<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:smarttagtype name="place" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"></o:smarttagtype><STYLE> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </STYLE>To Andy and whoever is in charge of Smugmug.com;
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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.
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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)”.
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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?”…
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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…
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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:
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(1) - Pages’ Title (- Most important!). I want to be able to control each and every page’s Title’s <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><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)
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Thank you for your time; you are the best and I know you can be even better (at least regarding my concerns).
Thank you Digital Faerie for your passionate (and sexy) response.
The SEO points i mentioned are 'On-Page Factors' which in an independent website are under our control. Hopefully SmugMug will give us this OVERDUE control SOON. However, the reason i'm writing to you is to emphasize that there are 'Off-Page Factors' which are primarily controlled by others. The most important factor is Incoming Links to your site. The more links you get and the more 'authority' the linking sites have, the more 'weight' (credit) you get from Google. To get 'good' links is not easy and takes time, however you can start with the 'easy' links, like inserting your website address in your Signiture to your DGrin Posts...
By the way, i have the feeling that SmugMug haven't really read my post, but maybe it's because they know what is needed to be done and are working on that; we'll know soon...
Thank you Digital Faerie for your passionate (and sexy) response.
The SEO points i mentioned are 'On-Page Factors' which in an independent website are under our control. Hopefully SmugMug will give us this OVERDUE control SOON. However, the reason i'm writing to you is to emphasize that there are 'Off-Page Factors' which are primarily controlled by others. The most important factor is Incoming Links to your site. The more links you get and the more 'authority' the linking sites have, the more 'weight' (credit) you get from Google. To get 'good' links is not easy and takes time, however you can start with the 'easy' links, like inserting your website address in your Signiture to your DGrin Posts...
By the way, i have the feeling that SmugMug haven't really read my post, but maybe it's because they know what is needed to be done and are working on that; we'll know soon...
New at this
A few days ago if I googled either my name 'Lucas Price' or the title of my website, 'Underwater Encounters', my site came up second. Now my site is coming up, but not my url, the lucasprice.smugmug.com version of my site (with the smugmug description instead of my description)is coming up instead of www.uwencounters.com. I can't find my url even if i google it directly.
Google's webmaster tools says that I have 440 Duplicate Meta Descriptions. As far as I can tell these are all SmugMug Meta Descriptions. Would my site be removed from search rankings because of those? Is there anyway to fix that?
Hope i am asking these questions correctly and using the correct terminology. I am new to smugmug, and my site is basic now, but i will put more in to it if i can get it found in search engines.
Google's webmaster tools says that I have 440 Duplicate Meta Descriptions. As far as I can tell these are all SmugMug Meta Descriptions. Would my site be removed from search rankings because of those? Is there anyway to fix that?
This is one of my major complaints since search engines like Google punish duplicate meta info. :cry
Yup, I know that all too well (work for an internet marketing firm). Some of the simplest things to do aren't accessible by us right now so it's frustrating. I think the even more frustrating thing is that the SEO issue has been on the table for years.
And yes I could work on some off page factors, but if I can get a website to link to me using specific anchor text, and my page Title correlates with that anchor text, it looks even better. Just one of many examples.
There are SO MANY factors involved here that having the on-page elements addressed and in smugmug users' control is in fact overdue as you stated. And off-page factors do take time (a link building campaign isn't something you go out and do 50 or more requests at once, organic growth is a huge factor as you know, so this is something you really should manage). Not to mention finding a site that makes sense to get a link from, and THEIR on-page factors (PR, alexa rank, do they use nofollow or javascript cloaking for their links, the list goes on). But I have a feeling I ain't tellin' ya anything you don't already know. <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/ear.gif" border="0" alt="" >
So I really hope that we'll be seeing something in the next few months (I never said making some of these changes were going to be an easy task Smugmug Techs!), but seeing some sort of plan would be nice. A lot better than "we're working on it" or "coming soon". <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/Laughing.gif" border="0" alt="" >
I suppose I worry somewhat about just how much Smugmug staff understand about SEO. There are so many hacks out there, and tons of stuff that a lot of people don't understand (either importance of or how things fit into a bigger picture). Not to mention that if you wait a couple months major changes can take place. NEVER A DULL MOMENT! <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/wings.gif" border="0" alt="" >
Thank you Digital Faerie for your passionate (and sexy) response.
