Is there anything I need to do, or is the "brian-photos" something that SmugMug can cleanup on the backend for me?
Thanks!
You could wait for our system to do this all for you. But if you want to enter the sitemap, use
/sitemap-base.xml.gz
/sitemap-galleries.xml.gz
/sitemap-images.xml.gz
Thank you for the fast reply. I entered each one manually and get the same error under each:
"URL not allowed. This url is not allowed for a Sitemap at this location" ...each URL then references the "brian-photos". If it's just a replication/sync issue that I should wait on, I can wait and see. I just want to make sure it's not something I did incorrectly.
I manage the SMUG in San Francisco and am looking for a rock star SEO speaker. If you know anyone, please forward me their contact info.
Thanks.
Joey
The Sacramento SMUG is having Zach Prez in to speak this Wednesday. I don't know much about him, and it's only our second meeting, but he is local (which puts him within driving distance to you) and was there at the first meeting... Check out his site at http://photographers-seo.com/ and I'm sending him a message on FB to come check your post.
I notice this on a lot of sites, especially where they are selling services.
There is no clue or it's very hard to find where they are located. As an
example, if someone is looking for a wedding photographer it would be nice if
their location was prominent and SEO picks it up.
Zach Prez is the photographer SEO specialist @smilenj
I specialize in SEO for photogs and would love to speak at the SF Smug Club about getting better search results. I'm speaking at the Sacramento Smug Club tomorrow and have an SEO Workshop coming to the bay very soon. You can ask Markham and Andy about my credentials. Reach me at photographersseo[@]gmail[.]com
However sit<wbr>ema<wbr>p-b<wbr>ase<wbr>.xm<wbr>l.g<wbr>z and sit<wbr>ema<wbr>p-g<wbr>all<wbr>eri<wbr>es.<wbr>xml<wbr>.gz are fine and working.
You had told me to wait for Google, or to add it again. I have done both but to no avail.
Here's the error I'm still getting:
sit<wbr>ema<wbr>p-i<wbr>mag<wbr>es.<wbr>xml<wbr>.gz : Sitemap file size error
Your Sitemap exceeds the maximum file size limit. Please create multiple Sitemaps containing fewer URLs to meet the file size limit.
Problem detected on: Aug 12, 2010
What do you suggest? Should it take this long to clear the error?
Lou and Dave,
Our Chief Geek suggests you contact Google about this.
"The Sitemaps site says it needs to be less than 10MB but can be compressed (theirs is ~650KB compressed) and less then 50,000 URLs (theirs is ~33,000), so it should be fine."
That's for your file, Lou.
Lou and Dave,
Our Chief Geek suggests you contact Google about this.
"The Sitemaps site says it needs to be less than 10MB but can be compressed (theirs is ~650KB compressed) and less then 50,000 URLs (theirs is ~33,000), so it should be fine."
That's for your file, Lou.
A Sitemap file can contain no more than 50,000 URLs and be no larger than 10MB when uncompressed. If your Sitemap is larger than this, break it into several smaller Sitemaps and list these in a Sitemap index file.
You can gzip-compress them to save bandwidth, but the limit on 10Mb is for the uncompressed file.
It might be a good idea to contact the Chief Geek again.
My site map images show that 489 url's were submitted, but none are indexed. I'm assuming the indexing just takes time (?), but how can I determine how many MB are in those 489 url's?
In desperate need of answers...
I'm in desperate need of some straight forward answers... I have read many many pages here on the forum, however I just can't put the pieces together... I think I may be a bit more confused now then when I started a few days ago.
Concern #1: Most of the pages that show when I Google: site:www.irrok.com appear with a meta description provided by SmugMug. I am not yet sure if this can be changed to reflect my Bio / Meta Description or if this is something that I should not be concerned about. Please explain...
Concern #2: My Google Webmasters Tools tells me that I have a problem with Duplicate Title Tags. The list contains 152 Titles each showing 2 to 30 duplicates each. I am not yet 100% sure if this actually will hurt my rankings. If I need to address this how long does it normally take to reflect in Web Master Tools?
Please explain...
Concern #3: Do Unlisted Galleries with Hello World set to yes still help with Google Organic Results?
