Google recommend a short and informative title that clearly describes the content of the page.
The most informative title that clearly describes the content of a gallery page is the gallery title (or gallery nickname).
In Google search result you can only see the first 64 or so characters.
As Amos clearly pointed out – the gallery title is now further back and more likely to be cut off in search results.
How can moving your most important keyword further back be an improvement?
An improvement would be to use your most important keywords (Gallery title) as the page title.
This would be a short and informative title that clearly describes the content of the page – Just as Google recommend. And this will be the most visible part of search results.
(The second best would be to put your gallery title to the front of your page title and strip it beyond 64 characters.)
Andy, I would love to have a 64 character long home page title just as you do, but just on my home page.
I don’t want it in front of my gallery titles or photo titles causing all my gallery titles and photo titles being stripped of in Google’s result pages.
Why don’t you believe in the SEO guidelines from Google and why don’t you believe in me and the many other Smugmug users here at Dgrin trying to tell you the same thing?
I repeat my statement and wish:
When it comes to page titles, I'm in a worse situation than before the new Changes.
Andy and Smugmug, please consider giving us full control of the page titles or - at least - reverse the order of the page title elements.
Allan Ansen, THANK YOU, you saved my sanity.
My frustration with SmugMug's lack of some SEO basic understanding (in my opinion), lack of ability to listen and understand, and above all, lack of willingness to consider the possibility that they might have been wrong, all that, drove me crazy.
I'm 100% with you.
I think SmugMug's people are basically very very good and professional (with a bit of inflated ego), eventually everything will be perfect.
lack of ability to listen and understand, and above all, lack of willingness to consider the possibility that they might have been wrong, all that, drove me crazy.
Amos, we have a saying here: Reading is Hard
Please re-read what I wrote just earlier today, thanks!
I don't 'not believe' you or Google. But you say you're worse off now than before, that's just wrong.
I thank you very, very much for the clarification, now I'll ask the team. Thanks!
Huh? I'm sorry, can you elaborate on this? We're really trying to be your advocate here. But maybe I'm missing something. Heck, maybe I misspoke, too - or said something unfortunate - can you be specific and elaborate? I surely don't want customers to think we've got inflated egos.
I personally believe that there are tons who know a lot more than I on plenty of subjects, and I learn stuff from our customers every single day.
Google recommend a short and informative title that clearly describes the content of the page.
The most informative title that clearly describes the content of a gallery page is the gallery title (or gallery nickname).
In Google search result you can only see the first 64 or so characters.
As Amos clearly pointed out – the gallery title is now further back and more likely to be cut off in search results.
How can moving your most important keyword further back be an improvement?
An improvement would be to use your most important keywords (Gallery title) as the page title.
This would be a short and informative title that clearly describes the content of the page – Just as Google recommend. And this will be the most visible part of search results.
(The second best would be to put your gallery title to the front of your page title and strip it beyond 64 characters.)
Andy, I would love to have a 64 character long home page title just as you do, but just on my home page.
I don’t want it in front of my gallery titles or photo titles causing all my gallery titles and photo titles being stripped of in Google’s result pages.
Why don’t you believe in the SEO guidelines from Google and why don’t you believe in me and the many other Smugmug users here at Dgrin trying to tell you the same thing?
I repeat my statement and wish:
When it comes to page titles, I'm in a worse situation than before the new Changes.
Andy and Smugmug, please consider giving us full control of the page titles or - at least - reverse the order of the page title elements.
Actually, I did an awful lot of research in this area, and we continue to research appropriate SEO changes to the site. This is hardly our last SEO refinement, and there's a whole lot more coming. We don't talk about future products and enhancements, so I'm afraid I can't be more specific, but there's more coming.
First of all, the whole notion of the TITLE element being the most important is actually false. Google's algorithms are complicated and ever-changing, but one thing has mostly remained the same - the words in the URL matter more than any of the page content, including TITLE. Google's smart enough to realize the words at the end of the URL are "more specific" and thus given a higher weight. I'm positive that optimizing your NiceName usage will have a much bigger impact on your results than anything we can do with page TITLE.
Second, I can find no mention in Google's guidelines about what type and length the TITLE element should be. It's not that we "don't believe in the SEO guidelines from Google" it's that they basically don't exist. The best they give us is is to make it "descriptive and accurate". If I'm wrong about this, I'd love to see some links, but I think I've read most of the authoritative sites online.
Luckily, I know lots of engineers at Google, so I went right to the source. Given this is a public forum, and some of what I've learned I'd consider to be a competitive advantage, I'm not going to go into it right now - but much of it boils down to "What humans will find most useful, Google will too - since we're providing results to humans."
Given that general rule of thumb, most humans care greatly about the source of the search results, especially when it comes down to photographs. Lots of photograph topics (sports teams, celebrities, landmarks, etc) have millions and millions of pages. Which means as a human, you get presented with far too many results to process and have to choose which to select. Google helps here, but mostly what it comes down to is source: Where did the photos come from and how high quality are they? If it says "Sam Nichol's Pro Photography" prominently in the title, along with the content of the gallery, you as the user have some idea of what you're clicking on.
The second consideration is that lots of our Pros have asked us to help them build their brands. They want their businesses and studios to be recognized by both their clients and their future clients. In fact, when asked, many of them tell us that helping them establish and highlight their brand is one of the best things we can do for them.
This isn't to say you don't have a point - I can certainly see how some people may now have Titles which are too long and get truncated, but it's certainly safe to say that it's far too early to tell. We just made the change, and feel fairly strongly that it'll be a positive one. Once we've gauged the impact, we'll make some more changes - many of which will improve your search results even more. I refuse to simply jump around, making changes willy-nilly, without gathering cold hard data first. Once I have the data, I promise we'll make more changes.
A quick survey of random customer galleries show that most of you have gallery titles which are *very* descriptive, not too long, and will make wonderful Google search result entries. If your gallery and/or Category/SubCategory titles are too long, that's not something we have a lot of control over. The Category and SubCategory phrases provide lots of added search keywords and categorization, so it'd be a shame to lose them.
It should be noted that page TITLE used to provide a lot more weight than it does today. Google's algorithms have gotten much better, and relying on a single piece of information, particularly one that's so easy to "game" for SEO gain, isn't something they do nearly as much. This is why you'll see lots of pages and sites from earlier in the decade suggesting heavy TITLE optimization, but not so many in the last year or two.
Finally, I should close by mentioning that I know for a fact that Google has SmugMug-specific algorithms and optimizations. In essence, Google "understands" SmugMug very well. (I imagine, but don't know for sure, that they do this specialization for all large sites). If we aren't as perfectly optimized as some general site out there, Google may compensate for us - including by understanding that in our page titles, the gallery comes last. (The # of Google employees that have SmugMug accounts is truly staggering - including plenty of VPs.) We're certainly not relying on this to "save us", but it sure feels nice, no?
My frustration with SmugMug's lack of some SEO basic understanding (in my opinion), lack of ability to listen and understand, and above all, lack of willingness to consider the possibility that they might have been wrong, all that, drove me crazy.
This isn't fair. In every 3rd party comparison with other photo sharing sites, we've come out on top with SEO. We have lots of work still to do (especially because it's a moving target), but we hardly "lack understanding". I'd love to see some examples where you (or anyone else) have taken identical photos and placed them on various photo sharing sites of similar default PageRank to us and haven't gotten the best rankings. I have yet to see such an example (and such comparisons have been done).
