Google information about your site. This is the type of Sitemap we'll be discussing in this article.
In its simplest terms, a Sitemap is a list of the pages on your website. Creating and submitting a Sitemap helps make sure that Google knows about all the pages on your site, including URLs that may not be discoverable by Google's normal crawling process.
Sitemaps are particularly helpful if:
- Your site has dynamic content.
- Your site has pages that aren't easily discovered by Googlebot during the crawl process - for example, pages featuring rich AJAX or Flash.
- Your site is new and has few links to it. (Googlebot crawls the web by following links from one page to another, so if your site isn't well linked, it may be hard for us to discover it.)
- Your site has a large archive of content pages that are not well linked to each other, or are not linked at all.
You can also use a Sitemap to provide Google with additional information about your pages, including:- How often the pages on your site change. For example, you might update your product page daily, but update your About Me page only once every few months.
- The date each page was last modified.
- The relative importance of pages on your site. For example, your home page might have a relative importance of 1.0, category pages have an importance of 0.8, and individual blog entries or product pages have an importance of 0.5. This priority only indicates the importance of a particular URL relative to other URLs on your site, and doesn't impact the ranking of your pages in search results.
Sitemaps provide additional information about your site to Google, complementing our normal methods of crawling the web. We expect they will help us crawl more of your site and in a more timely fashion, but we can't guarantee that URLs from your Sitemap will be added to the Google index. Sites are never penalized for submitting Sitemaps.Google adheres to Sitemap Protocol 0.9 as defined by sitemaps.org. The Sitemap Protocol is a dialect of XML for summarizing Sitemap information that is relevant to web crawlers. Sitemaps created for Google using Sitemap Protocol 0.9 are therefore compatible with other search engines that adopt the standards of sitemaps.org.
While a standard Sitemap works for most sites, you can also create and submit specialized Sitemaps for certain types of content. These Sitemap formats are specific to Google and are not used by other search engines. Sitemap formats include:
http://www.eMixPix.com - Stock Aerial Photos of NYC Metro area (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut)
--- http://www.emixpix.com/New-York - NY Aerial Photos
--- http://www.emixpix.com/New-Jersey - NJ Aerial Photos
--- http://www.emixpix.com/Connecticut - CT Aerial Photos
http://www.BestAerialPhotos.com - Aerial Photography service in the NYC Metro area
It would be even better if photos appeared in image searches.
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Don't get the wrong impression, I'm a huge Smugmug fan. I truly hope there are answers to these challenges, and that we can all benefit from having our images found in the vast Internet wilderness. Otherwise, I'll be forced to rethink my strategy regarding image hosting, and I really don't want to do that. I know Andy and others are working hard on solutions, so I'll continue watching for a while, and trying every possible thing I can to help the situation on my end.
Nikon D700 and some fun glass.
In my efforts to figure out why my images aren't being found, I tried running Met Tag Analyzer (http://www.scrubtheweb.com/cgi-bin/webtools/meta-check.cgi) on my smugmug URL. It points to issues with meta tag "keywords"; namely that some are repeated, and could cause my site to be "disqualified". I don't know what to make of this, and hope someone has some insight. None of the listed "keywords" were create by me, at least not intentionally. Note that the words "photo" and "gallery" are repeated several times. I don't use either of those in any keywords I've created.
Here's the detail in that part of the report:
Current Meta Keywords Tag:
****** name="keywords" content="online photo albums, photo sharing, photo hosting, photo storage, albums, photo albums, photo, sharing, picture sharing, share photos, photo galleries, photo gallery, photos, photographs, online gallery, picture gallery, picture galleries, online galleries, smugmug gallery, smugmug, smug mug, smugmug photos, images, image galleries, image gallery, gallery hosting, galleries hosting, hosting">
- Note - Find the best keywords for your meta tags with Wordtracker's keyword suggestion tool.
Warning! THIS TAG MAY BE DISQUALIFIED!