The SEO points i mentioned are 'On-Page Factors' which in an independent website are under our control. Hopefully SmugMug will give us this OVERDUE control SOON. However, the reason i'm writing to you is to emphasize that there are 'Off-Page Factors' which are primarily controlled by others. The most important factor is Incoming Links to your site. The more links you get and the more 'authority' the linking sites have, the more 'weight' (credit) you get from Google. To get 'good' links is not easy and takes time, however you can start with the 'easy' links, like inserting your website address in your Signiture to your DGrin Posts...
By the way, i have the feeling that SmugMug haven't really read my post, but maybe it's because they know what is needed to be done and are working on that; we'll know soon...
I've already noticed I'm getting more hits from searches related to keywords in my galleries than I was before. Something's already been done.
I agree Chris! It's looking much better. Previously, I had a hard time getting individual gallery hits, as well as hits using their "Image Search". Now, I'm getting full hits on all of my keywords:
What Next
So as far as I can tell, my site has been removed from Google search rankings. I think it may be because of duplicate Meta data posted by Smugmug.
So as far as I can tell, my site has been removed from Google search rankings. I think it may be because of duplicate Meta data posted by Smugmug.
If that were true, why haven't all of us been dropped from Google? I don't believe that Smug's meta data is causing you to be dropped from search engine listings.
So as far as I can tell, my site has been removed from Google search rankings. I think it may be because of duplicate Meta data posted by Smugmug.
PLEASE HELP
What should I do?
one piece of advice I can give you is your home page. It's a particular challenge for photographers to rank in the search engines because we're all about images. But images are practically invisible to search engines. yes, alt tags help, but actual content - especially on your home page - is a major gateway, a statement of sorts to send to search engines on what your site is all about.
And people, keep in mind that you can add all the keywords you want (not really, ). But you're better off having keywords / keyphrases that actually appear in your gallery descriptions. Otherwise you're saying "spam spam spam" to search engines. This is a large reason why the search engines have lowered the importance of meta keywords - who can blame them. But some research has shown that being responsible with your keywords can help your cause.
The flash element is not helping you. Because of it (and the way the smugmug backend is setup) your meta description looks like this:
All that code has bloated your meta description to 750 characters. Not good.
Your site is also taking a long time to load, even your secondary pages. You have zero page rank, and no alexa rank.
Check out the free website grader tool for your site for more details, but without any content to go on, even corrected meta tags won't help a whole lot.
So as far as I can tell, my site has been removed from Google search rankings. I think it may be because of duplicate Meta data posted by Smugmug.
PLEASE HELP
What should I do?
Hey, don't dismiss UnderWaterEncounters's concerns! I just looked at the Source of one of my Gallery's Categories pages (New York Aerial Photos) which contains many many galleries; each of my galleries has a very long Description. Now, in spite of the fact that i hid the Gallery Description on that Category page, Google does see all of them, they are all very similar (talking about duplications). I also know that Google does not like this (letting it see what viewers cannot!).
SmugMug has a LOT of work to do in the SEO (Findability) department.<input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden">
Previously, my site was ranked #2 if i searched for my name 'lucas price' or if i searched 'Underwater Encounters'. Now I can't find it anywhere, even if i search for the url, 'www.uwencounters.com'. I have tried my best to follow the advise listed here, but some of the html stuff is over my head. Thanks for the input, and i will review the suggested threads again tomorrow.
The fact that I cannot find my site anywhere in google, even by searching for the URL, makes me think it has been removed, and no amount of optimization will help until I figure that part out. But I will take the advise seriously and work on it tomorrow.
If that were true, why haven't all of us been dropped from Google? I don't believe that Smug's meta data is causing you to be dropped from search engine listings.
I am not an expert and don't pretend to know the answer to that, but my site is completely missing from google. Do you have any idea how to remedy that?
My blog still shows up (hosted by blogger.com), but not my smugmug hosted site.
Previously, my site was ranked #2 if i searched for my name 'lucas price' or if i searched 'Underwater Encounters'. Now I can't find it anywhere, even if i search for the url, 'www.uwencounters.com'. I have tried my best to follow the advise listed here, but some of the html stuff is over my head. Thanks for the input, and i will review the suggested threads again tomorrow.
The fact that I cannot find my site anywhere in google, even by searching for the URL, makes me think it has been removed, and no amount of optimization will help until I figure that part out. But I will take the advise seriously and work on it tomorrow.
I've got to get ready for work, but this is a start on some sort of explanation.