You'll have to back up "lack of ability to listen" even more. Every single feature, fix, and enhancement we build is based directly on customer feedback. We always listen. We may not act, but that's not what you accused us of - you accused us of not listening. (There are many reasons not to act - we may be too busy working on higher priority items, it may not be technically feasible, we may not have anyone talented in that field, etc - but we always listen). I defy you to find a case where we haven't listened.
Finally, we're wrong often. And we admit it often. Just search dgrin - you'll find lots of apologies. In some cases, it's caused us to completely remove or rewrite features because we got them so terribly wrong. In all cases, we've been up front and honest about how we were wrong and what we were doing to fix it. This, though, doesn't seem to be one of those cases. Unless I'm wrong?
Of course, as always, we're listening - so if I *am* wrong, speak up.
Thank for this SEO update and the ones that I beleive will follow
I am very happy with this update. I have been using a custom page title on SmugMug. This update gives me both descriptive page titles and urls. I am excited to see what the search engines do with this. I can also see how future improvements (site maps) could be built from this latest update. Thank you to the SmgMug team for this improvement and your work towards the improvements to follow.
Mark
This isn't fair. In every 3rd party comparison with other photo sharing sites, we've come out on top with SEO. We have lots of work still to do (especially because it's a moving target), but we hardly "lack understanding". I'd love to see some examples where you (or anyone else) have taken identical photos and placed them on various photo sharing sites of similar default PageRank to us and haven't gotten the best rankings. I have yet to see such an example (and such comparisons have been done).
You'll have to back up "lack of ability to listen" even more. Every single feature, fix, and enhancement we build is based directly on customer feedback. We always listen. We may not act, but that's not what you accused us of - you accused us of not listening. (There are many reasons not to act - we may be too busy working on higher priority items, it may not be technically feasible, we may not have anyone talented in that field, etc - but we always listen). I defy you to find a case where we haven't listened.
Finally, we're wrong often. And we admit it often. Just search dgrin - you'll find lots of apologies. In some cases, it's caused us to completely remove or rewrite features because we got them so terribly wrong. In all cases, we've been up front and honest about how we were wrong and what we were doing to fix it. This, though, doesn't seem to be one of those cases. Unless I'm wrong?
Of course, as always, we're listening - so if I *am* wrong, speak up.
Thank you OneThumb for your passionate response.
Your response shows how much you DO care about SmugMug and its customer. However, my feelings of frustration did arrive from somewhere. Maybe something has to do with the fact that i have early-retired and i planned SmugMug to be my only source of livelihood. Also, i've spent a tremendous amount of time and energy customizing and SEO my site. Yes, my tolerance threshold, has probably become very low. Still, i was a business owner too, and utilized my customers feelings to learn about my service, not about them.
I'm quite new to SmugMug but did have a chance to go back and read a lot of these thread's posts in the past. Not only that frustration was quite prevalent but even the 'inability to admit wrongs', was mentioned.
As i wrote at the end of my post i believe SmugMug is made of good, competent and professional people. I trust you.
Now to what you responded to LichtenHansen and the main issue itself: I have no doubts that my home page (and Category pages) will be more findable now.
However, my whole SEO (as well as Google's recommendations and intention) is based on selling (and wanting people to find) a specific product, namely, in my case, aerial photos of a specific location. Google makes its money from its AdWords (i spent a lot of my money on their 'pay per click'). They use the same guideline/search polices to deliver 'not for pay' results.
Again, what you did (the Title thing), is a tremendous improvement for the home and category pages. For some people who didn't do any SEO, it will also bring improvements to their galleries findability, However, for people like me, who are dependent on their galleries findability (and did everything SEO they could) it's a setback!!! (i think).
The only thing i request is to make the galleries names be the first (and only) thing in their title. (I don't mind, of course, having "powered by SmugMug" at the end).
You see, i gave a lot of thought to SEO my galleries and their names (knowing they become the Title), if i thought that adding the category name would be a good thing, i would have added it myself.
I'm a bit beyond teen age; i am responsible to what i do, PLEASE DON'T decide for me.
Also, i appreciate the fact that SmugMug is the most findable photo sharing website (it helps me too), but please let me take care of the findability of my galleries (and let me pay the price of my stupidity and errors if they become evident...)
Now to what you responded to LichtenHansen and the main issue itself: I have no doubts that my home page (and Category pages) will be more findable now.
However, my whole SEO (as well as Google's recommendations and intention) is based on selling (and wanting people to find) a specific product, namely, in my case, aerial photos of a specific location. Google makes its money from its AdWords (i spent a lot of my money on their 'pay per click'). They use the same guideline/search polices to deliver 'not for pay' results.
Again, what you did (the Title thing), is a tremendous improvement for the home and category pages. For some people who didn't do any SEO, it will also bring improvements to their galleries findability, However, for people like me, who are dependent on their galleries findability (and did everything SEO they could) it's a setback!!! (i think).
The only thing i request is to make the galleries names be the first (and only) thing in their title. (I don't mind, of course, having "powered by SmugMug" at the end).
You see, i gave a lot of thought to SEO my galleries and their names (knowing they become the Title), if i thought that adding the category name would be a good thing, i would have added it myself.
I'm a bit beyond teen age; i am responsible to what i do, PLEASE DON'T decide for me.
Also, i appreciate the fact that SmugMug is the most findable photo sharing website (it helps me too), but please let me take care of the findability of my galleries (and let me pay the price of my stupidity and errors if they become evident...)
I still support LichtenHansen 100%.
I'm positive that your galleries will be much more findable now than they ever have been before. I'm certainly not claiming this is the perfectly optimal solution, we will continue to improve, but to suggest that this change will somehow hurt your galleries is probably not true. We'll know more when the data has come in.
Staying on top of important technical details, like SEO optimization, is what I do. And I'm very good at my job. This release is the exact opposite of "a setback" - it will be a massive improvement. And there are more coming.
However, and I think this is an important thing that often gets overlooked with SEO, page optimizations are only part of the equation. And they're the smallest part. Google's ranking algorithm depends on two major elements:
1. The content on the page. We've just massively improved this (for galleries too, let's not forget). This is our job, and we'll continue to stay on top of it and be the best in the business. In essence, we're building this part of the product for you, with your help.
2. The # and type of pages linking to the page. Are there lots of pages linking to it? And are those pages relevant (do they talk about similar keywords?). This is your job. In essence, you're marketing and selling the product we've built together.
Of the two, #2 carries a much much larger weight in Google's algorithm than #1. #1 sets up the pitch, low and over the plate, but #2 is what determines where the ball goes when you swing. To get a home run, you need to work hard at #2 as well. (Harder than #1, in truth)
Unfortunately, #2 is something we have no control over. We're already providing lots of links from SmugMug, with all of our Google Juice, but you need to drum up links from other sources both to improve findability but also to improve rank.
9 times out of 10 that I personally get involved to analyze someone's Google rank of their SmugMug pages, it becomes very obvious that Google has effectively crawled their site, properly found their keywords and indexed them well, and then ranks them very low because there are simply no other inbound links. All the search terms come up (indicating Google got a great crawl), they're just low. When I dig, it turns out that the owner hasn't started a blog, they aren't using Twitter, they aren't posting on message forums, they aren't commenting on other photographer's blogs, and they aren't advertising anywhere.