Please explain...
Concern #4: When I signed up for Analytics I was given code to place in the custom footer. Sure enough I was able to see results on my Analytics page. I see that if I want to take advantage of the Site Map feature I should place the UA-number in the box provided under the settings tab. It warns me to remove the code placed in the footer before placing the UA-number. When I did I no longer received my anayltics info and did not see any site map stats on Web Mater Tools so I switched back. and wanted to know what is the proper steps needed to obtain my Analytics info as well as optimizing to Google with offering Site Map info...
Please explain...
I know that the best of the best will jump on this and finally allow me to regain sanity...
Most of the pages that show when I Google: site:www.irrok.com appear with a meta description provided by SmugMug. I am not yet sure if this can be changed to reflect my Bio / Meta Description or if this is something that I should not be concerned about. Please explain...
It's because you have no album description, add one and we'll use it
Concern #4: When I signed up for Analytics I was given code to place in the custom footer. Sure enough I was able to see results on my Analytics page. I see that if I want to take advantage of the Site Map feature I should place the UA-number in the box provided under the settings tab. It warns me to remove the code placed in the footer before placing the UA-number. When I did I no longer received my anayltics info and did not see any site map stats on Web Mater Tools so I switched back. and wanted to know what is the proper steps needed to obtain my Analytics info as well as optimizing to Google with offering Site Map info...
Please explain...
I know that the best of the best will jump on this and finally allow me to regain sanity...
Thanks in advance to anyone who helps me....
Ronald Bartolec
You put in an incorrect #. The number us a UA-XXXXX sort of number.
Could You please explain a little further what a UA-xxxxx sort of number is or can be found...
once this number is placed in the box do I need to remove the code from the footer page?
and finally do I need to enter anything into the "enter a site map" tab inside Web Master Tools?
It's the same number you're currently using in your custom footer... Looks like it's UA-17760071-1, and yes, once you put it in there, that code should come out of the footer.
It's the same number you're currently using in your custom footer... Looks like it's UA-17760071-1, and yes, once you put it in there, that code should come out of the footer.
Should I expect for this to take some time to show up on Google Analytics and if so How long do you think it might take?
Thanks
I have had regular google script and switched to "smugmug way" on Friday about 7 pm eastern. On Saturday around noon I have seen some traffic for Saturday, so to your "how long" I would say "within hours".
What I noted, though, reporting became significantly different - it seems to count each photo load as a pageview, so number of pageviews pwr visit went up drastically. Not sure if it is good or bad
Does anyone here have any urls in the Google web index for sitemap-images.xml? Mine was submitted without errors on August 11th with 922 "submitted urls" and so far I have zero in the web index.
I think I have given up on ever seeing my images on SmugMug show up in a Google search. I have done everything that was suggested as far as keywords, linking to other sites, captions, etc., all to no avail. If you want your images to show up in an image search, it seems you have to use a different website, such as Flickr, Picasa, or one of those. All of my Flickr photos show up in a search, but none from SmugMug do. Unfortunately, those sites don't offer the features that SmugMug does, so I'm still here.
Regarding the site maps, from what I read at Google Webmaster Tools, the sitemap-images.xml are under "video sitemaps" also. If you look at the dashboard at the left of Webmaster Tools, it is the last item under "Labs." There it lists the three sitemaps we have on SmugMug, and if yours is like mine, it will say under errors "No information found". The sitemaps only seem to be working for web search, not image search.
Under "Site configuration" on the Webmaster Tools, then under "Sitemaps" all three show up, but again, even though images are submitted, none are indexed. The other two have 1/3 to 1/2 of them indexed on mine. But on the video sitemap, none of the three are indexed.
In the Google help section, there is this page which says that, "In addition, we don't index images directly (instead, we index the page that contains the image). As a result, direct image URLs in your Sitemap won't be indexed." I have no idea if that means that the way our sitemaps are created isn't compatible with Google's indexing or not. Or since the page is indexed, maybe it's okay. I wish I understood the tech part better. I'm sure someone here will know and explain it, though.
Thanks Jean. It's good to see I'm not the only one.