As for the HTML being "over your head" I feel ya. that's why some of us are trying to point out certain things to smugmug so that you don't have to read countless customization threads on how to make your site SEO ready (yes, ready for SE optimization, not just optimized.....it's the first step that's hard to complete with the way things are right now).
I am not an expert and don't pretend to know the answer to that, but my site is completely missing from google....
Your blog is inconsistently linking to your photos. At least one photo links to Flickr, not smugmug. Others don't provide a "click to photo" link at all, or link to the photo by itself as opposed to the photo inside of a gallery. Yes, that is referencing your smugmug site, but it doesn't do much to drive traffic to your site. It leaves the user without any means to navigate within your site. Don't link to the photo by itself - link to it within a gallery. I don't know how that will play into improving your google rank - although I believe that it will help - but you certainly can help by driving traffic to your site.
Previously, my site was ranked #2 if i searched for my name 'lucas price' or if i searched 'Underwater Encounters'. Now I can't find it anywhere, even if i search for the url, 'www.uwencounters.com'. I have tried my best to follow the advise listed here, but some of the html stuff is over my head. Thanks for the input, and i will review the suggested threads again tomorrow.
The fact that I cannot find my site anywhere in google, even by searching for the URL, makes me think it has been removed, and no amount of optimization will help until I figure that part out. But I will take the advise seriously and work on it tomorrow.
Any input in greatly appreciated.
Hello again Lucas Price (UnderWaterEncounter),
I don't want to bother you again, but i want to say:
I suggest getting Google Analytics; you'll be able to find out everything about who visited your site, where they came from, which Search Engines sent you viewers (how many and what keywords they use), into what page on your site they landed, how much time they spent there, etc etc etc. There is a beautiful SmugMug's tutorial on how to get it here: http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1092794
I don't really understand what is your domain name/address. I tried to learn more about your site by checking this: 'info:uwencounters.com', and i don't understand it. try yourself by going to: info:yourDomain.com (change 'youDomain' to your own domain). I was able to view your website (i still think you have a problem with your domain name), i noticed you have no text there; search engines need text in order to read and index it and then to send you searchers.
There are many things one can do to increase 'Findability', however, you cannot do much till SmugMug puts its attention on SEO rather on 'beautifying/customizing' our websites.
Your concerns about duplication is very valid and i hope SmugMug will work on that soon.
On the topic of SEO, if you really want a serious website, go get Wordpress. I ended up deciding to just make my SmugMug site a proofs site, and move my regular site to WP. Not only is it faster, more customizable, and way better in general, it's very search engine friendly. Not only am I not saddled with SmugMug's keywords, but I also have the ability to have total control over my code, ensuring that every piece is optimized. My site is currently in the testing phase until 8/1 at 12 AM. About 2 weeks ago, I realized I forgot to disable search engine inclusion on my WP site. I had only linked to it from wordpress.org once. I did a search for photographers in my area on Google, and this testing site with virtually no content, just page titles and design elements, already ranked in the top 20. It's incredible how good WP is with SEO. I highly recommend using it if you really want to be found on Google/etc.
Your blog is inconsistently linking to your photos. At least one photo links to Flickr, not smugmug. Others don't provide a "click to photo" link at all, or link to the photo by itself as opposed to the photo inside of a gallery. Yes, that is referencing your smugmug site, but it doesn't do much to drive traffic to your site. It leaves the user without any means to navigate within your site. Don't link to the photo by itself - link to it within a gallery. I don't know how that will play into improving your google rank - although I believe that it will help - but you certainly can help by driving traffic to your site.
--- Denise
Thanks Denise. I just figured out why this happened and how to fix it. Not sure if I will fix it on prior posts, but certainly will do it as you suggest in the future.
I've got to get ready for work, but this is a start on some sort of explanation.
As for the HTML being "over your head" I feel ya. that's why some of us are trying to point out certain things to smugmug so that you don't have to read countless customization threads on how to make your site SEO ready (yes, ready for SE optimization, not just optimized.....it's the first step that's hard to complete with the way things are right now).
Good luck!
Yup. you are correct. I am there on google if you search hard enough. I read over the suggested link. The search phrases I am talking about are obviously not very competitive to get a good rank. You can see that when searching google for "underwater encounters", my site is #1, but using the smugmug url instead of my url.
This leads me to believe I somehow created a penalty for my site. Since the smugmug url has the same html as my url, it probably isn't anything on the site itself, right?