In short, they expect us to somehow not only feed Google good keywords (again, we do this well, and will get better), but somehow bribe Google to count their keywords as "heavier" than other sites online. This, alas, is out of our power. I wish it weren't.
Getting the data about how your page is both indexed *and* ranked is fairly easy using Google's Webmaster tools. And if their tools aren't showing lots of high-quality inbound links, I promise you that improving that aspect of your site's profile will have a much more dramatic impact than anything I could possibly do.
I've notices that 'easy navigation urls' are completed. My galleries now have the name of the gallery in the web address. But they also still have the annoying gallery code at the end of the url. Is this the way it's going to be or can we get rid of the code?
I've notices that 'easy navigation urls' are completed. My galleries now have the name of the gallery in the web address. But they also still have the annoying gallery code at the end of the url. Is this the way it's going to be or can we get rid of the code?
Take a look at the "Critical NiceName gotcha" section from the release notes post . So you could trim the galleryID_key and it would work fine unless you rename the gallery nicename, (sub)category or move the gallery to a different (sub)category.
That's why we kept the galleryID at the end to ensure that your links even work after renaming or moving.
Take a look at the "Critical NiceName gotcha" section from the release notes post . So you could trim the galleryID_key and it would work fine unless you rename the gallery nicename, (sub)category or move the gallery to a different (sub)category.
That's why we kept the galleryID at the end to ensure that your links even work after renaming or moving.
Sebastian
Thanks it says it keeps the gallery ID by default, but I can't find a way to avoid it displaying. I ideally want my URL to look clean all the time.
This will work BUT - if you EVER change the nicename, then we'll drop the visitor on your category page (/Gallery). The #XXXXXXX_yyyyy stuff at the end, well, use that if you want permalinks that'll never break
Thanks Andy, I'm maybe not being very clear. If you click on the link in your post (which looks the way I want it). You go to my landscape gallery but the url changes to this:
Thanks Andy, I'm maybe not being very clear. If you click on the link in your post (which looks the way I want it). You go to my landscape gallery but the url changes to this:
9 times out of 10 that I personally get involved to analyze someone's Google rank of their SmugMug pages, it becomes very obvious that Google has effectively crawled their site, properly found their keywords and indexed them well, and then ranks them very low because there are simply no other inbound links. All the search terms come up (indicating Google got a great crawl), they're just low. When I dig, it turns out that the owner hasn't started a blog, they aren't using Twitter, they aren't posting on message forums, they aren't commenting on other photographer's blogs, and they aren't advertising anywhere.
In short, they expect us to somehow not only feed Google good keywords (again, we do this well, and will get better), but somehow bribe Google to count their keywords as "heavier" than other sites online. This, alas, is out of our power. I wish it weren't.
Getting the data about how your page is both indexed *and* ranked is fairly easy using Google's Webmaster tools. And if their tools aren't showing lots of high-quality inbound links, I promise you that improving that aspect of your site's profile will have a much more dramatic impact than anything I could possibly do.
Matt Cutts, Google's resident SEO expert and a good friend of mine, just posted a video and some slides from a talk he gave about two years ago. It's mostly geared towards bloggers, but there are some important gems in there that's relative to this discussion. The two most important ones are:
1. Keywords in the URL are the most important. He spends quite a bit of time on this. This is exactly what NiceNames just did.
2. You need to "Get noticed, then get traffic from Google" *not* "Get traffic from Google, then get noticed". It just doesn't happen the other way around. If you're not actively advertising, marketing, and promoting your site - having the very best SEO on your pages in the world won't get you anywhere. It'll result in well-crawled pages (which is what you have today) that Google thinks no-one likes or cares about.
Here's the blog post with both video and slides he posted this morning: SEO tips.
Actually, before we get off in the weeds with SEO semantics, I believe I can boil the argument down to one very simple choice. Would you rather:
1. Have your pages very well crawled, with the very best keywords noted in Google's index, but possibly less friendly titles showing up on the search results page? (I'm positive this is what we have today)
2. Have your pages less well crawled, possibly missing or de-emphasizing a few of your important keywords, but with more friendly titles showing up on the search results page? (I'm positive this is what you're asking for)
I believe the choice is really that simple. Today, we emphasize #1. But you may have a point - maybe we should sacrifice a few crawling optimizations in favor of simply making the Title easier to decipher on the results page. (This won't change the fact that you still need to advertise and market your pages - nothing we can do will change that, and it's the very most important thing you can do).
The example earlier from Andy's site shows just how bad it can be - Andy chose a very poor custom page title, so while his pages are getting well-indexed, it can be incredibly difficult for someone searching his photos to decide which link to click on.
If you answered #2, this probably all boils down to a communication problem. You've repeatedly asked over the years, and especially the last few months, that we work on SEO. Well, we worked on SEO - it's now pretty dang awesome. But what you really meant, possibly, isn't SEO at all costs, but findability. Those two things are often at odds with each other simply because machines and humans differ.
We're absolutely willing to back down a little on the SEO to enhance findability, but I believe we've executed well on what you asked us to do - optimize for SEO.
The example earlier from Andy's site shows just how bad it can be - Andy chose a very poor custom page title, so while his pages are getting well-indexed, it can be incredibly difficult for someone searching his photos to decide which link to click on.
I'm positive that your galleries will be much more findable now than they ever have been before. I'm certainly not claiming this is the perfectly optimal solution, we will continue to improve, but to suggest that this change will somehow hurt your galleries is probably not true. We'll know more when the data has come in.
Staying on top of important technical details, like SEO optimization, is what I do. And I'm very good at my job. This release is the exact opposite of "a setback" - it will be a massive improvement. And there are more coming.
However, and I think this is an important thing that often gets overlooked with SEO, page optimizations are only part of the equation. And they're the smallest part. Google's ranking algorithm depends on two major elements:
1. The content on the page. We've just massively improved this (for galleries too, let's not forget). This is our job, and we'll continue to stay on top of it and be the best in the business. In essence, we're building this part of the product for you, with your help.
2. The # and type of pages linking to the page. Are there lots of pages linking to it? And are those pages relevant (do they talk about similar keywords?). This is your job. In essence, you're marketing and selling the product we've built together.
Of the two, #2 carries a much much larger weight in Google's algorithm than #1. #1 sets up the pitch, low and over the plate, but #2 is what determines where the ball goes when you swing. To get a home run, you need to work hard at #2 as well. (Harder than #1, in truth)
Unfortunately, #2 is something we have no control over. We're already providing lots of links from SmugMug, with all of our Google Juice, but you need to drum up links from other sources both to improve findability but also to improve rank.
9 times out of 10 that I personally get involved to analyze someone's Google rank of their SmugMug pages, it becomes very obvious that Google has effectively crawled their site, properly found their keywords and indexed them well, and then ranks them very low because there are simply no other inbound links. All the search terms come up (indicating Google got a great crawl), they're just low. When I dig, it turns out that the owner hasn't started a blog, they aren't using Twitter, they aren't posting on message forums, they aren't commenting on other photographer's blogs, and they aren't advertising anywhere.