I also have zero images showing up under Google Images. And I see tons of images on Google Images that are just using the nondescript filename from the camera, so it has nothing to do with images needing keywords in the filename. IMO Smugmug has some work to do to improve things in this area as it doesn't look like sitemaps has helped.
Like you I stay with Smugmug because of the features and because issues like this slowly get sorted out. Just bizarre that it should take so much work to get images with decent meta-data keywords from a service dedicated to imagery to show up in Google Images.
I think I have given up on ever seeing my images on SmugMug show up in a Google search. I have done everything that was suggested as far as keywords, linking to other sites, captions, etc., all to no avail.
I do have some images showing up in Google search. Interestingly enough, all but one of them are from sites other than my smug site. Most are from my blog though, and my blog links back to my smug site, so I suppose that's a good thing. It seems rather bizarre though in that there doesn't seem to be a pattern in how the photos are chosen. Most are old(er), but occasionally a new one will pop in.
When I show images on my blog, I always use both <a href= and <img src= statements pointing at the photo on smug. I also always include an alt tag on the img src statement.
I do have some images showing up in Google search. Interestingly enough, all but one of them are from sites other than my smug site. Most are from my blog though, and my blog links back to my smug site, so I suppose that's a good thing. It seems rather bizarre though in that there doesn't seem to be a pattern in how the photos are chosen. Most are old(er), but occasionally a new one will pop in.
When I show images on my blog, I always use both <a href= and <img src= statements pointing at the photo on smug. I also always include an alt tag on the img src statement.
--- Denise
Hi Denise,
You were the one who gave me such great info on setting up my blog and how to add photos. Thanks again for that.
I can't help but think that SmugMug does not have something set up right if nobody here has their images appearing on Google image search. Or maybe we only hear from the folks who don't.
Is there anyone (other than Andy) who has their images come up at SmugMug when they do a Google search? Please reply if you do and let us know if you did anything special to make it happen--particularly the parameters in Webmaster Tools. Give us a reason to hope!
You were the one who gave me such great info on setting up my blog and how to add photos. Thanks again for that.
I can't help but think that SmugMug does not have something set up right if nobody here has their images appearing on Google image search. Or maybe we only hear from the folks who don't.
Is there anyone (other than Andy) who has their images come up at SmugMug when they do a Google search? Please reply if you do and let us know if you did anything special to make it happen--particularly the parameters in Webmaster Tools. Give us a reason to hope!
Jean
I'm showing 144 results on google image search. It's climbing, but very very slowly. Captions and gallery descriptions seem to be tied to most of them. Keywords don't seem to help at all. I have maybe 400 images with a unique keyword... no results on google image search. But 4 images I uploaded to another site are found easily when looking up that same keyword. I definitely agree that smugmug is not at all optimized for google image search. I have seen absolutely no improvement from NiceNames for photo filenames. I just don't think google cares about directory structure.
I agree with everyone that this is really so frustrating but it's not all down to SmugMug - Google Images throws up some really bizarre results.
If you google 'mendip photos' my site is at no 1 and 2 at the moment.
click on images and I can't see anything of mine anywhere - strange as I have 1049 images keyworded with mendip. Strange too that some of them don't appear to have anything to do with 'mendip'.
If I add my surname 'shipsey' to the images search mendip photos then most of page 1 and 2 results are my images - from my blog, and one from my other non photo site.
Then try 'mendip photos smugmug' and on the third row down there are 3 tiny images that are part of my header and appear on all pages but google is associating them with one gallery.
I've spent many hours trying to understand the logic or otherwise of google images, I can't see any and I can't see any pattern that leads me to any conclusion about how to win this battle. I gave up months ago, most of the results that do come up wouldn't satisfy me if I was looking for an image of mendip anyway. I don't see mendip images from Flickr in abundance either or any other hosting site like picasa?
Finally if I use my full name as a google image search that does throw up a few more of my pics, again from my blog, one from my site, others from sites where my pics have been used and I'm credited as the photographer - no pattern or logic to this either. Even some from pbase where I haven't put any images for years!
There really are so many other better ways to spend my time than this, so I don't care any more. I just thought it might be of some help to others who are really bugged by this and put most of the blame at SmugMug's door.
