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
Thanks Dave for your advice; i've already utilized part of it.
As for the 'Map This'/Google Map, you are right. Initially i spent tremendous amount of time and energy to learn Google Map's API's and actually did it on my own website. When i learned about that feature in SmugMug, i abandoned the idea of independent website and joined SmugMug. I use my other websites basically only for the purpose of sending potential customers to my site with SmugMug; i get many more hits to them then to here (well, i know the guy who did the SEO there...)
Anyway, regarding your remark about cluttered pages, i appreciate what you say and am trying to minimize it, but was afraid that without a thorough explanation people would not be able to fully utilize what i have to offer. What do you think?
You said "a lot of your site"; but all my galleries are basically the same, what did you mean, are some parts seem less cluttered?
Sure you can. Post in customizing forum if you need help
Thanks Andy
I hope i'll be able to sell enough photos so i don't need AdSense; but it's nice to know you allow it.
I am afraid i was too fast declaring finding solution. I shortened a category name (from "Aerial Photos of Connecticut" to "Connecticut"), so i can minimize the negative (in my opinion only, of course) effect of the new title changes. However, this changes the address of that page, and all my many internal and external links to that page don't function any more. Did i miss something? Any solution?
my site has recently been crawled by google and your changes have been noticed by google.
i have done a search on a few things, and it has been a common occurrence to find the a listing on the first page on googles search, a few showed up on the third page, ... what surprised me, is a few a searched were very common places -> so i was impressed on them showing up on the first page .....
now when i select images from / with the search results, it is rather hit and miss -> more often the image seems to be so far down that i quit looking -> however, i am pleased on how this is working so far ... such an improvement! maybe in time my images will surface closer, but again to have the url show up with the blurp of my key words / description ect is great! you have restored my faith in smugmug!
Page titles -SEO
Thanks a lot onethumb for the detailed explanations.
I’m much assured now that SEO is in very good hands. The last release was a important first step forward both for SEO and visitor navigation.
When it comes to titles I do think you are wrong.
Googler recommend a “short and informative title that clearly describes the content of the page”.
To me this means: an example (I assume Plain English URL’s one day will include photo pages as well.
Home page: Wildlife and natue photos by LichtenHansen – Allan Hansen
Category page: Penguin photo galleries from Antarctica by LichtenHansen
Gallery page: Gentoo penguin photos from South Georgia island and Antarctica.
Photo page: Gentoo penguin pooping in the snow. Photo from Peterman Island in Antarctica.
And the corresponding new URL:
/penguins/Gentoo/poop-in-snow/xxxxxx-yyyyyy
These kinds of tiles would clearly describe the content on those pages in a short and informative way.
I do not think that the photographer name is extremely important if people are looking for a “Pooping penguin in snow” or “gentoo penguin in Antarctica”
There are 1000’s of good penguin photos. I want to tell them that I have one of them. My name is not relevant at this level.
I might start to promote my name at the category level, and I would love to be able to use 64 characters on my home page instead of just “LichtenHansen’s photos”.
“LichtenHansen” is not very descriptive nor is” LichtenHansen’s photos”.
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
I couldn’t agree more. I do have a few very important question here?
What about my old links to /gallery/xxxxxxx-yyyyy (now it is /penguins/Gentoo/xxxxxxx-yyyyy.)
And when I do a link to a photo /penguins/Gentoo/poop-in-snow/xxxxxxx-yyyyy or a gallery penguins/Gentoo/xxxxxxx-yyyyy.
What will happen with that link if I move the photo to another gallery or renaming my category or move my gallery to another category?
Are they redirected (in SEO terms) to the new URL?
Or do I have to start all over linking to those gallerand photos?
I’m very pleased to hear that more SEO-improvements are in the works.
Thanks a lot Onethumb, Andy and the whole Smugmug team.
Keep up the good work.
I couldn’t agree more. I do have a few very important question here?
What about my old links to /gallery/xxxxxxx-yyyyy (now it is /penguins/Gentoo/xxxxxxx-yyyyy.)
And when I do a link to a photo /penguins/Gentoo/poop-in-snow/xxxxxxx-yyyyy or a gallery penguins/Gentoo/xxxxxxx-yyyyy.