The only difference between the url's that I am aware of of is that (at the suggestion of documents I have read here) I have tried to link to my url over and over again (but never the smugmug url). By over and over again I certainly don't mean hundreds of times, but rather in the small corners of the web I inhabit. Namely, at the bottom of my blog entries, my flickr profile, facebook profile, linkedin profile, and the signature line of three or four forums. Does this hypothesis make any sense to you SEO veterans out there?
I also think there is an issue with the lack of content on the homepage, as google seems to like my galleries more then my homepage, again prefering the smugmug url to my own. I will work on that.
I stopped using my custom domain on smugmug because I noticed that links from around smugmug to my photos linked to the timlinden.smugmug.com version. The duplicate content thing isn't an issue if all the links point to the custom domain, because Google is smart enough to know oh it's the same site but it's trying to be this one. It's when you link to both that gets mucky.
Anyways it would be cool if that could be setup at some point too. Maybe even 301 redirect to your custom domain. Until then I'll continue to use the subdomain as I don't mind. I have photos.timlinden.com setup with Wordpress as a photoblog, so the goal is to get the traffic from there (which does get the photos into google image results ;-))
I stopped using my custom domain on smugmug because I noticed that links from around smugmug to my photos linked to the timlinden.smugmug.com version. The duplicate content thing isn't an issue if all the links point to the custom domain, because Google is smart enough to know oh it's the same site but it's trying to be this one. It's when you link to both that gets mucky.
Anyways it would be cool if that could be setup at some point too. Maybe even 301 redirect to your custom domain. Until then I'll continue to use the subdomain as I don't mind. I have photos.timlinden.com setup with Wordpress as a photoblog, so the goal is to get the traffic from there (which does get the photos into google image results ;-))
Tim
Yes 301 redirects are important so that you can have a canonical domain name. But keep in mind it's not having multiple URLs that hurt you (in fact, it's a perfect way to track offline advertising hint hint), it's not having a canonical domain name that hurts. In fact, I still need to do that for my site, . 10+ hour days suck.
Anyway, without the 301 redirect in place, Google is seeing your name.smugmug.com URL and your custom domainname.com URL as two different sites. The 301 redirect tells Google you have one main site (and URL) and you can use other domains to automatically redirect to your main domain. So basically you're competing against yourself for page rank.
To test this, type in your domain name in your browser's address bar. Try the www.domainname.com version. Let your site load, and then take out the "www." part and see if your domain automatically resets back to the www.domainname.com version. If it doesn't, you don't have a 301 redirect in place.
This also works vice versa and no you don't have to have the www. version as your main domain. You can redirect to the opposite. Whichever.
Just noticed something kinda funny. Smugmug itself doesn't have a 301 redirect in place.
Permanent Redirect Not Found Search engines may think www.smugmug.com and smugmug.com are two different sites.You should set up a permanent redirect (technically called a "301 redirect") between these sites. Once you do that, you will get full search engine credit for your work on these sites.
For example, www.smugmug.com seems to have 1,477,432 inbound links whereas smugmug.com has 5,848,785 inbound links. By correctly configuring a permanent 301 redirect, the search rankings might improve as all inbound links are correctly counted for the website.
Another solution would be the canonical link tag, at least for Google. But again it would need Smugmug to do their part, cuz sticking it in the header now would tell Google that *all* your pages are one
Be sure you fill out your page title section, Advanced Site-Wide Customizing.
Am I wrong that a while back you (or someone else from Smugmug) recommended leaving that blank to improve SEO? When it's blank, a unique title is created for each page, which seems to work nicely with google (at least for single image view pages). Except on the homepage of custom-domain sites, where the title becomes "SmugMug Photo Sharing. You look better here." When using the smugmug domain, the homepage title looks like "Dave's photos - powered by SmugMug." This seems to be a known bug. How hard could it possibly be to fix a page title on the homepage? I'd be perfectly happy if the page title in the advanced customization applied only to the homepage.
I know there are SEO improvements in the works. But can't ya just fix this one bug real quick?
By the way, for the skeptics, the tips do work. I have a rather common and famous name, with a lot of Google competition. Google Search Results. Page 1, 9th down on the page - I'll take it
Your custom title is fine, but it should be only displayed on your homepage/root URL "/", not anywhere else. All other pages should have unique titles derived from their respective content.