In short, they expect us to somehow not only feed Google good keywords (again, we do this well, and will get better), but somehow bribe Google to count their keywords as "heavier" than other sites online. This, alas, is out of our power. I wish it weren't.
Getting the data about how your page is both indexed *and* ranked is fairly easy using Google's Webmaster tools. And if their tools aren't showing lots of high-quality inbound links, I promise you that improving that aspect of your site's profile will have a much more dramatic impact than anything I could possibly do.
Hello OneThumb,
After a night sleep i think my mind is a bit clearer; i think i can clarify a few points.
I then found and appreciated your quick response. I know and agree to ALL the SEO points you mentioned. Yes, good links to a website are probably the best thing to have, but as you said, the hardest to do. By the way, in my Google Webmaster Tools i cannot find any external (and internal) links (including from my own other websites and DGrin from where i get referrals); maybe it takes a bit more time...
That is why i put so much emphasis on the Title, because it is so easier to control, UNLESS one has it's website with SmugMug which DOESN'T let it be controllable!!! You didn't even touch my and Allan's request regarding the GALLERY Titles (talking about frustration...)
Back to what i wanted to say; First, i cannot deny or cancel my [subjective, of course] past feeling of frustration, nor the feeling/fact(?) of lack of humbleness/listening/admitting mistakes by SmugMug. You should have witnessed my frustration with SmugMug responses when i expressed my concerns about my category pages being ignored by search engines (the new improvement/development you made will probably help a lot, still i felt that my concerns were not understood, even ignored).
I read/studied a lot about SmugMug before i decided to put my fate (and livelihood) here (abandoning the idea of my own website as well as moving from another online-photos business). I don't remember much of what i read, but i know you try to gear to three DIFFERENT groups of people. I'm sure that the many Google's employees which are members here (as you wrote), belong to the first (probably predominant) 'Standard' membership group. They, like other 'standard' members, have their own good reasons to be here, however, their paychecks arrive not from SmugMug. They pay $40 and get the BEST deal/service in the industry.
I rethought my needs which brought me to come to SmugMug... The nature of the ego is that it wants fame, a business NEEDS fame.
(I'll elaborate below about my experience with fame and the Internet.)
There are two more membership groups which i believe SmugMug wants to cater to. My ONLY reason coming to SmugMug was not fame, not gaining exposure not even selling a service, it was selling products (namely, stock aerial photos). I, in the Pro level, pay more then three times what a standard member pays. I don't feel bad that you take 15% of each sale. What makes me feel bad is my feeling that you think more (and consciously and unconsciously care more) about the first group.
I don't think there should be any basic contradictions between the 'care' you give to the three different members groups. You don't have to agree with me about what the best Title should be, just please let me do it my way. I pay you so you will let me control my marketing (galleries SEO); i'm willing to pay the price for my ignorance and mistakes. (I looked again at my Google Analytics and confirmed my ideas and knowledge as to what keywords people are using to reach my products/galleries).
I owned a business and some 15 years ago i moved from the Yellow Pages to the internet. I built my own website; i learned the hard way, and little by little got more 'fame' followed by more customers. I got money and fame but it wasn't enough for my stupid ego; after hard work and multiple tries i became an airline pilot (and captain). Realizing i was no more than a 'glorified bus driver', i left the airline a few years ago, resumed my business and built two additional websites. I spent more than a year on studying SEO as well as on using Google's 'Pay Per Click - AdWords'. I provided mostly services (vs. individual marketable products),- (the main service was aerial advertising/Skywriting the other was Aerial Photography). Because of that i needed no more than just a few pages on my websites. The internet was the only source of new customers (it was my job then, to retain them and get referrals by providing good service).
My needs have changed, i don't need fame, exposure or Findability, but the products i sell DO need those things. I try to sell my products (stock aerial photographs, stored in close to 300 galleries) via people finding specific locations following their search keywords. I think i know what i'm doing, i want my gallery name to be the first and only thing on the title (will be glad to have "powered by Smugmug"at the end).
That's always a more useful bit of name than "IMG_1234.jpg".
Hmm, this could be one of my issues. On my own website my images rank very high on GIS, they have been named with descriptions such as; guitar-player-studio.jpg plus the alt tags back the image up too. Aww, just too many images to re-name, maybe I'll pick a few from each gallery and work forwards from there :-)
The new nice names sounds like it's going to be a real help too!
That is why i put so much emphasis on the Title, because it is so easier to control, UNLESS one has it's website with SmugMug which DOESN'T let it be controllable!!!
But you can control the page title, by virtue of:
Your Custom Page Title (what you enter in advanced site-wide customizing page)
Your category names (using ours, or your custom names)
Your gallery names (decided by you).
So while you may wish to juggle the positioning (we heard your request before, above) you can control what goes in the page title. Now, more than ever before, on SmugMug.
Do we agree on this or am I missing something (not being funny - I really want to make sure this is correct). Thanks!
Hmm, this could be one of my issues. On my own website my images rank very high on GIS, they have been named with descriptions such as; guitar-player-studio.jpg plus the alt tags back the image up too. Aww, just too many images to re-name, maybe I'll pick a few from each gallery and work forwards from there :-)
Ah, can't find a way to rename image files on smuggy. Is there a trick?
Your Custom Page Title (what you enter in advanced site-wide customizing page)
Your category names (using ours, or your custom names)
Your gallery names (decided by you).
So while you may wish to juggle the positioning (we heard your request before, above) you can control what goes in the page title. Now, more than ever before, on SmugMug.
Do we agree on this or am I missing something (not being funny - I really want to make sure this is correct). Thanks!
Andy, thanks for getting back to me.
I think my frustration should be toward my lack of ability to explain and poor English. Maybe it would be better to pay attention to what Allan Hansen wrote you, he knows more than me. Also, i'm still expecting a response from OneThumb to the points i mentioned in my email.
I'll try to explain my point again.
In General, everything you did is a good SEO improvement, for me, but particularly for your members who don't want to sell thier photos, or didn't do any SEO before. I on the other hand don't need people to find my website, i don't need people to find my category pages (in any case i get enough referrals to both from my other two INDEPENDENT websites). I need people to find my products (aerial photos) after they search NOT for me, but for "aerial photos of manhattan" by asking Google to find it based on those words.
Now, everything you did is an improvement, the new Title thing will definitely improve my home and category pages findability. HOWEVER, my galleries (which i need the most) will suffer! Let me try to explain; yes i know i can CONTROL my gallery title a BIT with the three points you mentioned, but what i need (and Google needs) is a short and to the point Title. After the 'Improvement' SmugMug adds unnecessary and duplicate keywords (my category name) to my already REFINED and OPTIMIZED title.
What drives me crazy is SmugMugs insistence they know better without any reference to this specific point.
More than that, if technically it is hard for you now to make my title consist only of my gallery name, TELL me that, but don't brush this point off. And if you can technically accomplish it, why not let me fully control my galleries' titles and pay the price of my ignorance and stupidity later?!!!
I'll try to explain my point again.
In General, everything you did is a good SEO improvement, for me, but particularly for your members who don't want to sell thier photos, or didn't do any SEO before.
We did this for ALL our members, but specifically, for pros and others that want to be more easily found. Your statement that we did this for non-pros is incorrect, sorry.
What drives me crazy is SmugMugs insistence they know better without any reference to this specific point.