REASON: We found the following keywords were repeated more than 5 times in the Meta Keywords Tag:
- The word photo was repeated 8 times
- The word gallery was repeated 6 times
Note: Excessive keyword stuffing can cause negative rankings on search engines. We would like to caution you regarding these multiple keywords.Status: This Tag is considered acceptable. Our recommended maximum number of characters for this tag is 874. Although we would never recommend you use this entire allowance because you may then suffer from keyword saturation. Let us show you how to achieve optimal keyword densities that will help you rank high in search engines.
Fact #3: You have a choice! You can either pay the Pro's to optimize the Website for you, or you can learn to optimize your Website yourself. With the right tools and support anyone can do it!
Nikon D700 and some fun glass.
Yeah, I've posted about this issue before. You can actually change your meta keywords for the gallery pages via the gallery control panel. Yet weirdly, there is no equivalent to this for the home page so you get stuck with all the smugmug keywords instead.
Cheers,
Joel
http://www.joelfletcher.com
Thanks Joel - that explains it, I think. The keywords in the report must be from the home page then. I do have my gallery keywords in place, and none of those show in the report. So I'm guessing it's looking at the home page. I'm still not sure if this is contributing to the problem of Google not finding images, but it still can't be ideal. Here's hoping we see a solution soon!
Thanks,
Scott
Nikon D700 and some fun glass.
I have just seen the new SmugMug Feature request forum.
It's an excellent and great idea to let Smugmug users vote for their most wanted improvements. Thanks a lot.
I am pleased to see Improve our search engine results (better SEO) planned is one of the topics, and that it is planned. Thanks a lot again.
I have to ask you. What is included in this planned improvement of SEO?
I just read "Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide" found on Google's SEO Starter Guide page and compared the recommendations with Smugmug.
Area's where Smugmug should be better includes - but not limited to:
Meta data,
URL-structure,
One URL per image
Navigation (HTML + XML Sitemap)
Anchor text
Use of heading tags
Image file names
Quality content
Duplicate versions of the same page.
Are all these issues covered in the planned improvement of SEO?
I ask, because one of the other suggestions is "Allow custom easy navigation URLs for galleries", and this is described in the URL structure section of "Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide".
So, is it possible to hear what kind of SEO improvement you have planned?
Personally I hope that it covers everything in the "Starter Guide" and includes some of the more advanced areas.
Thanks in advance.
(Sorry for my language - English is only my second language. I try hard to be more polite in my writing).
Panoramio: Spectacular photos on Google Earth
Google: Allan Hansen - fotograf og IT-nørd
Blogs: Photo and SEO news by LichtenHansen, Allan Hansen foto nyheder, Antarctica Travel
Homepage: Fotograf Allan Hansen, Unusual wildlife photos
We won't comment on the details but it's all in the works. Stay tuned!
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I take this as a NO to implement "custom easy navigation URLs for galleries" as a part of "Improve our search engine results (better SEO)", so I'll vote for this very reasonable SEO-friendly feature request too.
Panoramio: Spectacular photos on Google Earth
Google: Allan Hansen - fotograf og IT-nørd
Blogs: Photo and SEO news by LichtenHansen, Allan Hansen foto nyheder, Antarctica Travel
Homepage: Fotograf Allan Hansen, Unusual wildlife photos
2. use frendly URL's and file names
3. use good titles, descriptions and keywords
4. use the H1 tag properly
5. research your competition and unserstand why they are ranked well
6. make sure you get good, ontopic validated inbound links
Richard King
They've listened to us on a lot of issues, I'm sure they're going to do something pretty special here. (at least I hope so!)
Chris
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To Andy (and the other good people at SmugMug)
I'm new at SmugMug and waiting another few days (or weeks) for the BIG 'Findability'/SEO change is not a big deal for me. One reason I say BIG, is because I think it's ain't easy for SmugMug to switch from the mentality of helping us have beautiful, sophisticated, customizable websites (which mainly serves our need express and exposed ourselves), into being a more 'Professional' tool to help serve our livelihood (Yellow Pages and Direct Mail have died; Search Engines are the marketing King).
I guess that some Pros may have already given up and left; I, however, spent so much time and energy on uploading 20,000 images and keywording them, that I just can't. Also, I like SmugMug and trust them to do the right thing, beautifully ...and soon!
Still, I want to bring a few points and a Wish list.
