How To Maximize Your Findability (Search Engine Stuff)

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  • TravisTravis Registered Users Posts: 1,472 Major grins
    edited August 28, 2008
    Gallery keywords are entered on the customize gallery screen - in the Extras section just under the gallery description.

    --- Denise

    D'oh! Thanks Denise!
  • OffTopicOffTopic Registered Users Posts: 521 Major grins
    edited August 28, 2008
    When you select "Customize Gallery" in the Extras section underneath Gallery Description is a box for Gallery Keywords. You will probably use many of the same keywords you used for your photos.
  • OffTopicOffTopic Registered Users Posts: 521 Major grins
    edited August 28, 2008
    Hehe, looks like Denise responded while I was typing. rolleyes1.gif


    Ooops, actually she responded to you an hour ago, while I just clicked on my e-mail link and didn't check to see if the thread had updated. rolleyes1.gif
  • carolinecaroline Registered Users Posts: 1,302 Major grins
    edited August 29, 2008
    Thanks very much Travis, Lori and Denise for clarifying this. I had always thought that this field in customize gallery was an unimportant extra and have only occasionally entered anything in it. Mistakenly I thought if I had keyworded all my images then that was the most important thing to do.

    Caroline
    Mendip Blog - Blog from The Fog, life on the Mendips
    www.carolineshipsey.co.uk - Follow me on G+

    [/URL]
  • CynthiaMCynthiaM Registered Users Posts: 364 Major grins
    edited September 6, 2008
    Gallery keywords are entered on the customize gallery screen - in the Extras section just under the gallery description.

    --- Denise
    Denise:

    If you enter multiple gallery keywords, how should they be separated, with a comma or semicolon?

    Thanks,
  • shrekieshrekie Registered Users Posts: 285 Major grins
    edited September 24, 2008
    Geotagging and Google Maps
    Thanks for that tip. This is really interesting.
    As a matter of interest, do you have any idea how long it took before you geotagged your images and when they appeared in Googlemaps?

    Thanks!
  • shrekieshrekie Registered Users Posts: 285 Major grins
    edited September 24, 2008
    Keywording website name in photos
    A general question regarding keywords.

    I noted that someone mentioned at the very beginning of this thread that it was recommended to add the name of your website as a keyword as well. So, to clarify, does this mean I should go into every photo in my galleries so far and add "Looking Glass Photography" as a keyword? If that's the case, would it also mean that since it is a keyword universal to all the images, the size of the "Looking Glass Photography"
    within the tag cloud would be enormous, making the rest of the sizes of the other keywords tiny and unreadable? Or is there a size at which it will be capped?

    Thanks.

    Nelson
  • OffTopicOffTopic Registered Users Posts: 521 Major grins
    edited September 26, 2008
    Really informative article on SEO today with links to even more info on Photo Business News here. It's not SM-specific, but a lot of good general info.
  • jasoncainejasoncaine Registered Users Posts: 116 Major grins
    edited September 30, 2008
    I have a custom domain (jasoncainephotography.com), but it appears that google indexes and lists my site as jasoncainephotography.smugmug.com.
    How can I get it to change to use my custom domain in search engine listings instead?
    Any ideas or suggestions?
  • ewoldewold Registered Users Posts: 27 Big grins
    edited October 6, 2008
    Just a note about whether or not google searches image keywords. I just did a test on: bug monarch butterfly colourful antenna danaus plexippus nymphalidae brushfooted butterflies danainae

    Which are my keywords for this image: http://www.elizabethwoldphotography.com/gallery/6041549_N9UbB#378374169_TGbLd as you can see under the image. And it came up as the first result. So keywords are searched. Of course, I don't have my keywords hidden...so maybe that's causing you problems? Also, I think it takes google a little bit of time to catch new keywords... I'm not sure how often it crawls, but I made changes to my page title last week that haven't showed up in google results yet. So new keywords might not show right away.

    Strangely enough I didn't get any results off google images on that search string. Bummer.
  • ewoldewold Registered Users Posts: 27 Big grins
    edited October 6, 2008
    jasoncaine wrote:
    I have a custom domain (jasoncainephotography.com), but it appears that google indexes and lists my site as jasoncainephotography.smugmug.com.
    How can I get it to change to use my custom domain in search engine listings instead?
    Any ideas or suggestions?

    If you just set up the custom domain it's possible that google hasn't had a chance to crawl it yet. I had my smugmug site set up for about 10 days before I set up the custom domain, and it took google a little while to catch up.

    You'll want to do whatever you can to promote your domain name. Link to it from other sites, etc. From this forum even. Use full working links such as http://jasoncainephotography.com so google can crawl them. I believe you can also submit the site to google too, but I haven't done that.

    Edit: I see you already have the link in your signature. That should work. Maybe google just needs time to catch up?
  • cyclemancycleman Registered Users Posts: 56 Big grins
    edited October 6, 2008
    keywords are searched. Of course, I don't have my keywords hidden...so maybe that's causing you problems? Also, I think it takes google a little bit of time to catch new keywords... I'm not sure how often it crawls, but I made changes to my page title last week that haven't showed up in google results yet. So new keywords might not show right away.