More than that, if technically it is hard for you now to make my title consist only of my gallery name, TELL me that, but don't brush this point off. And if you can technically accomplish it, why not let me fully control my galleries' titles and pay the price of my ignorance and stupidity later?!!!
We don't think this way at all, Amos. In fact, read my posts, and especially Don's posts, again, Thanks
That is why i put so much emphasis on the Title, because it is so easier to control, UNLESS one has it's website with SmugMug which DOESN'T let it be controllable!!! You didn't even touch my and Allan's request regarding the GALLERY Titles (talking about frustration...)
Maybe I'm missing something, but I've nothing *but* talk about gallery Titles in this thread. I'm sorry if that's not clear, but all of my posts have been about this central theme - optimizing gallery Titles.
There are two more membership groups which i believe SmugMug wants to cater to. My ONLY reason coming to SmugMug was not fame, not gaining exposure not even selling a service, it was selling products (namely, stock aerial photos). I, in the Pro level, pay more then three times what a standard member pays. I don't feel bad that you take 15% of each sale. What makes me feel bad is my feeling that you think more (and consciously and unconsciously care more) about the first group.
You've got it backwards. The poor Standard account holders are being left in the dust (relatively speaking, anyway) in terms of investment on our behalf. Nearly every engineer at the company has been working on nothing but features for Pros this year. I can't think of a single major thing anyone has worked on which has been for Standard accounts.
My reasoning for doing so is simple:
1. Our Standard account is already the best in the business. We want to improve it, but the urgency to do so is lessened when the product already rocks.
2. Pros pay more. As a result, we get more revenue, and in turn, can spend that revenue on engineering resources to build bigger, better, nicer features. Which, in turn, generates more sales as more Pros fall in love with us. And the cycle continues.
I don't think there should be any basic contradictions between the 'care' you give to the three different members groups. You don't have to agree with me about what the best Title should be, just please let me do it my way. I pay you so you will let me control my marketing (galleries SEO); i'm willing to pay the price for my ignorance and mistakes. (I looked again at my Google Analytics and confirmed my ideas and knowledge as to what keywords people are using to reach my products/galleries).
Actually, I'm afraid I have to disagree. You're paying for a premium service because we can do things better and/or more efficiently than you can. This includes SEO. In all humility, I guarantee you we have more SEO expertise on staff and through our close relationship with the people at our favorite search engines and the search engines themselves, than you do. You're paying us to solve problems like SEO for you, and to stay on top of the moving target that SEO is, so you don't have to. That's part of our job - and we have to work hard to earn your pay for that job.
Answering that important question would help a lot, since you keep saying you want SEO, but reading between the lines it sounds like you'd really rather have findability. They can be different, and in this case, I'm convinced they are.
what i need (and Google needs) is a short and to the point Title. After the 'Improvement' SmugMug adds unnecessary and duplicate keywords (my category name) to my already REFINED and OPTIMIZED title.
I never like having to work around someone else's limitations (lack of title customization, in this case), but why don't you just rename your galleries so the titles work for you? Aerial Photography : New York : Name of town. Maybe you just don't need to duplicate so much information. I love your use of the "map this" feature, but a lot of your site looks very cluttered and hard to read to me. Less might be better.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I've nothing *but* talk about gallery Titles in this thread. I'm sorry if that's not clear, but all of my posts have been about this central theme - optimizing gallery Titles.
You've got it backwards. The poor Standard account holders are being left in the dust (relatively speaking, anyway) in terms of investment on our behalf. Nearly every engineer at the company has been working on nothing but features for Pros this year. I can't think of a single major thing anyone has worked on which has been for Standard accounts.
My reasoning for doing so is simple:
1. Our Standard account is already the best in the business. We want to improve it, but the urgency to do so is lessened when the product already rocks.
2. Pros pay more. As a result, we get more revenue, and in turn, can spend that revenue on engineering resources to build bigger, better, nicer features. Which, in turn, generates more sales as more Pros fall in love with us. And the cycle continues.
Actually, I'm afraid I have to disagree. You're paying for a premium service because we can do things better and/or more efficiently than you can. This includes SEO. In all humility, I guarantee you we have more SEO expertise on staff and through our close relationship with the people at our favorite search engines and the search engines themselves, than you do. You're paying us to solve problems like SEO for you, and to stay on top of the moving target that SEO is, so you don't have to. That's part of our job - and we have to work hard to earn your pay for that job.
Answering that important question would help a lot, since you keep saying you want SEO, but reading between the lines it sounds like you'd really rather have findability. They can be different, and in this case, I'm convinced they are.
Thanks OneThumb;
First i need to apologize to you (and Andy); i was so close-minded, i didn't even try to follow your and Andy's advice to utilize the two new Title customization tools you provide. (I shortened the category name to indicate the the state's name only, and contemplating on doing a similar thing to my site name).
I think things are almost as i wanted them, thank you.
(I need your advice and will describe my needs at the end of this post).
I want to answer your question and to explain where i think our mutual misunderstanding comes from.
I want no Findability and no SEO, i want to sell very specific products which people find not by knowing me, but by inserting what they want into Google's search bar.
I understand your understanding that most of your Pro members want to be found first and then direct customers to what they sell.
I cannot claim i know SEO better than you and i don't know anybody from Google like you do, BUT, i have worked with (and paid) Google for more than ten years (while working on my own few websites' Findability and SEO) and i think i was able to learn something...
Anyway, i understand that, for whatever reasons, what i've asked for (fully control my galleries title) is not doable at this time, and, as i said earlier, i am happy enough with the new title tools you provide.
My questions:
After shortening the Category name I also want to shorten my title's nick name. I'll remove the word "photos" (since it already appears in my galleries name), but, do you think it's better to leave it empty (by replacing it with a 'dash' or a 'period'), leaving the nick name ("eMixPix"), or having the full website name ("eMixPix.com")?
Can i (and when) expect Google to find my keywords? My images' captions? My images' 'NiceNames'?
I understand SiteMap is coming (it might not be a big deal anyway), but will i be able to see how many visitors entered the Buy page? My reason behind it is that i need buyers not visitors. If i knew that many people entered the Buy page but still i get no sales, this might tell me my prices are too high.
If i get more visitors (and no sales) does SmugMug allow Google AdSense?
I've realized Google is not that smart; some days almost half of my [few] visitors are not after me or my products but after a porno site with a similar name (MixPix.com vs. mine, eMixPix.com). Do you have any Google friends with a solution? (imagine what happened when i tried to boast my site to my 85 yrs old mom and somehow the "e" didn't registered...)
There are other things i cannot recall, so thank you for your time and help.
Comments
Allan Ansen, THANK YOU, you saved my sanity.
My frustration with SmugMug's lack of some SEO basic understanding (in my opinion), lack of ability to listen and understand, and above all, lack of willingness to consider the possibility that they might have been wrong, all that, drove me crazy.
I'm 100% with you.
I think SmugMug's people are basically very very good and professional (with a bit of inflated ego), eventually everything will be perfect.
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
Please re-read what I wrote just earlier today, thanks!
Not to mention that we prove we listen to our customers, this SEO release was huge and was asked for by you, and many others.
Give us some time to check into what LichtenHansen and you are asking for, ok? I've never, ever, ever said we can't learn something.