I myself keep two other outdated websites for the mere purpose to link to my site here. I get four times more visits from them than from search engines. Well, not all of us can do that. Also I felt a bit misled when I followed SmugMug's advice “Keywords, Keywords, Keywords”, spent days on keywording my images and captions, only to find out that they are invisible to search engines!!!
A few more points: My website with SmugMug contains a lot of [junk] words that are not supposed to be seen by search engines, but they ARE and are being indexed! I'm not talking about keywords promoting SmugMug stuffed into the Keywords meta tag (Google doesn't even look at them), i'm talking about keywords I found under "Below are the most common keywords Google found when crawling your site" in my Google Webmaster Tools. Words like “your bio”, prev, foil, approval, blogs, critique, filmstrip, hide, journal, etc, etc, etc. Google is so confused with my website that when I checked in my Google Webmaster Tools for “Similar Sites” I found them from all over the place!
I was told that SM cannot help with (or let me have) a Google XML Sitemap; can I, at list, tell Goggle not to follow certain links (like Help page)?
After spending a lot of time on building a comments and wish list, I recently received and read PhotoShelter's SEO Toolkit. It's very very interesting and helpful, and i'm bringing here the main points they mentioned (as well as what they do "to help") in their 40 something pages kit. Here it is:
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Note that off-page factors are the largest driver of rankings.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]http://eMixPix.com
[/FONT]
http://www.eMixPix.com - Stock Aerial Photos of NYC Metro area (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut)
--- http://www.emixpix.com/New-York - NY Aerial Photos
--- http://www.emixpix.com/New-Jersey - NJ Aerial Photos
--- http://www.emixpix.com/Connecticut - CT Aerial Photos
http://www.BestAerialPhotos.com - Aerial Photography service in the NYC Metro area
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Amos, great stuff, thanks for posting it. Improvements are coming!
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Anyone......
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Still doesn't answer my question though!
Become a fan of Chris Humphreys Photography
And I don't exspect they ever will...but it's coming stay tuned and subscribe to our blog!
Okay, so I have been through so many threads concerning SEO and keywords. I also came across some software and an article that I found very usefull.
Article: http://www.wilsonweb.com/articles/checklist.htm
SEO Tools: http://www.seotoolset.com/tools/free_tools.html
After using the free tools, I was able to check my site for crawler details. (what the crawlers see) I was suprised to find errors in my code and a few keyword / meta problems. I am thinking that this is affecting my search results. It says that my keywords for my main page are basically smug mug keywords such as: photo networking; photo storage etc. Instead of what Smugmug says that my keywords are. Will search engines get the correct keywords for my page?
Also my meta tag description for my page is bleeding into my slideshow code. It is giving me a bad rating for "too many words" as it is including the slideshow code. I have gone ahead and enclosed my meta tag in the bio box and I hid the bio text as described in the tutorials. Any suggestions? Is my code wrong?
<o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="place"></o:smarttagtype><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id=ieooui></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> To Andy and whoever is in charge of Smugmug.com;
<o:p> </o:p>
Andy; thanks for reading my post I left on June 9<sup>th</sup>. I’m sure the SEO changes which some of us are so desperately waiting for and which will bring SmugMug closer to being a professional BUSINESS hosting server (like PhotoShelter.com for example), will come one day. However, by the amount of interest and energy most of your subscribers put into beautifying/customizing their websites, and the tremendous amount of dedication, effort and energy SmugMug, in return, puts in helping that cause, I know it will take a lot of mental change for SmugMug to reach that.
<o:p> </o:p>
The very small number of subscribers on this blog, who are concerned with internet marketing (our LIVELIHOOD!), as well as SmugMug’s responses (and no response), like the way Chris H was [finally] answered, is the best proof to the prevailing attitude of “we are Artists first, Livelihood/business is second (if at all)”.