The page titles to a website are like an index to a book. Each and every page title must be unique and the less repeating patterns are in each individual title the more descriptive it is to both humans and search engines.
If there is a repeating pattern, then it must be placed at the end of the title, because there's only so much of it that is shown in the SERP.
Gallery title should be derived from the name of the gallery.
A page displaying an individual photo should have a title of the photo which will encourage users to replace the default photo title such as " IMG_2986" with something meaningful.
Currently SmugMug doesn't distinguish a photo title from it's "caption". Caption and title are two separate things -- caption tells a story, title gives a hint. In SEO, title becomes the title of a page and caption becomes the meta-description of the page.
To distinguish photo titles and photo captions SmugMug should add an additional field to the data model which will hold the photo's title. It shouldn't be too difficult (just default the photo title to it's file name so it's fairly unique to start with). Once you do that and let us know about it, we will be encouraged to go and change the photo titles on the photos we really care about and want to be found in google.
Your custom title is fine, but it should be only displayed on your homepage/root URL "/", not anywhere else. All other pages should have unique titles derived from their respective content.
By the way, for the skeptics, the tips do work. I have a rather common and famous name, with a lot of Google competition. Google Search Results. Page 1, 9th down on the page - I'll take it
Come on... that's one key phrase that applies to your whole site. Let's see google results for a gallery on your site or better yet, a particular image.
I searched for "moon river photography." One gallery came up on the first couple pages... "Andy : photos : Urban Nightscapes- powered by SmugMug." Apparently that one was indexed before you added a site-wide page title. I think that's a decent title... not very professional, but at least says what's on the page.
I clicked on "more results from moonriverphotography.com" and got some more. They are a mix of things like "Andy : photos : Please Say Hello! : Welcome to Moon River ..." (pre-site-wide title) and "Moon River Photography - Fine Art Landscape Photography - Andy ..." which actually links to one of your popular pictures (but we don't know that from the title).
So anyway, if my point isn't clear, the page titles need fixing. I think you're working on that. But can you fix the bug I mentioned a few posts up so I don't have to use a site-wide title and ruin the titles that do work properly?
Come on? Sorry but getting listed on p1 is pretty impressive against the real AW.
I'm merely pointing out that this stuff works. Oh try searching for 'westchester senior portrait'
Other stuff is coming, more SEO improvements afoot. 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.
Comments
Andy - can't wait to see what improvements will be made.
The SEO points i mentioned are 'On-Page Factors' which in an independent website are under our control. Hopefully SmugMug will give us this OVERDUE control SOON. However, the reason i'm writing to you is to emphasize that there are 'Off-Page Factors' which are primarily controlled by others. The most important factor is Incoming Links to your site. The more links you get and the more 'authority' the linking sites have, the more 'weight' (credit) you get from Google. To get 'good' links is not easy and takes time, however you can start with the 'easy' links, like inserting your website address in your Signiture to your DGrin Posts...
By the way, i have the feeling that SmugMug haven't really read my post, but maybe it's because they know what is needed to be done and are working on that; we'll know soon...
<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
They must be working on it, Google has already indexed some of my gallery names and photo captions:
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&hs=06w&q=quebec+city+in+winter+jonathan+houle&btnG=Search&meta=
http://www.jonathanhoule.com/
Become a fan of Chris Humphreys Photography
A few days ago if I googled either my name 'Lucas Price' or the title of my website, 'Underwater Encounters', my site came up second. Now my site is coming up, but not my url, the lucasprice.smugmug.com version of my site (with the smugmug description instead of my description)is coming up instead of www.uwencounters.com. I can't find my url even if i google it directly.
Google's webmaster tools says that I have 440 Duplicate Meta Descriptions. As far as I can tell these are all SmugMug Meta Descriptions. Would my site be removed from search rankings because of those? Is there anyway to fix that?
Hope i am asking these questions correctly and using the correct terminology. I am new to smugmug, and my site is basic now, but i will put more in to it if i can get it found in search engines.
My Blog
Camera: Nikon d300 with Sea&Sea Housing
Strobes: 2xIkelite 160
Lenses: Nikon 105, Tokina 10-17, Sigma 17-70
This is one of my major complaints since search engines like Google punish duplicate meta info. :cry
And yes I could work on some off page factors, but if I can get a website to link to me using specific anchor text, and my page Title correlates with that anchor text, it looks even better. Just one of many examples.
