I finally gave in and opened a commercial Page in Facebook but that required me to create a personal account/profile too. I'm still learning the subject and know there is a DGrin tread, but i wanted to ask you what of the SmugMug's Facebook features are meant to be utilized to enhance my commercial page (and not my personal profile)?
Well, i asked too many questions already (and i still to work on a logo for Facebook)...
Amos, please write our Support Heroes ATTN: Andy with details, thanks!
Hi Andy,
I thank you again for your help and will address my many questions/issues as you suggested above; but i've just encountered an issue that might concerns others too:
I was aware of the slow loading of my three Categories pages (as well as Google's "not liking" them very much); ...I think i found one clue/reason - I looked at the Source View of a category page and it was endless! The reason is the identical (and very very long) ALT and Title attributes to every random image (representing every gallery in that category page).
What SmugMug does is simply (and dumbly) copying the WHOLE gallery description (including all tags and links found there) into both, the ALT and the Title of those random images.
This thing serves no purpose - I already put my keywords in each gallery's Title! Please eliminate the ALT and TITLE attributes of those random images.
On the other hand, there are no relevant ALT and TITLE attributes when they are needed - in the images themselves (inside a gallery). Without an ALT (which serves as an image-caption for search engines), no wonder Google does not index (on its Google Images) our images on SmugMug!!!
I might be wrong but will appreciate you response.
On the other hand, there are no relevant ALT and TITLE attributes when they are needed - in the images themselves (inside a gallery).
If you have captions, you have ALT and TITLE tags for each images. It's that simple. The title doesn't appear when you look at images in a gallery but Google sees and displays them in the search results. Don't know how that works but it does.
If you have captions, you have ALT and TITLE tags for each images. It's that simple. The title doesn't appear when you look at images in a gallery but Google sees and displays them in the search results. Don't know how that works but it does.
I don't know on what you base your claim that it works; i do look at the results - No images of mine (even when i put the whole caption in the search box) appear in Google Images!!!!
...And Smugmug's images missing from Google Images is not a new claim (and not mine alone).
I was aware of the slow loading of my three Categories pages
You do have an enormous amount of galleries in each category - that's a lot of thumbs that need to load. It loaded in about 8 seconds for me, and I have a super fast 100Kbps download connection.
(as well as Google's "not liking" them very much); ...I think i found one clue/reason - I looked at the Source View of a category page and it was endless! The reason is the identical (and very very long) ALT and Title attributes to every random image (representing every gallery in that category page).
What SmugMug does is simply (and dumbly) copying the WHOLE gallery description (including all tags and links found there) into both, the ALT and the Title of those random images.
This thing serves no purpose - I already put my keywords in each gallery's Title! Please eliminate the ALT and TITLE attributes of those random images.
Why would we do this? Googlebot and Google have an endless ability to see and process this info. Album descriptions are hugely important for Google Search results.
On the other hand, there are no relevant ALT and TITLE attributes when they are needed - in the images themselves (inside a gallery). Without an ALT (which serves as an image-caption for search engines), no wonder Google does not index (on its Google Images) our images on SmugMug!!!
I might be wrong but will appreciate you response.
Regards,
Amos[/QUOTE]
Of course there are. Please look:
Also, Googlebot sees the page completely differently than you or your visitors see it - we serve up a special version of the page just for Googlebot.
The title doesn't appear when you look at images in a gallery but Google sees and displays them in the search results. Don't know how that works but it does.
IIRC the reason for this is that SmugMug presents a slightly different view to search engines than it does to your browser. You can see this if you go to Google Webmaster tools and to the 'fetch as Googlebot' thing. As far as I can see, if you use a caption for your image then that is used as both the Alt and Title tags for the image, otherwise the gallery title is used instead. Keywords seem to only loosely be associated with each image by virtue of being links next to the photo.
Why would we do this? Googlebot and Google have an endless ability to see and process this info. Album descriptions are hugely important for Google Search results.