<o:p> </o:p>
A few weeks ago I got an email from 1and1.com, the company I registered all my domains names with. They are promoting a new Web Hosting Advertising package, they ask, “What Good Is the Best-Looking Website Without any Visitors?”…
<o:p> </o:p>
As I wrote before, I maintain two independent websites (which I have full control over), for the sole purpose of directing Internet searchers to my SmugMug's site (they bring 80-90% of my visitors). Not every pro subscriber (who cares about marketing his/her business online) can afford that…
<o:p> </o:p>
Let’s talk business (yes, it’s my business, and the more I do you do too); …and please, don’t ask me to subscribe to any ‘updates’ RSS’… I need to know if and approximately when, any of the following six items will be implemented:
<o:p> </o:p>
- (1) - Pages’ Title (- Most important!). I want to be able to control each and every page’s Title’s <st1:place w:st="on">Meta</st1:place> tag (Home page, individual category pages, individual gallery pages, etc). If you just take my galleries’ names and use that as my titles (like you do now but without [‘my nickname : photos’] preceding it, I’m happy and satisfied. (Just don’t forget to let me control my Home page and Categories’ pages).
- (2) - Visible Keywords. Let Google (and other search engines) SEE my Keywords (which you justifiably stress their importance), my files’ names, and my Captions. (I followed your advice “Keywords, Keywords, Keywords” and spent enormous amount of time on that; please don’t let me feel misled anymore…). Also, inserting the file name or caption into the ‘Alt’ tag in each image (and thumbnails) will be ‘nice’.
- (3) - Help Google find my galleries with a XML Sitemap. Currently Google sees (and index) only part of my galleries! (Instead it, somehow, reaches individual images!) Please let us/help us create a XML Site Map.
- (4) - Wrong Keywords; (SmugMug’s keywords as well as those which shouldn’t be visible). I know that after being able to control all my Pages’ titles this will be less of a problem (I don’t mind having “Powered by SmugMug.com” at the end of my Titles, if you want). Also, Google doesn’t pay much attention to the Keywords Meta Tag, but I still want to have my keywords there, instead of SmugMug’s. Also, please make sure to hide those Customizing/owner-View’s phrases that are not supposed to be seen by search engines (but they are seen and being indexed). The following are Words I found under "Most common keywords Google found when crawling your site" in my Google Webmaster Tools: bio (it sees the H3 Heading “Your Bio”), prev, foil, approval, blogs, critique, filmstrip, rate, rating, slideshow, spammers, stars, style, hide, journal, bio, etc. (Google is still confused with my website content and purpose).
- (5) - Meta Description tag. Let me control the Meta Description of each page. Currently the whole Bio (in Home Page) and Gallery Descriptions are being duplicated into the Meta Description tag. In Search results Google displays the first 150 characters of the Description which I can control. Still my Meta Description tags are way too long.
- (6) - Gallery names. Google likes human-readable URLs because they can give a user a clue as to what the link is, and they help reinforce important keywords. Please help Google and me by giving the galleries meaningful names (ideally, my gallery names; you can add a code to the end if necessary)
<o:p> </o:p>Thank you for your time; you are the best and I know you can be even better (at least regarding my concerns).
<input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden">
http://www.eMixPix.com - Stock Aerial Photos of NYC Metro area (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut)
--- http://www.emixpix.com/New-York - NY Aerial Photos
--- http://www.emixpix.com/New-Jersey - NJ Aerial Photos
--- http://www.emixpix.com/Connecticut - CT Aerial Photos
http://www.BestAerialPhotos.com - Aerial Photography service in the NYC Metro area
Amos, thanks for posting - some cool changes are afoot, and we expect already-good to turn into awesome as far as SEO goes.
Stay tuned - not much longer now
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Tanks Andy; i guess we'll have to wait [patiently] and see. I have an urgent(?) question, though - i'm presently creating links of my 250 galleries in my other two websites. If, however, SmugMug delivers soon on my #6 SEO item (naming galleries with human-readable names), i'll wait with my ork as not to copy/paste all those links again.
(Also, is there a diference between copying the browser's address and the 'get link' address, which seems to be different at times?)
<input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden">
http://www.eMixPix.com - Stock Aerial Photos of NYC Metro area (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut)
--- http://www.emixpix.com/New-York - NY Aerial Photos
--- http://www.emixpix.com/New-Jersey - NJ Aerial Photos
--- http://www.emixpix.com/Connecticut - CT Aerial Photos
http://www.BestAerialPhotos.com - Aerial Photography service in the NYC Metro area