If it makes sense to change, adapt, modify, we will.
Am making sense now? I hope so, but if I'm wrong, let me know
I said the very same thing to you by email just a few minutes ago.
Thank you (and ALL) for your patience.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Huh? I'm sorry, can you elaborate on this? We're really trying to be your advocate here. But maybe I'm missing something. Heck, maybe I misspoke, too - or said something unfortunate - can you be specific and elaborate? I surely don't want customers to think we've got inflated egos.
I personally believe that there are tons who know a lot more than I on plenty of subjects, and I learn stuff from our customers every single day.
Where's our fail?
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Actually, I did an awful lot of research in this area, and we continue to research appropriate SEO changes to the site. This is hardly our last SEO refinement, and there's a whole lot more coming. We don't talk about future products and enhancements, so I'm afraid I can't be more specific, but there's more coming.
First of all, the whole notion of the TITLE element being the most important is actually false. Google's algorithms are complicated and ever-changing, but one thing has mostly remained the same - the words in the URL matter more than any of the page content, including TITLE. Google's smart enough to realize the words at the end of the URL are "more specific" and thus given a higher weight. I'm positive that optimizing your NiceName usage will have a much bigger impact on your results than anything we can do with page TITLE.
Second, I can find no mention in Google's guidelines about what type and length the TITLE element should be. It's not that we "don't believe in the SEO guidelines from Google" it's that they basically don't exist. The best they give us is is to make it "descriptive and accurate". If I'm wrong about this, I'd love to see some links, but I think I've read most of the authoritative sites online.
Luckily, I know lots of engineers at Google, so I went right to the source. Given this is a public forum, and some of what I've learned I'd consider to be a competitive advantage, I'm not going to go into it right now - but much of it boils down to "What humans will find most useful, Google will too - since we're providing results to humans."
Given that general rule of thumb, most humans care greatly about the source of the search results, especially when it comes down to photographs. Lots of photograph topics (sports teams, celebrities, landmarks, etc) have millions and millions of pages. Which means as a human, you get presented with far too many results to process and have to choose which to select. Google helps here, but mostly what it comes down to is source: Where did the photos come from and how high quality are they? If it says "Sam Nichol's Pro Photography" prominently in the title, along with the content of the gallery, you as the user have some idea of what you're clicking on.
The second consideration is that lots of our Pros have asked us to help them build their brands. They want their businesses and studios to be recognized by both their clients and their future clients. In fact, when asked, many of them tell us that helping them establish and highlight their brand is one of the best things we can do for them.
This isn't to say you don't have a point - I can certainly see how some people may now have Titles which are too long and get truncated, but it's certainly safe to say that it's far too early to tell. We just made the change, and feel fairly strongly that it'll be a positive one. Once we've gauged the impact, we'll make some more changes - many of which will improve your search results even more. I refuse to simply jump around, making changes willy-nilly, without gathering cold hard data first. Once I have the data, I promise we'll make more changes.
A quick survey of random customer galleries show that most of you have gallery titles which are *very* descriptive, not too long, and will make wonderful Google search result entries. If your gallery and/or Category/SubCategory titles are too long, that's not something we have a lot of control over. The Category and SubCategory phrases provide lots of added search keywords and categorization, so it'd be a shame to lose them.
It should be noted that page TITLE used to provide a lot more weight than it does today. Google's algorithms have gotten much better, and relying on a single piece of information, particularly one that's so easy to "game" for SEO gain, isn't something they do nearly as much. This is why you'll see lots of pages and sites from earlier in the decade suggesting heavy TITLE optimization, but not so many in the last year or two.
Finally, I should close by mentioning that I know for a fact that Google has SmugMug-specific algorithms and optimizations. In essence, Google "understands" SmugMug very well. (I imagine, but don't know for sure, that they do this specialization for all large sites). If we aren't as perfectly optimized as some general site out there, Google may compensate for us - including by understanding that in our page titles, the gallery comes last. (The # of Google employees that have SmugMug accounts is truly staggering - including plenty of VPs.) We're certainly not relying on this to "save us", but it sure feels nice, no?
This isn't fair. In every 3rd party comparison with other photo sharing sites, we've come out on top with SEO. We have lots of work still to do (especially because it's a moving target), but we hardly "lack understanding". I'd love to see some examples where you (or anyone else) have taken identical photos and placed them on various photo sharing sites of similar default PageRank to us and haven't gotten the best rankings. I have yet to see such an example (and such comparisons have been done).
You'll have to back up "lack of ability to listen" even more. Every single feature, fix, and enhancement we build is based directly on customer feedback. We always listen. We may not act, but that's not what you accused us of - you accused us of not listening. (There are many reasons not to act - we may be too busy working on higher priority items, it may not be technically feasible, we may not have anyone talented in that field, etc - but we always listen). I defy you to find a case where we haven't listened.
Finally, we're wrong often. And we admit it often. Just search dgrin - you'll find lots of apologies.
Of course, as always, we're listening - so if I *am* wrong, speak up.
I am very happy with this update. I have been using a custom page title on SmugMug. This update gives me both descriptive page titles and urls. I am excited to see what the search engines do with this. I can also see how future improvements (site maps) could be built from this latest update. Thank you to the SmgMug team for this improvement and your work towards the improvements to follow.
Mark
weston.photos
Your response shows how much you DO care about SmugMug and its customer. However, my feelings of frustration did arrive from somewhere. Maybe something has to do with the fact that i have early-retired and i planned SmugMug to be my only source of livelihood. Also, i've spent a tremendous amount of time and energy customizing and SEO my site. Yes, my tolerance threshold, has probably become very low. Still, i was a business owner too, and utilized my customers feelings to learn about my service, not about them.
I'm quite new to SmugMug but did have a chance to go back and read a lot of these thread's posts in the past. Not only that frustration was quite prevalent but even the 'inability to admit wrongs', was mentioned.
As i wrote at the end of my post i believe SmugMug is made of good, competent and professional people. I trust you.
Now to what you responded to LichtenHansen and the main issue itself:
I have no doubts that my home page (and Category pages) will be more findable now.
However, my whole SEO (as well as Google's recommendations and intention) is based on selling (and wanting people to find) a specific product, namely, in my case, aerial photos of a specific location. Google makes its money from its AdWords (i spent a lot of my money on their 'pay per click'). They use the same guideline/search polices to deliver 'not for pay' results.
Again, what you did (the Title thing), is a tremendous improvement for the home and category pages. For some people who didn't do any SEO, it will also bring improvements to their galleries findability, However, for people like me, who are dependent on their galleries findability (and did everything SEO they could) it's a setback!!! (i think).
The only thing i request is to make the galleries names be the first (and only) thing in their title. (I don't mind, of course, having "powered by SmugMug" at the end).
You see, i gave a lot of thought to SEO my galleries and their names (knowing they become the Title), if i thought that adding the category name would be a good thing, i would have added it myself.
I'm a bit beyond teen age; i am responsible to what i do, PLEASE DON'T decide for me.
Also, i appreciate the fact that SmugMug is the most findable photo sharing website (it helps me too), but please let me take care of the findability of my galleries (and let me pay the price of my stupidity and errors if they become evident...)
I still support LichtenHansen 100%.