Also, Googlebot sees the page completely differently than you or your visitors see it - we serve up a special version of the page just for Googlebot.
Thank you for your reply, Andy!
OK, I was wrong about the ALT, tag, but the fact is that Google doesn't index my images (and as i know, other Smugmugs images) in it's Google Images!!!. (I tried now and a year ago by using variants including the whole image's caption in my search). Please prove me wrong.
SmugMug is doing a great job in making my images (including the gallery thumbs on the category pages) load super fast, however, every bit of code adds to the load time. By copying the WHOLE gallery description (including all tags and links found there) into both, the ALT and the Title of those random images, a lot of extra junk is added.
Google is trying to provide the searcher with the most relevant result to his search; it cannot see images so it relies on the text it sees. In the case of the category pages, it's sees TWICE each gallery description (in the ALT and in the TITLE of each thumb). Google doesn't like duplication and keywords stuffing; please give me a good reason why SmugMug keeps that.
Google is smart but it only sees what you let it see...
Google images does pick up the photos embedded in album descriptions
but none in the galleries.
You're right Allen; I see how images in my non-Smugmug websites are very easily being picked up. I was counting on Smugmug, an images hosting enterprise, to help me with this very obvious and very important issue of images 'findability'.
On the other hand, even though i have close to 300 galleries, I may follow your comment and insert an image in each of the gallery descriptions (...it may take me a few months though...)
I've come late to this thread, and have jumped to the back! Do I read this correctly, no gallery images will show in a google image search? Seems credible, for despite having over 6,000 photos in my gallery, I have never found one in google images. And the only way to get one to show is to include a photo in the description?
Thanks
I've come late to this thread, and have jumped to the back! Do I read this correctly, no gallery images will show in a google image search? Seems credible, for despite having over 6,000 photos in my gallery, I have never found one in google images. And the only way to get one to show is to include a photo in the description?
Thanks
You are right! ...You probably understand now my own frustration (amplified by my feeling of being 'brushed off' and the lack of clear answers by Smugmug).
Anyway, you can fix it by inserting images (with ALT tags) in your gallery description.
You have 6000, i have 20,000 images (inside 300 galleries).
SmugMug is doing a great job, you just need to help them a bit...
What does that mean, Allen? Or, rather-- how does one do this? (embed a photo in an album description)?
In case you're still looking for an answer...
To put (insert/embed) an image (i.e., the following:)
in a certain album/gallery, go to the gallery where your image is located, click on 'Share', then on 'Get a Link', then on the 'Photo Links' tab, then choose/copy a size.
Go now to the album in which you want the image to be, click the 'Edit' (next to the album's Description) and paste what you copied earlier, inside your description text and then add <img src= just before the: "http://www....... and a > at the end. The following is what it should look (regarding the above image):
<img src="http://www.emixpix.com/Connecticut/Darien-CT-06820-AERIAL-Photos/001-Darien06820-060805/492002442_aDrKv-S-5.jpg" title="Darien, CT 06820 Aerial Photos - image 1 of 72." alt="Darien, CT 06820 Aerial Photos - image 1 of 72.">
In the 'title' (what people see when hovering their mouse over) and the 'alt' (what search engine see as the image caption) fields (marked in blue) write what you want - short and to the point - this is the keyword Google will see (...and hopefully index in it's Google Images).
You are right! ...You probably understand now my own frustration (amplified by my feeling of being 'brushed off' and the lack of clear answers by Smugmug).
Anyway, you can fix it by inserting images (with ALT tags) in your gallery description.
You have 6000, i have 20,000 images (inside 300 galleries).
SmugMug is doing a great job, you just need to help them a bit...
Good luck
Thanks Amos, I must say it was a huge disappointment to find that it worked this way though! I think a lot of people looking to purchase images go to Google image search, it's the easiest way to quickly view a load of different images. Inserting an image in gallery description is something of course, but you are confined to one image, so not really very helpful. But having come this far, we're stuck with it! I ditched a site I had with pbase, but it was free and every photo appeared in a google search.