Is there anyone (other than Andy) who has their images come up at SmugMug when they do a Google search? Please reply if you do and let us know if you did anything special to make it happen--particularly the parameters in Webmaster Tools. Give us a reason to hope!
I have over 2000 images indexed, that's almost twice as many images uploaded on my site. I only worry about captions and links. Captionned images usually take under two weeks to get indexed. I still don't like nicenames for photos because when you move things around, they have to be indexed again.
I think you should add a navigation bar with links to categories, popular and recent photos and keyword page.
Comments
You could wait for our system to do this all for you. But if you want to enter the sitemap, use
/sitemap-base.xml.gz
/sitemap-galleries.xml.gz
/sitemap-images.xml.gz
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
"URL not allowed. This url is not allowed for a Sitemap at this location" ...each URL then references the "brian-photos". If it's just a replication/sync issue that I should wait on, I can wait and see. I just want to make sure it's not something I did incorrectly.
<TABLE id=grid class=grid><THEAD><TR><TH class="header leftmost smallColumn"></TH><TH class="header largeColumn">[URL="javascript:tblgrid.doSort('grid.sortBy', '1')"]Sitemap[/URL]</TH><TH class=header>[URL="javascript:tblgrid.doSort('grid.sortBy', '2')"]Status[/URL]</TH><TH class=header>[URL="javascript:tblgrid.doSort('grid.sortBy', '3')"]Type[/URL]</TH><TH class=header>[URL="javascript:tblgrid.doSort('grid.sortBy', '4')"]Downloaded[/URL]</TH><TH class="header number">[URL="javascript:tblgrid.doSort('grid.sortBy', '5')"]URLs submitted[/URL]</TH><TH class="header rightmost number">[URL="javascript:tblgrid.doSort('grid.sortBy', '6')"]URLs in web index[/URL]</TH></TR></THEAD><TBODY><TR class="first even"><TD class="leftmost null"><INPUT id=checkhttp://www.dynamicapertures.com/sitemap-base.xml value=false type=checkbox name=checkhttp://www.dynamicapertures.com/sitemap-base.xml></TD><TD class=" null"><SCRIPT type=text/javascript> wmt.common.display.url.writeUrlElement( document, "sitemap-base.xml"); </SCRIPT>sit<WBR>ema<WBR>p-b<WBR>ase<WBR>.xm<WBR>l
</TD><TD class=" null">
</TD><TD class=" null">
</TD><TD class=" null">
</TD><TD class=" null">
The Sacramento SMUG is having Zach Prez in to speak this Wednesday. I don't know much about him, and it's only our second meeting, but he is local (which puts him within driving distance to you) and was there at the first meeting... Check out his site at http://photographers-seo.com/ and I'm sending him a message on FB to come check your post.
There is no clue or it's very hard to find where they are located. As an
example, if someone is looking for a wedding photographer it would be nice if
their location was prominent and SEO picks it up.
My Website index | My Blog
+1...mine are out of date/incorrect as well and I am wondering how often they are updated to reflect different nicknames in the URLs, etc.
@smilenj
I specialize in SEO for photogs and would love to speak at the SF Smug Club about getting better search results. I'm speaking at the Sacramento Smug Club tomorrow and have an SEO Workshop coming to the bay very soon. You can ask Markham and Andy about my credentials. Reach me at photographersseo[@]gmail[.]com
@Andy,
To clarify, can users reference sitemap-index.html in Google or Bing Webmaster Tools or do they need to use the .gz versions you mentiun above?
Also, will the sitemaps display the content as mysite.com or myname.smugmug.com if the account is setup to use a vanity URL?
Rank your blog with Photoblog SEO Zen
It's been 13 days since adding my sitemap to Google Webmaster. My http://photos.lifesharephoto.com/sitemap-images.xml.gz is still erroring out.
However sit<wbr>ema<wbr>p-b<wbr>ase<wbr>.xm<wbr>l.g<wbr>z and sit<wbr>ema<wbr>p-g<wbr>all<wbr>eri<wbr>es.<wbr>xml<wbr>.gz are fine and working.
You had told me to wait for Google, or to add it again. I have done both but to no avail.