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
I'm positive that your galleries will be much more findable now than they ever have been before. I'm certainly not claiming this is the perfectly optimal solution, we will continue to improve, but to suggest that this change will somehow hurt your galleries is probably not true. We'll know more when the data has come in.
Staying on top of important technical details, like SEO optimization, is what I do. And I'm very good at my job. This release is the exact opposite of "a setback" - it will be a massive improvement. And there are more coming.
However, and I think this is an important thing that often gets overlooked with SEO, page optimizations are only part of the equation. And they're the smallest part. Google's ranking algorithm depends on two major elements:
1. The content on the page. We've just massively improved this (for galleries too, let's not forget). This is our job, and we'll continue to stay on top of it and be the best in the business. In essence, we're building this part of the product for you, with your help.
2. The # and type of pages linking to the page. Are there lots of pages linking to it? And are those pages relevant (do they talk about similar keywords?). This is your job. In essence, you're marketing and selling the product we've built together.
Of the two, #2 carries a much much larger weight in Google's algorithm than #1. #1 sets up the pitch, low and over the plate, but #2 is what determines where the ball goes when you swing. To get a home run, you need to work hard at #2 as well. (Harder than #1, in truth)
Unfortunately, #2 is something we have no control over. We're already providing lots of links from SmugMug, with all of our Google Juice, but you need to drum up links from other sources both to improve findability but also to improve rank.
9 times out of 10 that I personally get involved to analyze someone's Google rank of their SmugMug pages, it becomes very obvious that Google has effectively crawled their site, properly found their keywords and indexed them well, and then ranks them very low because there are simply no other inbound links. All the search terms come up (indicating Google got a great crawl), they're just low. When I dig, it turns out that the owner hasn't started a blog, they aren't using Twitter, they aren't posting on message forums, they aren't commenting on other photographer's blogs, and they aren't advertising anywhere.
In short, they expect us to somehow not only feed Google good keywords (again, we do this well, and will get better), but somehow bribe Google to count their keywords as "heavier" than other sites online. This, alas, is out of our power. I wish it weren't.
Getting the data about how your page is both indexed *and* ranked is fairly easy using Google's Webmaster tools. And if their tools aren't showing lots of high-quality inbound links, I promise you that improving that aspect of your site's profile will have a much more dramatic impact than anything I could possibly do.
Become a fan of Chris Humphreys Photography
That's why we kept the galleryID at the end to ensure that your links even work after renaming or moving.
Sebastian
SmugMug Support Hero
Thanks it says it keeps the gallery ID by default, but I can't find a way to avoid it displaying. I ideally want my URL to look clean all the time.
Become a fan of Chris Humphreys Photography
http://www.chrishumphreys.net/Gallery/Landscape-Photography
This will work
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Is this the way it will always be or can it be set to just display
Cheers
Chris
Become a fan of Chris Humphreys Photography
Yes, the albumID and albumKey are added by us (and needed!).
but your NiceName can be as I posted
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
http://www.smugmug.com/help/search-engines
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Matt Cutts, Google's resident SEO expert and a good friend of mine, just posted a video and some slides from a talk he gave about two years ago. It's mostly geared towards bloggers, but there are some important gems in there that's relative to this discussion. The two most important ones are:
1. Keywords in the URL are the most important. He spends quite a bit of time on this. This is exactly what NiceNames just did.
2. You need to "Get noticed, then get traffic from Google" *not* "Get traffic from Google, then get noticed". It just doesn't happen the other way around. If you're not actively advertising, marketing, and promoting your site - having the very best SEO on your pages in the world won't get you anywhere. It'll result in well-crawled pages (which is what you have today) that Google thinks no-one likes or cares about.
Here's the blog post with both video and slides he posted this morning: SEO tips.
1. Have your pages very well crawled, with the very best keywords noted in Google's index, but possibly less friendly titles showing up on the search results page? (I'm positive this is what we have today)
2. Have your pages less well crawled, possibly missing or de-emphasizing a few of your important keywords, but with more friendly titles showing up on the search results page? (I'm positive this is what you're asking for)
I believe the choice is really that simple. Today, we emphasize #1. But you may have a point - maybe we should sacrifice a few crawling optimizations in favor of simply making the Title easier to decipher on the results page. (This won't change the fact that you still need to advertise and market your pages - nothing we can do will change that, and it's the very most important thing you can do).
The example earlier from Andy's site shows just how bad it can be - Andy chose a very poor custom page title, so while his pages are getting well-indexed, it can be incredibly difficult for someone searching his photos to decide which link to click on.
If you answered #2, this probably all boils down to a communication problem. You've repeatedly asked over the years, and especially the last few months, that we work on SEO. Well, we worked on SEO - it's now pretty dang awesome. But what you really meant, possibly, isn't SEO at all costs, but findability. Those two things are often at odds with each other simply because machines and humans differ.
We're absolutely willing to back down a little on the SEO to enhance findability, but I believe we've executed well on what you asked us to do - optimize for SEO.
Your call.
That's always a more useful bit of name than "IMG_1234.jpg".
http://wall-art.smugmug.com/
Shortened them this morning - we'll see
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Hello OneThumb,
After a night sleep i think my mind is a bit clearer; i think i can clarify a few points.
I then found and appreciated your quick response. I know and agree to ALL the SEO points you mentioned. Yes, good links to a website are probably the best thing to have, but as you said, the hardest to do. By the way, in my Google Webmaster Tools i cannot find any external (and internal) links (including from my own other websites and DGrin from where i get referrals); maybe it takes a bit more time...
That is why i put so much emphasis on the Title, because it is so easier to control, UNLESS one has it's website with SmugMug which DOESN'T let it be controllable!!! You didn't even touch my and Allan's request regarding the GALLERY Titles (talking about frustration...)
Back to what i wanted to say; First, i cannot deny or cancel my [subjective, of course] past feeling of frustration, nor the feeling/fact(?) of lack of humbleness/listening/admitting mistakes by SmugMug. You should have witnessed my frustration with SmugMug responses when i expressed my concerns about my category pages being ignored by search engines (the new improvement/development you made will probably help a lot, still i felt that my concerns were not understood, even ignored).
I read/studied a lot about SmugMug before i decided to put my fate (and livelihood) here (abandoning the idea of my own website as well as moving from another online-photos business). I don't remember much of what i read, but i know you try to gear to three DIFFERENT groups of people. I'm sure that the many Google's employees which are members here (as you wrote), belong to the first (probably predominant) 'Standard' membership group. They, like other 'standard' members, have their own good reasons to be here, however, their paychecks arrive not from SmugMug. They pay $40 and get the BEST deal/service in the industry.
I rethought my needs which brought me to come to SmugMug... The nature of the ego is that it wants fame, a business NEEDS fame.
(I'll elaborate below about my experience with fame and the Internet.)
There are two more membership groups which i believe SmugMug wants to cater to. My ONLY reason coming to SmugMug was not fame, not gaining exposure not even selling a service, it was selling products (namely, stock aerial photos). I, in the Pro level, pay more then three times what a standard member pays. I don't feel bad that you take 15% of each sale. What makes me feel bad is my feeling that you think more (and consciously and unconsciously care more) about the first group.