Thanks
I have 3500 indexed images in Google. That's three times the number of listed images on my site. Most of my galleries don't even have descriptions and many indexed images don't even have captions. If your images don't show in Google Images, it is not because of Smugmug.
Captions ARE alt tags. There's no need to add anything.
Google sees a single a page for each image, and each of those page has a title (same as caption). I don't know the mechanics behind that but it works. This is more relevent to Web search than Image search though.
If anything, I think Amos' and Allen's descriptions hurt more than anything. Too many keywords, links, font types and more importantly, too much of the same. In other words, it looks spammy. Descriptions are supposed to describe a single page.
Too many keywords, links, font types and more importantly, too much of the same. In other words, it looks spammy. Descriptions are supposed to describe a single page.
You are right, Erick, ...and that was my point when asking smugmug to not copy and insert [TWICE] each gallery's WHOLE description into the ALT (and TITLE) tag of each random image (representing a gallery) in my category pages.
I have 3500 indexed images in Google. That's three times the number of listed images on my site. Most of my galleries don't even have descriptions and many indexed images don't even have captions. If your images don't show in Google Images, it is not because of Smugmug........
.....If anything, I think Amos' and Allen's descriptions hurt more than anything. Too many keywords, links, font types and more importantly, too much of the same. In other words, it looks spammy. Descriptions are supposed to describe a single page.
(shortened your response to save space). Are you saying your images come up near the top, or even on the first page of Google Images searches? I can tell you right now-- mine do not. I often can't even find them, until possibly way after a bunch of completely irrelevant photos come up (like cats when you're searching images for "San Diego Flowers", etc!) I don't understand it, because I feel I've been doing all the "right" things, and I've been around here since 2007 or so. I search on exact terms that are in my gallery titles, and many of these are not common or ordinary themes, so my photos should show up, at least amongst the more relevant ones. I look for them & get excited, finally seeing one that's on SmugMug. But then, OOooops, I realize it's not coming from SmugMug; it's that I have that same photo on Panoramio, or on Dreamstime or whereever.
The SmugMug ones are just missing or WAY too far back. I have good captions, descriptions, keywords, have lots of links back to SmugMug all over the place. And I don't feel that the specific concern Amos mentioned is getting addressed. There's a lot I don't understand about SEO, but everything I read makes me feel our images from SmugMug should appear much farther up in the image searches than they do, especially galleries that have been around for a long time, on sites that are frequently updated.
I am with you, I am having the same problem. What bugs me even more is if I update my blog or put my photos up on Flickr, the photos show up the next day in google images! But yet the exact same images, with the exact same tags on Smugmug do not show up... I just dont get it.....
Yes, I can't see why the photos do not appear in a google search. I have picked a page here for example, it's a disused church in the middle of nowhere, so not many photos of it. I have quite a few in the gallery, but if I search for "St Odoceus, Llandawke." mine still does not show in google. I'd be grateful for any advice on what I'm doing wrong.
I was playing around in Google and typed in 'atwater ca photographers' as I usually do evey so often. This time I clicked on Images and I found one of my Smugmug photos on page 6 second image.
I couldn't find any more photos, even if I typed in a better description though.
I was playing around in Google and typed in 'atwater ca photographers' as I usually do evey so often. This time I clicked on Images and I found one of my Smugmug photos on page 6 second image.
I couldn't find any more photos, even if I typed in a better description though.
If I search Google as follows I get 2,000+ page results from your site: site:mike.imagesinthebackcountry.com
If I click Images, it's down to 95. All but about a dozen (which you've linked elsewhere) are the homepage/category thumbnails, so your site is really not findable in Image Search.
I think it may vary by SM gallery style, but yours is the same as mine. If you go to Google Webmaster Tools and select the 'Fetch As Googlebot' option, you can enter any of your gallery URLs. Then check out the resulting output and do a search for .JPG (will be the only one unless you have a jpeg in your custom header/footer or gallery description).