There are SO MANY factors involved here that having the on-page elements addressed and in smugmug users' control is in fact overdue as you stated. And off-page factors do take time (a link building campaign isn't something you go out and do 50 or more requests at once, organic growth is a huge factor as you know, so this is something you really should manage). Not to mention finding a site that makes sense to get a link from, and THEIR on-page factors (PR, alexa rank, do they use nofollow or javascript cloaking for their links, the list goes on). But I have a feeling I ain't tellin' ya anything you don't already know. <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/ear.gif" border="0" alt="" >
So I really hope that we'll be seeing something in the next few months (I never said making some of these changes were going to be an easy task Smugmug Techs!), but seeing some sort of plan would be nice. A lot better than "we're working on it" or "coming soon". <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/Laughing.gif" border="0" alt="" >
I suppose I worry somewhat about just how much Smugmug staff understand about SEO. There are so many hacks out there, and tons of stuff that a lot of people don't understand (either importance of or how things fit into a bigger picture). Not to mention that if you wait a couple months major changes can take place. NEVER A DULL MOMENT! <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/wings.gif" border="0" alt="" >
I agree Chris! It's looking much better. Previously, I had a hard time getting individual gallery hits, as well as hits using their "Image Search". Now, I'm getting full hits on all of my keywords:
Images Search
http://images.google.ca/images?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&um=1&sa=1&q=site%3Awww.langfordphotography.com+Montana&btnG=Search+images&aq=f&oq=
Webpage Search
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&um=1&q=site%3Awww.langfordphotography.com%20Montana&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=iw
Great work smug!
James
Langford Photography
http://www.langfordphotography.com
james@langfordphotography.com
So as far as I can tell, my site has been removed from Google search rankings. I think it may be because of duplicate Meta data posted by Smugmug.
PLEASE HELP
What should I do?
My Blog
Camera: Nikon d300 with Sea&Sea Housing
Strobes: 2xIkelite 160
Lenses: Nikon 105, Tokina 10-17, Sigma 17-70
Have you followed all of the recommendations on this wiki page - http://wiki.smugmug.net/display/SmugMug/Maximize+Search+Engine+Findability?
--- Denise
Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
one piece of advice I can give you is your home page. It's a particular challenge for photographers to rank in the search engines because we're all about images. But images are practically invisible to search engines. yes, alt tags help, but actual content - especially on your home page - is a major gateway, a statement of sorts to send to search engines on what your site is all about.
And people, keep in mind that you can add all the keywords you want (not really,
The flash element is not helping you. Because of it (and the way the smugmug backend is setup) your meta description looks like this:
*********************
description: Underwater Encounters -- Ocean Photography by Lucas Price: unique images of ordinary and extraordinary underwater subjects.
var ssConfig = {
AlbumID: '8869787',
newWindow: 'false',
transparent: 'true',
splash: 'http://www.uwencounters.com/photos/588968493_9FjVU-Ti.jpg',
showLogo: 'false',
clickToImage: 'false',
showThumbs: 'false',
showButtons: 'true',
crossFadeSpeed: '350',
autoStart: 'true',
captions: 'false',
clickUrl: 'http://www.uwencounters.com/gallery/8869787_ttdnm/1/588459323_yzUuV',
splashDelay: '50',
randomize: 'true',
imgAlign: 'top',
borderThickness: '5',
borderColor: 'A3A3A3'
};
SM.flash.insertSlideshow(750, 500, ssConfig, 'transparent');
**********************************
All that code has bloated your meta description to 750 characters. Not good.
Your site is also taking a long time to load, even your secondary pages. You have zero page rank, and no alexa rank.
Check out the free website grader tool for your site for more details, but without any content to go on, even corrected meta tags won't help a whole lot.
http://www.websitegrader.com/wsgid/3567946/default.aspx
Out of curiosity, what phrases were you searching for beforehand to try and see how your site appears in the SERPs? (Search Engine Result Pages)
I hope this helps. I am up way past my bedtime!
Hey, don't dismiss UnderWaterEncounters's concerns! I just looked at the Source of one of my Gallery's Categories pages (New York Aerial Photos) which contains many many galleries; each of my galleries has a very long Description. Now, in spite of the fact that i hid the Gallery Description on that Category page, Google does see all of them, they are all very similar (talking about duplications). I also know that Google does not like this (letting it see what viewers cannot!).