Here's the error I'm still getting:
sit<wbr>ema<wbr>p-i<wbr>mag<wbr>es.<wbr>xml<wbr>.gz : Sitemap file size error
Your Sitemap exceeds the maximum file size limit. Please create multiple Sitemaps containing fewer URLs to meet the file size limit.
Problem detected on: Aug 12, 2010
What do you suggest? Should it take this long to clear the error?
http://www.fernandogonzalez.net
SmugMug Support Hero
Same problem with my sitemap-images.xlm.gz.
Dave
Our Chief Geek suggests you contact Google about this.
"The Sitemaps site says it needs to be less than 10MB but can be compressed (theirs is ~650KB compressed) and less then 50,000 URLs (theirs is ~33,000), so it should be fine."
That's for your file, Lou.
The specs are on listed here:
http://www.sitemaps.org/faq.php#faq_sitemap_size
Here's another page that clearly states that the compressed sitemap file can be up to 10mb:
http://www.brainbell.com/tutorials/XML/Inside_The_Google_Sitemap_Protocol.htm
Sebastian
SmugMug Support Hero
And here is the official one from Google: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35738
You can gzip-compress them to save bandwidth, but the limit on 10Mb is for the uncompressed file.
It might be a good idea to contact the Chief Geek again.
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
My site map images show that 489 url's were submitted, but none are indexed. I'm assuming the indexing just takes time (?), but how can I determine how many MB are in those 489 url's?
Thanks,:D
Jean
Jean Chang Photography
www.jeanachang.blogspot.com
I'm in desperate need of some straight forward answers... I have read many many pages here on the forum, however I just can't put the pieces together... I think I may be a bit more confused now then when I started a few days ago.
Concern #1: Most of the pages that show when I Google: site:www.irrok.com appear with a meta description provided by SmugMug. I am not yet sure if this can be changed to reflect my Bio / Meta Description or if this is something that I should not be concerned about. Please explain...
Concern #2: My Google Webmasters Tools tells me that I have a problem with Duplicate Title Tags. The list contains 152 Titles each showing 2 to 30 duplicates each. I am not yet 100% sure if this actually will hurt my rankings. If I need to address this how long does it normally take to reflect in Web Master Tools?
Please explain...
Concern #3: Do Unlisted Galleries with Hello World set to yes still help with Google Organic Results?
Please explain...
Concern #4: When I signed up for Analytics I was given code to place in the custom footer. Sure enough I was able to see results on my Analytics page. I see that if I want to take advantage of the Site Map feature I should place the UA-number in the box provided under the settings tab. It warns me to remove the code placed in the footer before placing the UA-number. When I did I no longer received my anayltics info and did not see any site map stats on Web Mater Tools so I switched back. and wanted to know what is the proper steps needed to obtain my Analytics info as well as optimizing to Google with offering Site Map info...
Please explain...
I know that the best of the best will jump on this and finally allow me to regain sanity...
Thanks in advance to anyone who helps me....
Ronald Bartolec
It's because you have no album description, add one and we'll use it
http://www.irrok.com/Wedding/Stevens-Wedding/10846203_yLaHq#756589316_zB32Q
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
You put in an incorrect #. The number us a UA-XXXXX sort of number.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Could You please explain a little further what a UA-xxxxx sort of number is or can be found...
once this number is placed in the box do I need to remove the code from the footer page?
and finally do I need to enter anything into the "enter a site map" tab inside Web Master Tools?
It's the same number you're currently using in your custom footer... Looks like it's UA-17760071-1, and yes, once you put it in there, that code should come out of the footer.
Your sitemap should be at http://www.irrok.com/sitemap-index.xml
Should I expect for this to take some time to show up on Google Analytics and if so How long do you think it might take?
Thanks
Does it mean it will not find them even if I have a direct link to it from navigation bar on my home page?
My site: www.alexmoiseyev.com
What I noted, though, reporting became significantly different - it seems to count each photo load as a pageview, so number of pageviews pwr visit went up drastically. Not sure if it is good or bad
My site: www.alexmoiseyev.com
My Legacy SmugMug Site (not ready to migrate yet)
Regarding the site maps, from what I read at Google Webmaster Tools, the sitemap-images.xml are under "video sitemaps" also. If you look at the dashboard at the left of Webmaster Tools, it is the last item under "Labs." There it lists the three sitemaps we have on SmugMug, and if yours is like mine, it will say under errors "No information found". The sitemaps only seem to be working for web search, not image search.