What will happen with that link if I move the photo to another gallery or renaming my category or move my gallery to another category?
Are they redirected (in SEO terms) to the new URL?
Or do I have to start all over linking to those gallerand photos?
I’m very pleased to hear that more SEO-improvements are in the works.
Thanks a lot Onethumb, Andy and the whole Smugmug team.
Keep up the good work.
Andy, OneThumb, and the whole Smugmug team,
The new SEO improvements are great! I'm really looking forward to better indexing by the search engines that this upgrade will provide. It must have been a huge undertaking to get everything to work and still be backward-compatable with your existing infrastructure.
I'm sure it is frustrating after all that effort to have some of your customers fuss about the outcome. I don't see how anyone can find a problem with the new URL system. But as far as the page titles go, the disappointment comes because no one expected the non-standard way it is implemented. The titles basically reflect the URL, and I have never seen any other site do this. We all know that search engine results show the page title first and foremost, and there will be a lot of redundancy when every single page has the same custom name followed by the category name upfront. Titles are supposed to be unique, not semi-unique. Still, what we currently have is a vast improvement and I can live with it.
That being said, I wonder why there is so much resistance to giving your customers control of the title naming? Surely it can't be all that hard compared to the URL changes you guys just did. I mean, we can currently put our own meta-keywords on gallery pages, which pops some text on the pages html code. How difficult can it be to do the same thing with page titles? Please give it further consideration.
I've been following (lurking) on this thread for a long time and glad to see the progess you've made. Thanks for all the work you've done.
I've seen a huge improvement in my search results for Google Web. Moving on, will the next set of improvements address finding images in Google Images?
I've been following (lurking) on this thread for a long time and glad to see the progess you've made. Thanks for all the work you've done.
I've seen a huge improvement in my search results for Google Web. Moving on, will the next set of improvements address finding images in Google Images?
That's always a more useful bit of name than "IMG_1234.jpg".
It sounds like getting the filename to include keywords is the way to improve SEO especially Google Images.
If I rename the original uploaded file (append keywords to file name) then
do a replace photo, is that all I would have to do?
Thinking exif, caption, GEO, KW's etc.
As an expreiment, I renamed original on pc adding text to file name
IMG_2746.jpg to IMG_2746 Sedge Wren.jpg
made a 2nd copy in gallery for safety (hid original)
replaced 2nd copy with newly renamed file
everything seems to have been picked up
Link to new photo here
Edit: do I have to expose filenames on page? Only show logged in now.
Have no idea or have no idea how the text is used from a filename. Is the IMG
part a negative? Wish someone that might know would explain how best to
construct a filename for SEO.
Image names should be done essentially the same as page title or URL structure or anything else. They should have the keywords you are targeting and nothing else (except maybe a single number, at the end, if you have multiples of the same sjubject). My subject matter is national parks, and I name all my images like so:
Park_Location_01 (Yellowstone_Moose_Falls_01)
Although, as of right now, I don't think it matters on SM, except that the default keywords for the photo are taken from the filename. Until they change something, the filename is never shown anywhere in the source, which is why GIS can't find them reliably. Search your source for .jpg, you won't find it.
Have no idea or have no idea how the text is used from a filename. Is the IMG
part a negative? Wish someone that might know would explain how best to
construct a filename for SEO.
Allen,
I followed your link to your website; the Title behaves strangely (for a split second) but it seems you have full control over your pages' Titles, how were you able to achieve that?
Any idea what makes a better target for investing time, image name or its caption? (i can easily change the captions on SmugMug, while file names are a different story).
Thanks Andy but i'm still missing something.
Since you don't give me full control over my titles, i'm trying to minimize/shorten anything that is in excess (category etc) to my gallery name .
I thank you and appreciate the new galleries web addresses, but my big concern is the Title!! - the NiceName is not being reflected in the title! Is something wrong with my site or we had a misunderstanding?
I followed your link to your website; the Title behaves strangely (for a split second) but it seems you have full control over your pages' Titles, how were you able to achieve that?