I don't think there should be any basic contradictions between the 'care' you give to the three different members groups. You don't have to agree with me about what the best Title should be, just please let me do it my way. I pay you so you will let me control my marketing (galleries SEO); i'm willing to pay the price for my ignorance and mistakes. (I looked again at my Google Analytics and confirmed my ideas and knowledge as to what keywords people are using to reach my products/galleries).
I owned a business and some 15 years ago i moved from the Yellow Pages to the internet. I built my own website; i learned the hard way, and little by little got more 'fame' followed by more customers. I got money and fame but it wasn't enough for my stupid ego; after hard work and multiple tries i became an airline pilot (and captain). Realizing i was no more than a 'glorified bus driver', i left the airline a few years ago, resumed my business and built two additional websites. I spent more than a year on studying SEO as well as on using Google's 'Pay Per Click - AdWords'. I provided mostly services (vs. individual marketable products),- (the main service was aerial advertising/Skywriting the other was Aerial Photography). Because of that i needed no more than just a few pages on my websites. The internet was the only source of new customers (it was my job then, to retain them and get referrals by providing good service).
My needs have changed, i don't need fame, exposure or Findability, but the products i sell DO need those things. I try to sell my products (stock aerial photographs, stored in close to 300 galleries) via people finding specific locations following their search keywords. I think i know what i'm doing, i want my gallery name to be the first and only thing on the title (will be glad to have "powered by Smugmug"at the end).
Waiting to here and learn from your good ideas.
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
Hmm, this could be one of my issues. On my own website my images rank very high on GIS, they have been named with descriptions such as; guitar-player-studio.jpg plus the alt tags back the image up too. Aww, just too many images to re-name, maybe I'll pick a few from each gallery and work forwards from there :-)
The new nice names sounds like it's going to be a real help too!
http://recordproduction.smugmug.com
Canon 5DmkII, Canon 35L, Canon 85L, Canon 16-35L, Canon 200L,Canon 24-105L, Sigma 12-24mm etc.. Interfit lights, Canon ST-E2, Metz 58 AF-1, Manfrotto 190pro. Computers by Apple, hair by Shirley.
Your Custom Page Title (what you enter in advanced site-wide customizing page)
Your category names (using ours, or your custom names)
Your gallery names (decided by you).
So while you may wish to juggle the positioning (we heard your request before, above) you can control what goes in the page title. Now, more than ever before, on SmugMug.
Do we agree on this or am I missing something (not being funny - I really want to make sure this is correct). Thanks!
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Ah, can't find a way to rename image files on smuggy. Is there a trick?
http://recordproduction.smugmug.com
Canon 5DmkII, Canon 35L, Canon 85L, Canon 16-35L, Canon 200L,Canon 24-105L, Sigma 12-24mm etc.. Interfit lights, Canon ST-E2, Metz 58 AF-1, Manfrotto 190pro. Computers by Apple, hair by Shirley.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Ah curses! :cry
http://recordproduction.smugmug.com
Canon 5DmkII, Canon 35L, Canon 85L, Canon 16-35L, Canon 200L,Canon 24-105L, Sigma 12-24mm etc.. Interfit lights, Canon ST-E2, Metz 58 AF-1, Manfrotto 190pro. Computers by Apple, hair by Shirley.
Andy, thanks for getting back to me.
I think my frustration should be toward my lack of ability to explain and poor English. Maybe it would be better to pay attention to what Allan Hansen wrote you, he knows more than me. Also, i'm still expecting a response from OneThumb to the points i mentioned in my email.
I'll try to explain my point again.
In General, everything you did is a good SEO improvement, for me, but particularly for your members who don't want to sell thier photos, or didn't do any SEO before. I on the other hand don't need people to find my website, i don't need people to find my category pages (in any case i get enough referrals to both from my other two INDEPENDENT websites). I need people to find my products (aerial photos) after they search NOT for me, but for "aerial photos of manhattan" by asking Google to find it based on those words.
Now, everything you did is an improvement, the new Title thing will definitely improve my home and category pages findability. HOWEVER, my galleries (which i need the most) will suffer! Let me try to explain; yes i know i can CONTROL my gallery title a BIT with the three points you mentioned, but what i need (and Google needs) is a short and to the point Title. After the 'Improvement' SmugMug adds unnecessary and duplicate keywords (my category name) to my already REFINED and OPTIMIZED title.
What drives me crazy is SmugMugs insistence they know better without any reference to this specific point.
More than that, if technically it is hard for you now to make my title consist only of my gallery name, TELL me that, but don't brush this point off. And if you can technically accomplish it, why not let me fully control my galleries' titles and pay the price of my ignorance and stupidity later?!!!
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
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Maybe I'm missing something, but I've nothing *but* talk about gallery Titles in this thread. I'm sorry if that's not clear, but all of my posts have been about this central theme - optimizing gallery Titles.
You've got it backwards. The poor Standard account holders are being left in the dust (relatively speaking, anyway) in terms of investment on our behalf. Nearly every engineer at the company has been working on nothing but features for Pros this year. I can't think of a single major thing anyone has worked on which has been for Standard accounts.
My reasoning for doing so is simple:
1. Our Standard account is already the best in the business. We want to improve it, but the urgency to do so is lessened when the product already rocks.
2. Pros pay more. As a result, we get more revenue, and in turn, can spend that revenue on engineering resources to build bigger, better, nicer features. Which, in turn, generates more sales as more Pros fall in love with us. And the cycle continues.
Actually, I'm afraid I have to disagree. You're paying for a premium service because we can do things better and/or more efficiently than you can. This includes SEO. In all humility, I guarantee you we have more SEO expertise on staff and through our close relationship with the people at our favorite search engines and the search engines themselves, than you do. You're paying us to solve problems like SEO for you, and to stay on top of the moving target that SEO is, so you don't have to. That's part of our job - and we have to work hard to earn your pay for that job.
You still haven't replied, as far as I can see, to the most important post on this entire thread: Do you really want SEO? Or do you want findability?
Answering that important question would help a lot, since you keep saying you want SEO, but reading between the lines it sounds like you'd really rather have findability. They can be different, and in this case, I'm convinced they are.
I never like having to work around someone else's limitations (lack of title customization, in this case), but why don't you just rename your galleries so the titles work for you? Aerial Photography : New York : Name of town. Maybe you just don't need to duplicate so much information. I love your use of the "map this" feature, but a lot of your site looks very cluttered and hard to read to me. Less might be better.
Dave
First i need to apologize to you (and Andy); i was so close-minded, i didn't even try to follow your and Andy's advice to utilize the two new Title customization tools you provide. (I shortened the category name to indicate the the state's name only, and contemplating on doing a similar thing to my site name).
I think things are almost as i wanted them, thank you.
(I need your advice and will describe my needs at the end of this post).
I want to answer your question and to explain where i think our mutual misunderstanding comes from.
I want no Findability and no SEO, i want to sell very specific products which people find not by knowing me, but by inserting what they want into Google's search bar.
I understand your understanding that most of your Pro members want to be found first and then direct customers to what they sell.
I cannot claim i know SEO better than you and i don't know anybody from Google like you do, BUT, i have worked with (and paid) Google for more than ten years (while working on my own few websites' Findability and SEO) and i think i was able to learn something...
Anyway, i understand that, for whatever reasons, what i've asked for (fully control my galleries title) is not doable at this time, and, as i said earlier, i am happy enough with the new title tools you provide.
My questions:
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