You'll see within the IMG tag that the photo does indeed contain your designated caption as the ALT attribute, but the SRC points to spacer.gif, not your photo! The actual photo is displayed using CSS background-image. Google Image Search won't navigate this, thus only your thumbnails will appear along with any image linked externally (or from your gallery description as Amos described above). The situation is generally the same with Bing Image Search.
Other photo sharing sites handle this better for Image Search. Flickr, for instance, doesn't even put the photo caption in an alt tag, as these could be so easily manipulated that they aren't weighted much even in Image Search. Instead, the IMG tag has an SRC attribute pointing to the actual photo (no CSS), and the caption goes into the two most important tags of the page - Title and H1.
SmugMug will tell customers that they need to have their photos linked from blogs, etc. to be found in Google Image Search. While it's true that externally linking an image should improve its RANKING, it is not be a requirement for simple INCLUSION. Every photo of your site should appear if you simply Google site:yourdomain.com and select Images. It works for me on dozens of websites I host elsewhere, and 99% of those pages/images are not linked directly from external sites and don't use alt tags. It's a simple matter of sticking to markup that Googlebot-Image understands.
If I search Google as follows I get 2,000+ page results from your site: site:mike.imagesinthebackcountry.com
If I click Images, it's down to 95. All but about a dozen (which you've linked elsewhere) are the homepage/category thumbnails, so your site is really not findable in Image Search.
I think it may vary by SM gallery style, but yours is the same as mine. If you go to Google Webmaster Tools and select the 'Fetch As Googlebot' option, you can enter any of your gallery URLs. Then check out the resulting output and do a search for .JPG (will be the only one unless you have a jpeg in your custom header/footer or gallery description).
You'll see within the IMG tag that the photo does indeed contain your designated caption as the ALT attribute, but the SRC points to spacer.gif, not your photo! The actual photo is displayed using CSS background-image. Google Image Search won't navigate this, thus only your thumbnails will appear along with any image linked externally (or from your gallery description as Amos described above). The situation is generally the same with Bing Image Search.
Other photo sharing sites handle this better for Image Search. Flickr, for instance, doesn't even put the photo caption in an alt tag, as these could be so easily manipulated that they aren't weighted much even in Image Search. Instead, the IMG tag has an SRC attribute pointing to the actual photo (no CSS), and the caption goes into the two most important tags of the page - Title and H1.
SmugMug will tell customers that they need to have their photos linked from blogs, etc. to be found in Google Image Search. While it's true that externally linking an image should improve its RANKING, it is not be a requirement for simple INCLUSION. Every photo of your site should appear if you simply Google site:yourdomain.com and select Images. It works for me on dozens of websites I host elsewhere, and 99% of those pages/images are not linked directly from external sites and don't use alt tags. It's a simple matter of sticking to markup that Googlebot-Image understands.
Interesting, and thanks. I Googled my regular site 'site:imagesinthebackcountry.com' and clicked on 'Images' and I saw the same images. The odd thing is they were all from my Smugmug site. I checked my 'robots.txt' file and some idiot (me) disallowed my images. I changed that real fast, so at least (hopefully) my regular site can index all of my images.
I think it may vary by SM gallery style, but yours is the same as mine. If you go to Google Webmaster Tools and select the 'Fetch As Googlebot' option, you can enter any of your gallery URLs. Then check out the resulting output and do a search for .JPG (will be the only one unless you have a jpeg in your custom header/footer or gallery description).
...
Unless I'm missing something, I did this and I see all of the .JPGs in my gallery.
Interesting, if I do the same as the above post 'site:chrisfowlerphotography.net' all I get are images from my blog. The only images that show up from smugmug are the small thumbanils of the photos that are in my "popular" photos. No other photos show up. You can't tell me this is my fault. My photos show up in Flickr and on my blog, but nothing from Smugmug!