Any idea what makes a better target for investing time, image name or its caption? (i can easily change the captions on SmugMug, while file names are a different story).
Thanks.
I think I composed that on the advanced site-wide customization page in the
control panel. It only allows a limited No. of characters so had to adjust to
look right. Weird, the box is blank now.
I think I composed that on the advanced site-wide customization page in the
control panel. It only allows a limited No. of characters so had to adjust to
look right. Weird, the box is blank now.
I'm sorry Allen, i didn't understand a single thing you said.
I'm sorry Allen, i didn't understand a single thing you said.
Have you seen this on the advanced site-wide customization page in your control panel.
Page Title (optional)
The page title is crucial if you want to be found in Google search results.
It appears on the top bar of your browser window (such as on Internet Explorer)
on all your SmugMug pages. A good example is "Moon River Photography -- Andy Williams".
Thanks much Adam; I noticed, however, that this hack doesn't actually change the title's meta tag of the page. I'm interested in the SEO function of the title and much less in what appears on the browser.
As you wrote regarding images ("They should have the keywords you are targeting and nothing else"), now after the new 'improvement', SmugMug arbitrarily adds excess keywords to the title by adding to it the category name (in addition to the gallery name which was there before).
I gave up on trying to convince them.
Do you know, by the way, if image name and image caption have the same importance/weight as keywords for search engines? I don't think either are being picked up on my site, but it's much easier for me to work on the captions...
Also, do you know if our keywords are seen by search engines?
Yes, the hack is javascript, which means Google will not see it, which I why I haven't bothered to use it. I'm fine with page titles as they are since the Nicenames update. Would I like to be able to set them all exactly as I want? Sure, but this is pretty good.
The image names and Google Image Search are another matter. Since SM doesn't show the actual filename, or even a jpg extension, anywhere in the page source, at the MOMENT, filenames are meaningless. I'm hoping (and assuming) that is a change that is coming very soon, since filenames are the most important factor in the search, along with alt tags, when they are seen.
So, for now, filenames are not seen by google, but captions and keywords are, so if you're worried about right now, work on captions. Going forward though, I would certainly name every file you upload descriptively. And who knows, maybe SM will add a tool to easily rename files in the future.
Yes, the hack is javascript, which means Google will not see it, which I why I haven't bothered to use it. I'm fine with page titles as they are since the Nicenames update. Would I like to be able to set them all exactly as I want? Sure, but this is pretty good.
The image names and Google Image Search are another matter. Since SM doesn't show the actual filename, or even a jpg extension, anywhere in the page source, at the MOMENT, filenames are meaningless. I'm hoping (and assuming) that is a change that is coming very soon, since filenames are the most important factor in the search, along with alt tags, when they are seen.
So, for now, filenames are not seen by google, but captions and keywords are, so if you're worried about right now, work on captions. Going forward though, I would certainly name every file you upload descriptively. And who knows, maybe SM will add a tool to easily rename files in the future.
Thanks Adam,
I still wasn't sure about the importance of the the image name, so, a few minutes ago i typed a keyword phrase in Google search bar and asked to search images.
Every single image (in the first couple of pages i checked) had the keyword in a caption or description. As far as i was able to find, very few images if at all, had any of the keywords in it's name.
It might be wiser to spend energy on the caption and/or description next to an image rather than on it's name. It's still a very good practice to name images with a meaningful description keywords. (just don't do what i did - putting a serial number first)
I have mentioned this before, but got no response. Google is indexing other people SmugMug sites as part of my custom hostname. Do a google search, site:www.uwencounters.com. You will see /prints/ceramic-tile-photo-mosaic and /community/5DMarkIIVideo and on and on. Tons of links that are in no way associated with my site are being indexed as part of my site. For some reason they are not indexed as part of lucasprice.smugmug.com.
What this leads to literally thousands of duplicate meta descriptions and thousands of duplicate title tags. On lucasprice.smugmug.com those duplicates do not exist. Google is punishing my site severely. No matter what the search the smugmug site comes up before the custom hostname. The latest incarnation of SmugMug SEO may work better for sending people directly to photos or galleries, but SmugMug is sabotaging any efforts to send traffic to my custom hostname. What should I do?