Under "Site configuration" on the Webmaster Tools, then under "Sitemaps" all three show up, but again, even though images are submitted, none are indexed. The other two have 1/3 to 1/2 of them indexed on mine. But on the video sitemap, none of the three are indexed.
In the Google help section, there is this page which says that, "In addition, we don't index images directly (instead, we index the page that contains the image). As a result, direct image URLs in your Sitemap won't be indexed." I have no idea if that means that the way our sitemaps are created isn't compatible with Google's indexing or not. Or since the page is indexed, maybe it's okay. I wish I understood the tech part better. I'm sure someone here will know and explain it, though.
This is the page I got the info from: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=80488&hl=en
It would be interesting to know if anyone has had their images indexed.
Jean Chang Photography
www.jeanachang.blogspot.com
I also have zero images showing up under Google Images. And I see tons of images on Google Images that are just using the nondescript filename from the camera, so it has nothing to do with images needing keywords in the filename. IMO Smugmug has some work to do to improve things in this area as it doesn't look like sitemaps has helped.
Like you I stay with Smugmug because of the features and because issues like this slowly get sorted out. Just bizarre that it should take so much work to get images with decent meta-data keywords from a service dedicated to imagery to show up in Google Images.
My Legacy SmugMug Site (not ready to migrate yet)
When I show images on my blog, I always use both <a href= and <img src= statements pointing at the photo on smug. I also always include an alt tag on the img src statement.
--- Denise
Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
Hi Denise,
You were the one who gave me such great info on setting up my blog and how to add photos. Thanks again for that.
I can't help but think that SmugMug does not have something set up right if nobody here has their images appearing on Google image search. Or maybe we only hear from the folks who don't.
Is there anyone (other than Andy) who has their images come up at SmugMug when they do a Google search? Please reply if you do and let us know if you did anything special to make it happen--particularly the parameters in Webmaster Tools. Give us a reason to hope!
Jean
Jean Chang Photography
www.jeanachang.blogspot.com
I'm showing 144 results on google image search. It's climbing, but very very slowly. Captions and gallery descriptions seem to be tied to most of them. Keywords don't seem to help at all. I have maybe 400 images with a unique keyword... no results on google image search. But 4 images I uploaded to another site are found easily when looking up that same keyword. I definitely agree that smugmug is not at all optimized for google image search. I have seen absolutely no improvement from NiceNames for photo filenames. I just don't think google cares about directory structure.
Dave
If you google 'mendip photos' my site is at no 1 and 2 at the moment.
click on images and I can't see anything of mine anywhere - strange as I have 1049 images keyworded with mendip. Strange too that some of them don't appear to have anything to do with 'mendip'.
If I add my surname 'shipsey' to the images search mendip photos then most of page 1 and 2 results are my images - from my blog, and one from my other non photo site.
Then try 'mendip photos smugmug' and on the third row down there are 3 tiny images that are part of my header and appear on all pages but google is associating them with one gallery.
I've spent many hours trying to understand the logic or otherwise of google images, I can't see any and I can't see any pattern that leads me to any conclusion about how to win this battle. I gave up months ago, most of the results that do come up wouldn't satisfy me if I was looking for an image of mendip anyway. I don't see mendip images from Flickr in abundance either or any other hosting site like picasa?
Finally if I use my full name as a google image search that does throw up a few more of my pics, again from my blog, one from my site, others from sites where my pics have been used and I'm credited as the photographer - no pattern or logic to this either. Even some from pbase where I haven't put any images for years!
There really are so many other better ways to spend my time than this, so I don't care any more. I just thought it might be of some help to others who are really bugged by this and put most of the blame at SmugMug's door.
Cheers,
Caroline
www.carolineshipsey.co.uk - Follow me on G+
[/URL]
I have over 2000 images indexed, that's almost twice as many images uploaded on my site.
I think you should add a navigation bar with links to categories, popular and recent photos and keyword page.
borealphoto.smugmug.com