SmugMug has a LOT of work to do in the SEO (Findability) department.<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
The fact that I cannot find my site anywhere in google, even by searching for the URL, makes me think it has been removed, and no amount of optimization will help until I figure that part out. But I will take the advise seriously and work on it tomorrow.
Any input in greatly appreciated.
My Blog
Camera: Nikon d300 with Sea&Sea Housing
Strobes: 2xIkelite 160
Lenses: Nikon 105, Tokina 10-17, Sigma 17-70
I am not an expert and don't pretend to know the answer to that, but my site is completely missing from google. Do you have any idea how to remedy that?
My blog still shows up (hosted by blogger.com), but not my smugmug hosted site.
My Blog
Camera: Nikon d300 with Sea&Sea Housing
Strobes: 2xIkelite 160
Lenses: Nikon 105, Tokina 10-17, Sigma 17-70
found ya this morning:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4ADBF_enUS309US310&q=underwater+encounters+lucas+price&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
also here's a thread on "sites disappearing mysteriously"
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum5/4584.htm
I've got to get ready for work, but this is a start on some sort of explanation.
As for the HTML being "over your head" I feel ya. that's why some of us are trying to point out certain things to smugmug so that you don't have to read countless customization threads on how to make your site SEO ready (yes, ready for SE optimization, not just optimized.....it's the first step that's hard to complete with the way things are right now).
Good luck!
--- Denise
Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
Hello again Lucas Price (UnderWaterEncounter),
I don't want to bother you again, but i want to say:
- I suggest getting Google Analytics; you'll be able to find out everything about who visited your site, where they came from, which Search Engines sent you viewers (how many and what keywords they use), into what page on your site they landed, how much time they spent there, etc etc etc. There is a beautiful SmugMug's tutorial on how to get it here: http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1092794
- I don't really understand what is your domain name/address. I tried to learn more about your site by checking this: 'info:uwencounters.com', and i don't understand it. try yourself by going to: info:yourDomain.com (change 'youDomain' to your own domain). I was able to view your website (i still think you have a problem with your domain name), i noticed you have no text there; search engines need text in order to read and index it and then to send you searchers.
- There are many things one can do to increase 'Findability', however, you cannot do much till SmugMug puts its attention on SEO rather on 'beautifying/customizing' our websites.
- Your concerns about duplication is very valid and i hope SmugMug will work on that soon.
<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
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Thanks Denise. I just figured out why this happened and how to fix it. Not sure if I will fix it on prior posts, but certainly will do it as you suggest in the future.
My Blog
Camera: Nikon d300 with Sea&Sea Housing
Strobes: 2xIkelite 160
Lenses: Nikon 105, Tokina 10-17, Sigma 17-70
Yup. you are correct. I am there on google if you search hard enough. I read over the suggested link. The search phrases I am talking about are obviously not very competitive to get a good rank. You can see that when searching google for "underwater encounters", my site is #1, but using the smugmug url instead of my url.
This leads me to believe I somehow created a penalty for my site. Since the smugmug url has the same html as my url, it probably isn't anything on the site itself, right?
The only difference between the url's that I am aware of of is that (at the suggestion of documents I have read here) I have tried to link to my url over and over again (but never the smugmug url). By over and over again I certainly don't mean hundreds of times, but rather in the small corners of the web I inhabit. Namely, at the bottom of my blog entries, my flickr profile, facebook profile, linkedin profile, and the signature line of three or four forums. Does this hypothesis make any sense to you SEO veterans out there?
I also think there is an issue with the lack of content on the homepage, as google seems to like my galleries more then my homepage, again prefering the smugmug url to my own. I will work on that.
My Blog
Camera: Nikon d300 with Sea&Sea Housing
Strobes: 2xIkelite 160
Lenses: Nikon 105, Tokina 10-17, Sigma 17-70
Anyways it would be cool if that could be setup at some point too. Maybe even 301 redirect to your custom domain. Until then I'll continue to use the subdomain as I don't mind. I have photos.timlinden.com setup with Wordpress as a photoblog, so the goal is to get the traffic from there (which does get the photos into google image results ;-))
Tim
http://www.riphoto.com/
Please Vote - External Shopping Cart Links:
http://uservoice.com/a/mL8RD
Yes 301 redirects are important so that you can have a canonical domain name. But keep in mind it's not having multiple URLs that hurt you (in fact, it's a perfect way to track offline advertising hint hint), it's not having a canonical domain name that hurts. In fact, I still need to do that for my site,
Anyway, without the 301 redirect in place, Google is seeing your name.smugmug.com URL and your custom domainname.com URL as two different sites. The 301 redirect tells Google you have one main site (and URL) and you can use other domains to automatically redirect to your main domain. So basically you're competing against yourself for page rank.