Page Titles Continue to Evolve
It looks like the page titles changed again to show the name of the page you are on first followed by your custom site name. Looks good. When I am on a gallery page the page title is the gallery title followed by - Mark Weston Photography. Same is true for the category and sub-category pages.
It looks like the page titles changed again to show the name of the page you are on first followed by your custom site name. Looks good. When I am on a gallery page the page title is the gallery title followed by - Mark Weston Photography. Same is true for the category and sub-category pages.
AWESOME! This is much better for search results in my opinion. Thanks for this improvement Smugmug team!
Yeah, that's nice, except that I just set up my entire site hierarchy assuming the title set up they were using before. Now, my titles are missing basically every important keyword I need (which I put in category names, which are no longer in the title at all)
MAKE UP YOUR MIND, or give us complete title control. I've just fixed my names, again, and nows it's better, yes. But please settle on a format. I don't have time to rename things on a daily basis.
Comments
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
As for the 'Map This'/Google Map, you are right. Initially i spent tremendous amount of time and energy to learn Google Map's API's and actually did it on my own website. When i learned about that feature in SmugMug, i abandoned the idea of independent website and joined SmugMug. I use my other websites basically only for the purpose of sending potential customers to my site with SmugMug; i get many more hits to them then to here (well, i know the guy who did the SEO there...)
Anyway, regarding your remark about cluttered pages, i appreciate what you say and am trying to minimize it, but was afraid that without a thorough explanation people would not be able to fully utilize what i have to offer. What do you think?
You said "a lot of your site"; but all my galleries are basically the same, what did you mean, are some parts seem less cluttered?
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
Thanks Andy
I hope i'll be able to sell enough photos so i don't need AdSense; but it's nice to know you allow it.
I am afraid i was too fast declaring finding solution. I shortened a category name (from "Aerial Photos of Connecticut" to "Connecticut"), so i can minimize the negative (in my opinion only, of course) effect of the new title changes. However, this changes the address of that page, and all my many internal and external links to that page don't function any more. Did i miss something? Any solution?
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
thank you smugmug ..........
my site has recently been crawled by google and your changes have been noticed by google.
i have done a search on a few things, and it has been a common occurrence to find the a listing on the first page on googles search, a few showed up on the third page, ... what surprised me, is a few a searched were very common places -> so i was impressed on them showing up on the first page
now when i select images from / with the search results, it is rather hit and miss -> more often the image seems to be so far down that i quit looking -> however, i am pleased on how this is working so far ... such an improvement! maybe in time my images will surface closer, but again to have the url show up with the blurp of my key words / description ect is great! you have restored my faith in smugmug!
thanks again!!!!
Thanks a lot onethumb for the detailed explanations.
I’m much assured now that SEO is in very good hands. The last release was a important first step forward both for SEO and visitor navigation.
I agree and Google explain in details how to accomplish that in Google SEO starter guide (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/11/googles-seo-starter-guide.html) and Get up-to-date on Image Search (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/03/get-up-to-date-on-image-search.html).
When it comes to titles I do think you are wrong.
Googler recommend a “short and informative title that clearly describes the content of the page”.
To me this means: an example (I assume Plain English URL’s one day will include photo pages as well.
Home page: Wildlife and natue photos by LichtenHansen – Allan Hansen
Category page: Penguin photo galleries from Antarctica by LichtenHansen
Gallery page: Gentoo penguin photos from South Georgia island and Antarctica.
Photo page: Gentoo penguin pooping in the snow. Photo from Peterman Island in Antarctica.
And the corresponding new URL:
/penguins/Gentoo/poop-in-snow/xxxxxx-yyyyyy
These kinds of tiles would clearly describe the content on those pages in a short and informative way.
I do not think that the photographer name is extremely important if people are looking for a “Pooping penguin in snow” or “gentoo penguin in Antarctica”
There are 1000’s of good penguin photos. I want to tell them that I have one of them. My name is not relevant at this level.
I might start to promote my name at the category level, and I would love to be able to use 64 characters on my home page instead of just “LichtenHansen’s photos”.