Yes, I can't see why the photos do not appear in a google search. I have picked a page here for example, it's a disused church in the middle of nowhere, so not many photos of it. I have quite a few in the gallery, but if I search for "St Odoceus, Llandawke." mine still does not show in google. I'd be grateful for any advice on what I'm doing wrong.
A couple things I'd suggest are: add a gallery description to all your galleries. I see no description there, only a title. It probably also does not help that each caption is the same. (If I understand correctly, that could be considered spamming, but ask someone more knowledgeable about it). This has nothing to do with SEO that I know of, but I wonder why you want your filenames there for the public to see? For me, it gets in the way of finding the caption. (not that Google bots care about that). Lastly, your photos are lovely. You make me wish to go find this disused church in the middle of nowhere & sit there awhile! It's got such an atmosphere about it... wow! Off to look at some more of your galleries.
(shortened your response to save space). Are you saying your images come up near the top, or even on the first page of Google Images searches?.
I often get several images on first page. My site is in French though and mostly covers Quebec, so there's much less competition. My point was that my images are indexed (within 2-3 weeks), which seems to be a problem for many.
If I search Google as follows I get 2,000+ page results from your site: site:mike.imagesinthebackcountry.com
If I click Images, it's down to 95. All but about a dozen (which you've linked elsewhere) are the homepage/category thumbnails, so your site is really not findable in Image Search............
Other photo sharing sites handle this better for Image Search. Flickr, for instance, doesn't even put the photo caption in an alt tag, as these could be so easily manipulated that they aren't weighted much even in Image Search. Instead, the IMG tag has an SRC attribute pointing to the actual photo (no CSS), and the caption goes into the two most important tags of the page - Title and H1......... Every photo of your site should appear if you simply Google site:yourdomain.com and select Images. It works for me on dozens of websites I host elsewhere, and 99% of those pages/images are not linked directly from external sites and don't use alt tags. It's a simple matter of sticking to markup that Googlebot-Image understands.
(shortened your response to save space) Well, this is interesting reading. If this is true, then I sure wish we'd do here on Smug what these other sites are doing to improve image search, because clearly something is quite wrong. I've searched for a bunch of my galleries and photos today & the image results are dismal. And you say if I Google "site:winsomeworks.com" & select Images, every photo should appear???? 248 photos appear of mine. And I have thousands. Not good.
Comments
You can get SmugMugTab, that's a good one!
http://news.smugmug.com/2010/12/22/smugmug-facebook-smugmugtab/
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
I thank you again for your help and will address my many questions/issues as you suggested above; but i've just encountered an issue that might concerns others too:
I was aware of the slow loading of my three Categories pages (as well as Google's "not liking" them very much); ...I think i found one clue/reason - I looked at the Source View of a category page and it was endless! The reason is the identical (and very very long) ALT and Title attributes to every random image (representing every gallery in that category page).
What SmugMug does is simply (and dumbly) copying the WHOLE gallery description (including all tags and links found there) into both, the ALT and the Title of those random images.
This thing serves no purpose - I already put my keywords in each gallery's Title! Please eliminate the ALT and TITLE attributes of those random images.
On the other hand, there are no relevant ALT and TITLE attributes when they are needed - in the images themselves (inside a gallery). Without an ALT (which serves as an image-caption for search engines), no wonder Google does not index (on its Google Images) our images on SmugMug!!!
I might be wrong but will appreciate you response.
Regards,
Amos
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
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
If you have captions, you have ALT and TITLE tags for each images. It's that simple. The title doesn't appear when you look at images in a gallery but Google sees and displays them in the search results. Don't know how that works but it does.
borealphoto.smugmug.com
I don't know on what you base your claim that it works; i do look at the results - No images of mine (even when i put the whole caption in the search box) appear in Google Images!!!!
...And Smugmug's images missing from Google Images is not a new claim (and not mine alone).
I'm still waiting for answer to my two points.