To test this, type in your domain name in your browser's address bar. Try the www.domainname.com version. Let your site load, and then take out the "www." part and see if your domain automatically resets back to the www.domainname.com version. If it doesn't, you don't have a 301 redirect in place.
This also works vice versa and no you don't have to have the www. version as your main domain. You can redirect to the opposite. Whichever.
Just noticed something kinda funny. Smugmug itself doesn't have a 301 redirect in place.
Permanent Redirect Not Found
Search engines may think www.smugmug.com and smugmug.com are two different sites.You should set up a permanent redirect (technically called a "301 redirect") between these sites. Once you do that, you will get full search engine credit for your work on these sites.
For example, www.smugmug.com seems to have 1,477,432 inbound links whereas smugmug.com has 5,848,785 inbound links. By correctly configuring a permanent 301 redirect, the search rankings might improve as all inbound links are correctly counted for the website.
<.link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish" /.>
So there are many solutions to it, just need one to be used.
http://www.riphoto.com/
Please Vote - External Shopping Cart Links:
http://uservoice.com/a/mL8RD
With Nothing in the Page Title (notice the title line):
and this was the search result:
With Page title filled (notice the title line):
and... the search result (google for andy williams)
By the way, it took less than 1 day for Google to show the new title.
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Am I wrong that a while back you (or someone else from Smugmug) recommended leaving that blank to improve SEO? When it's blank, a unique title is created for each page, which seems to work nicely with google (at least for single image view pages). Except on the homepage of custom-domain sites, where the title becomes "SmugMug Photo Sharing. You look better here." When using the smugmug domain, the homepage title looks like "Dave's photos - powered by SmugMug." This seems to be a known bug. How hard could it possibly be to fix a page title on the homepage? I'd be perfectly happy if the page title in the advanced customization applied only to the homepage.
I know there are SEO improvements in the works. But can't ya just fix this one bug real quick?
Dave
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Your custom title is fine, but it should be only displayed on your homepage/root URL "/", not anywhere else. All other pages should have unique titles derived from their respective content.
The page titles to a website are like an index to a book. Each and every page title must be unique and the less repeating patterns are in each individual title the more descriptive it is to both humans and search engines.
If there is a repeating pattern, then it must be placed at the end of the title, because there's only so much of it that is shown in the SERP.
Gallery title should be derived from the name of the gallery.
A page displaying an individual photo should have a title of the photo which will encourage users to replace the default photo title such as " IMG_2986" with something meaningful.
Currently SmugMug doesn't distinguish a photo title from it's "caption". Caption and title are two separate things -- caption tells a story, title gives a hint. In SEO, title becomes the title of a page and caption becomes the meta-description of the page.
To distinguish photo titles and photo captions SmugMug should add an additional field to the data model which will hold the photo's title. It shouldn't be too difficult (just default the photo title to it's file name so it's fairly unique to start with). Once you do that and let us know about it, we will be encouraged to go and change the photo titles on the photos we really care about and want to be found in google.
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Come on... that's one key phrase that applies to your whole site. Let's see google results for a gallery on your site or better yet, a particular image.
I searched for "moon river photography." One gallery came up on the first couple pages... "Andy : photos : Urban Nightscapes- powered by SmugMug." Apparently that one was indexed before you added a site-wide page title. I think that's a decent title... not very professional, but at least says what's on the page.
I clicked on "more results from moonriverphotography.com" and got some more. They are a mix of things like "Andy : photos : Please Say Hello! : Welcome to Moon River ..." (pre-site-wide title) and "Moon River Photography - Fine Art Landscape Photography - Andy ..." which actually links to one of your popular pictures (but we don't know that from the title).
So anyway, if my point isn't clear, the page titles need fixing. I think you're working on that. But can you fix the bug I mentioned a few posts up so I don't have to use a site-wide title and ruin the titles that do work properly?
Dave
I'm merely pointing out that this stuff works. Oh try searching for 'westchester senior portrait'
Other stuff is coming, more SEO improvements afoot. You'll want to subscribe to our Release Notes blog, so that you don't miss a single update from SmugMug
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