“LichtenHansen” is not very descriptive nor is” LichtenHansen’s photos”.
So, again, I would love to have full control of my page titles or at least have order reversed (Also mentioned by Matt Cutts in the http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/wordcamp-2007-talk-whitehat-seo-tips-for-bloggers/)
I couldn’t agree more. I do have a few very important question here?
What about my old links to /gallery/xxxxxxx-yyyyy (now it is /penguins/Gentoo/xxxxxxx-yyyyy.)
And when I do a link to a photo /penguins/Gentoo/poop-in-snow/xxxxxxx-yyyyy or a gallery penguins/Gentoo/xxxxxxx-yyyyy.
What will happen with that link if I move the photo to another gallery or renaming my category or move my gallery to another category?
Are they redirected (in SEO terms) to the new URL?
Or do I have to start all over linking to those gallerand photos?
I’m very pleased to hear that more SEO-improvements are in the works.
Thanks a lot Onethumb, Andy and the whole Smugmug team.
Keep up the good work.
Panoramio: Spectacular photos on Google Earth
Google: Allan Hansen - fotograf og IT-nørd
Blogs: Photo and SEO news by LichtenHansen, Allan Hansen foto nyheder, Antarctica Travel
Homepage: Fotograf Allan Hansen, Unusual wildlife photos
Use nicenames
http://andydemo.smugmug.com/DemoSite/SmugMugPDF Notice the gallery title is different than the nicename.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
or 2) add the canonical tag http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html
How can we do this?
IDIC Photo
http://www.idic-photo.com
Portraits - Weddings - Events - Products
www.idic-photo.com
The new SEO improvements are great! I'm really looking forward to better indexing by the search engines that this upgrade will provide. It must have been a huge undertaking to get everything to work and still be backward-compatable with your existing infrastructure.
I'm sure it is frustrating after all that effort to have some of your customers fuss about the outcome. I don't see how anyone can find a problem with the new URL system. But as far as the page titles go, the disappointment comes because no one expected the non-standard way it is implemented. The titles basically reflect the URL, and I have never seen any other site do this. We all know that search engine results show the page title first and foremost, and there will be a lot of redundancy when every single page has the same custom name followed by the category name upfront. Titles are supposed to be unique, not semi-unique. Still, what we currently have is a vast improvement and I can live with it.
That being said, I wonder why there is so much resistance to giving your customers control of the title naming? Surely it can't be all that hard compared to the URL changes you guys just did. I mean, we can currently put our own meta-keywords on gallery pages, which pops some text on the pages html code. How difficult can it be to do the same thing with page titles? Please give it further consideration.
Thanks,
Joel
http://www.joelfletcher.com
I've been following (lurking) on this thread for a long time and glad to see the progess you've made. Thanks for all the work you've done.
I've seen a huge improvement in my search results for Google Web. Moving on, will the next set of improvements address finding images in Google Images?
Pete
http://pkzphotos.smugmug.com
Become a fan of Chris Humphreys Photography
If I rename the original uploaded file (append keywords to file name) then
do a replace photo, is that all I would have to do?
Thinking exif, caption, GEO, KW's etc.
As an expreiment, I renamed original on pc adding text to file name
IMG_2746.jpg to IMG_2746 Sedge Wren.jpg
made a 2nd copy in gallery for safety (hid original)
replaced 2nd copy with newly renamed file
everything seems to have been picked up
Link to new photo here
Edit: do I have to expose filenames on page? Only show logged in now.
My Website index | My Blog
Would IMG_2746-Sedge-Wren.jpg be a better name?
part a negative? Wish someone that might know would explain how best to
construct a filename for SEO.
My Website index | My Blog
Park_Location_01 (Yellowstone_Moose_Falls_01)
Although, as of right now, I don't think it matters on SM, except that the default keywords for the photo are taken from the filename. Until they change something, the filename is never shown anywhere in the source, which is why GIS can't find them reliably. Search your source for .jpg, you won't find it.
Allen,
- I followed your link to your website; the Title behaves strangely (for a split second) but it seems you have full control over your pages' Titles, how were you able to achieve that?