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
On the other hand, there are no relevant ALT and TITLE attributes when they are needed - in the images themselves (inside a gallery). Without an ALT (which serves as an image-caption for search engines), no wonder Google does not index (on its Google Images) our images on SmugMug!!!
I might be wrong but will appreciate you response.
Regards,
Amos[/QUOTE]
Of course there are. Please look:
Also, Googlebot sees the page completely differently than you or your visitors see it - we serve up a special version of the page just for Googlebot.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
IIRC the reason for this is that SmugMug presents a slightly different view to search engines than it does to your browser. You can see this if you go to Google Webmaster tools and to the 'fetch as Googlebot' thing. As far as I can see, if you use a caption for your image then that is used as both the Alt and Title tags for the image, otherwise the gallery title is used instead. Keywords seem to only loosely be associated with each image by virtue of being links next to the photo.
Might be wrong of course...
EDIT: Andy beat me to it
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
but none in the galleries.
My Website index | My Blog
You're right Allen; I see how images in my non-Smugmug websites are very easily being picked up. I was counting on Smugmug, an images hosting enterprise, to help me with this very obvious and very important issue of images 'findability'.
On the other hand, even though i have close to 300 galleries, I may follow your comment and insert an image in each of the gallery descriptions (...it may take me a few months though...)
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
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
All the images in the description showed but none in any gallery.
This was at the top for web search.
Missouri All Time A-G - Photography by Allen Smith - birds bugs ... - www.photosbyat.com/gallery/3272272
http://www.photosbyat.com/Birds/Missouri-Bird-Photos-A-G/3272272_hQkxo
My Website index | My Blog
I checked it (I was bored) and it showed up on page two for me.
Images in the Backcountry
My SmugMug Customizations | Adding CSS to Your Site | SEO for the Photographer | Locate Your Page/Widget Number | SmugMug Help Desk
Thanks
You are right! ...You probably understand now my own frustration (amplified by my feeling of being 'brushed off' and the lack of clear answers by Smugmug).
Anyway, you can fix it by inserting images (with ALT tags) in your gallery description.
You have 6000, i have 20,000 images (inside 300 galleries).
SmugMug is doing a great job, you just need to help them a bit...
Good luck
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
In case you're still looking for an answer...
To put (insert/embed) an image (i.e., the following:)
in a certain album/gallery, go to the gallery where your image is located, click on 'Share', then on 'Get a Link', then on the 'Photo Links' tab, then choose/copy a size.
Go now to the album in which you want the image to be, click the 'Edit' (next to the album's Description) and paste what you copied earlier, inside your description text and then add <img src= just before the: "http://www....... and a > at the end. The following is what it should look (regarding the above image):
<img src="http://www.emixpix.com/Connecticut/Darien-CT-06820-AERIAL-Photos/001-Darien06820-060805/492002442_aDrKv-S-5.jpg" title="Darien, CT 06820 Aerial Photos - image 1 of 72." alt="Darien, CT 06820 Aerial Photos - image 1 of 72.">
In the 'title' (what people see when hovering their mouse over) and the 'alt' (what search engine see as the image caption) fields (marked in blue) write what you want - short and to the point - this is the keyword Google will see (...and hopefully index in it's Google Images).
After clicking 'Save' you'll see the result...
Good luck
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 Amos, I must say it was a huge disappointment to find that it worked this way though! I think a lot of people looking to purchase images go to Google image search, it's the easiest way to quickly view a load of different images. Inserting an image in gallery description is something of course, but you are confined to one image, so not really very helpful. But having come this far, we're stuck with it!
Thanks
Captions ARE alt tags. There's no need to add anything.
Google sees a single a page for each image, and each of those page has a title (same as caption). I don't know the mechanics behind that but it works. This is more relevent to Web search than Image search though.
If anything, I think Amos' and Allen's descriptions hurt more than anything. Too many keywords, links, font types and more importantly, too much of the same. In other words, it looks spammy. Descriptions are supposed to describe a single page.
borealphoto.smugmug.com
You are right, Erick, ...and that was my point when asking smugmug to not copy and insert [TWICE] each gallery's WHOLE description into the ALT (and TITLE) tag of each random image (representing a gallery) in my category pages.
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 SmugMug ones are just missing or WAY too far back. I have good captions, descriptions, keywords, have lots of links back to SmugMug all over the place. And I don't feel that the specific concern Amos mentioned is getting addressed. There's a lot I don't understand about SEO, but everything I read makes me feel our images from SmugMug should appear much farther up in the image searches than they do, especially galleries that have been around for a long time, on sites that are frequently updated.
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
I am with you, I am having the same problem. What bugs me even more is if I update my blog or put my photos up on Flickr, the photos show up the next day in google images! But yet the exact same images, with the exact same tags on Smugmug do not show up... I just dont get it.....
http://www.chrisfowlerphotography.net
http://blog.chrisfowlerphotography.net
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I couldn't find any more photos, even if I typed in a better description though.
Images in the Backcountry
My SmugMug Customizations | Adding CSS to Your Site | SEO for the Photographer | Locate Your Page/Widget Number | SmugMug Help Desk
If I search Google as follows I get 2,000+ page results from your site: site:mike.imagesinthebackcountry.com
If I click Images, it's down to 95. All but about a dozen (which you've linked elsewhere) are the homepage/category thumbnails, so your site is really not findable in Image Search.
I think it may vary by SM gallery style, but yours is the same as mine. If you go to Google Webmaster Tools and select the 'Fetch As Googlebot' option, you can enter any of your gallery URLs. Then check out the resulting output and do a search for .JPG (will be the only one unless you have a jpeg in your custom header/footer or gallery description).
You'll see within the IMG tag that the photo does indeed contain your designated caption as the ALT attribute, but the SRC points to spacer.gif, not your photo! The actual photo is displayed using CSS background-image. Google Image Search won't navigate this, thus only your thumbnails will appear along with any image linked externally (or from your gallery description as Amos described above). The situation is generally the same with Bing Image Search.
Other photo sharing sites handle this better for Image Search. Flickr, for instance, doesn't even put the photo caption in an alt tag, as these could be so easily manipulated that they aren't weighted much even in Image Search. Instead, the IMG tag has an SRC attribute pointing to the actual photo (no CSS), and the caption goes into the two most important tags of the page - Title and H1.
SmugMug will tell customers that they need to have their photos linked from blogs, etc. to be found in Google Image Search. While it's true that externally linking an image should improve its RANKING, it is not be a requirement for simple INCLUSION. Every photo of your site should appear if you simply Google site:yourdomain.com and select Images. It works for me on dozens of websites I host elsewhere, and 99% of those pages/images are not linked directly from external sites and don't use alt tags. It's a simple matter of sticking to markup that Googlebot-Image understands.
Interesting, and thanks. I Googled my regular site 'site:imagesinthebackcountry.com' and clicked on 'Images' and I saw the same images. The odd thing is they were all from my Smugmug site. I checked my 'robots.txt' file and some idiot (me) disallowed my images.
Images in the Backcountry
My SmugMug Customizations | Adding CSS to Your Site | SEO for the Photographer | Locate Your Page/Widget Number | SmugMug Help Desk
Unless I'm missing something, I did this and I see all of the .JPGs in my gallery.
Images in the Backcountry
My SmugMug Customizations | Adding CSS to Your Site | SEO for the Photographer | Locate Your Page/Widget Number | SmugMug Help Desk
http://www.chrisfowlerphotography.net
http://blog.chrisfowlerphotography.net
Facebook Fan Page
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
I often get several images on first page. My site is in French though and mostly covers Quebec, so there's much less competition. My point was that my images are indexed (within 2-3 weeks), which seems to be a problem for many.
borealphoto.smugmug.com
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com