- Any idea what makes a better target for investing time, image name or its caption? (i can easily change the captions on SmugMug, while file names are a different story).
Thanks.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
Thanks Andy but i'm still missing something.
Since you don't give me full control over my titles, i'm trying to minimize/shorten anything that is in excess (category etc) to my gallery name .
I thank you and appreciate the new galleries web addresses, but my big concern is the Title!! - the NiceName is not being reflected in the title! Is something wrong with my site or we had a misunderstanding?
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
control panel. It only allows a limited No. of characters so had to adjust to
look right. Weird, the box is blank now.
My Website index | My Blog
I'm sorry Allen, i didn't understand a single thing you said.
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
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=25861
Page Title (optional)
The page title is crucial if you want to be found in Google search results.
It appears on the top bar of your browser window (such as on Internet Explorer)
on all your SmugMug pages. A good example is "Moon River Photography -- Andy Williams".
My Website index | My Blog
Thanks much Adam; I noticed, however, that this hack doesn't actually change the title's meta tag of the page. I'm interested in the SEO function of the title and much less in what appears on the browser.
As you wrote regarding images ("They should have the keywords you are targeting and nothing else"), now after the new 'improvement', SmugMug arbitrarily adds excess keywords to the title by adding to it the category name (in addition to the gallery name which was there before).
I gave up on trying to convince them.
Do you know, by the way, if image name and image caption have the same importance/weight as keywords for search engines? I don't think either are being picked up on my site, but it's much easier for me to work on the captions...
Also, do you know if our keywords are seen by search engines?
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 image names and Google Image Search are another matter. Since SM doesn't show the actual filename, or even a jpg extension, anywhere in the page source, at the MOMENT, filenames are meaningless. I'm hoping (and assuming) that is a change that is coming very soon, since filenames are the most important factor in the search, along with alt tags, when they are seen.
So, for now, filenames are not seen by google, but captions and keywords are, so if you're worried about right now, work on captions. Going forward though, I would certainly name every file you upload descriptively. And who knows, maybe SM will add a tool to easily rename files in the future.
You succeded.
Panoramio: Spectacular photos on Google Earth
Google: Allan Hansen - fotograf og IT-nørd
Blogs: Photo and SEO news by LichtenHansen, Allan Hansen foto nyheder, Antarctica Travel
Homepage: Fotograf Allan Hansen, Unusual wildlife photos
In what, Allen, in giving up or in convincing them?
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
Thanks Adam,
I still wasn't sure about the importance of the the image name, so, a few minutes ago i typed a keyword phrase in Google search bar and asked to search images.
Every single image (in the first couple of pages i checked) had the keyword in a caption or description. As far as i was able to find, very few images if at all, had any of the keywords in it's name.
It might be wiser to spend energy on the caption and/or description next to an image rather than on it's name. It's still a very good practice to name images with a meaningful description keywords. (just don't do what i did - putting a serial number first)
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 do wish you'd re-read my, and more importantly, Don's recent posts in this thread.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
What this leads to literally thousands of duplicate meta descriptions and thousands of duplicate title tags. On lucasprice.smugmug.com those duplicates do not exist. Google is punishing my site severely. No matter what the search the smugmug site comes up before the custom hostname. The latest incarnation of SmugMug SEO may work better for sending people directly to photos or galleries, but SmugMug is sabotaging any efforts to send traffic to my custom hostname. 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
It looks like the page titles changed again to show the name of the page you are on first followed by your custom site name. Looks good. When I am on a gallery page the page title is the gallery title followed by - Mark Weston Photography. Same is true for the category and sub-category pages.
http://www.markwestonphotography.com/Travel/France/Ile-de-France-2008/6062768_NCkgN/1/380233860_7c34F
has a page title of:
Ile de France 2008 - Mark Weston Photography
Cool stuff. Thank you, Mark
weston.photos
AWESOME! This is much better for search results in my opinion. Thanks for this improvement Smugmug team!
http://www.joelfletcher.com
MAKE UP YOUR MIND, or give us complete title control. I've just fixed my names, again, and nows it's better, yes. But please settle on a format. I don't have time to rename things on a daily basis.