    Strangely enough I didn't get any results off google images on that search string. Bummer.[/quote]

    that's very interesting. wonder why?

    h, Elizabeth,

    thanks for the suggestions.clap.gif

    I looked at your site. both the photography and the site are stunning. did you set this site up in smugmug?

    dick louderman
  • ewoldewold Registered Users Posts: 27 Big grins
    edited October 7, 2008
    cycleman wrote:

    I looked at your site. both the photography and the site are stunning. did you set this site up in smugmug?

    dick louderman

    Thank you very much! I set the original site up in html using Dreamweaver. I had my site hosted at GoDaddy. I did not like their customer service and the speeds on their databases were so slow(and they wouldn't help in any way - which is where I had a problem with the customer service) so I couldn't get a gallery with any speed set up there.

    So I tried out smugmug with the intention of, if I could get it to look like my other site(which after a year I finally created a design I liked) then I would switch. So with a bit of tweaking, and a few hours scouring help and the forums... I got a set up almost identical to my previous site. The banner is in the header, then nav bar and everything below that is in the footer and then the main image is in the bio box.

    My google ranking seems to be about the same so that makes me happy!
  • RobPierceRobPierce Registered Users Posts: 18 Big grins
    edited October 15, 2008
    Does Google successfully index keywords that are in unlisted or password protected galleries? How about unprotected, publicly listed galleries that have the keywords invisible through use of...

    #photoKeywords {display: none;}
    Rob Pierce Photography
    Weddings | Events | Travel

    Tallahassee, Florida - Thomasville, Georgia - Ludington, Michigan
    http://www.RobPiercePhotography.com
  • MarkjayMarkjay Registered Users Posts: 860 Major grins
    edited December 10, 2008
    What happens if I change my keywords /metatag?
    Currently, I'm finally starting to see moderate traffic to my website through the search engines and direct visits.

    My question is two fold

    1. If I updated / change my keywords, will that change my ranking?

    2. If I change / update my metatag... how will that affect my website ranking, or will it?

    TIA,
    Markjay
    Markjay
    Canon AE1 - it was my first "real camera"
    Canon 20D - no more film!
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited December 10, 2008
    Markjay wrote:
    Currently, I'm finally starting to see moderate traffic to my website through the search engines and direct visits.

    My question is two fold

    1. If I updated / change my keywords, will that change my ranking?

    2. If I change / update my metatag... how will that affect my website ranking, or will it?

    TIA,
    Markjay
    Answers: Maybe. It really depends on what your keywords are, your target audience, etc.
  • MarkjayMarkjay Registered Users Posts: 860 Major grins
    edited December 12, 2008
    How important are the ranking systems?
    Does anyone happen to know how accurate / reliable the various "ranking" systems are.......

    Alexa, etc.

    And do businesses look take those ranking website statistics seriously in determining if your website has ample traffic?

    I'm just starting to dig into this "stuff" a little more and was wondering if anyone here on Dgrin has any knowledge in this?

    Thank you,
    Markjay
    Andy wrote:
    Answers: Maybe. It really depends on what your keywords are, your target audience, etc.
    Markjay
    Canon AE1 - it was my first "real camera"
    Canon 20D - no more film!
  • Ryan ArmbrustRyan Armbrust Registered Users Posts: 329 Major grins
    edited January 6, 2009
    Will hiding keywords on my website effect SEO?
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited January 6, 2009
    Will hiding keywords on my website effect SEO?
    Some say it will - but for years, it's not affected any sites on Smug that I'm aware of.
  • doctorgonzodoctorgonzo Registered Users Posts: 15 Big grins
    edited January 15, 2009
    ewold wrote:
    Strangely enough I didn't get any results off google images on that search string. Bummer.

    I'd like to know more about this issue. I've also noticed that plain old Google search does index keywords and captions for my photos. However, Google Image Search does not. No photos every show up for Google Image search.

    Is this a SmugMug site design issue? Is it because of the use of AJAX and other things that can get in the way of indexing? Is there any way that this could be changed in the future so that Google Image search could index individual images and their keywords, or would that require huge software changes?
  • shrekieshrekie Registered Users Posts: 285 Major grins
    edited February 3, 2009
    Lost Google ranking, and other keywording questions
    Hi All,

    This is a long thread and I have gone through it and found some questions which were posed but no answers as yet, so I thought I might make a quick list as well as make a note of some recent observations.


    1. As suggested by smugmug, I added keywords, captions, and gallery descriptions for all my photos and a few months back, I recalled that this made a big difference to my google ranking and I would show up in the top 3 results when doing a google search for "Looking Glass Photography". However, I have not done any changes to my site at all and I just did a search the other day and now I am half way down page 3 and the link is to one of my galleries as well rather than my main page. Has anyone experienced the same problem, and any ideas on how to rectify this?

    2. Are we able to change file names after the photos have been uploaded? It's been mentioned before that Google image search looks at the file name and also the text next to the image. I am assuming that this would be the caption and the keywords. If that's the case and I have keyworded them properly, is there any use in going and changing the file names for all the photos if google will pick them up anyway?

    3. In entering Gallery keywords, should they be separated by a comma, and any multiple words be enclosed in inverted commas?

    4. I have spent a lot of time keywording my photos and yet none of them show up in Google image search. Why is this, and what can I do to ensure that it does? (Andy, your suggestion to post the pics up in a Picasa account is a good workaround, although this is time consuming and it would be much better if Google could find our images within Smugmug itself.)


    Thanks:)

    Nelson
  • carolinecaroline Registered Users Posts: 1,302 Major grins
    edited February 3, 2009
    Hi Shrekie

    With ref to the para below, could you please give me a link to this ?
    I'm interested to read the context in which this was suggested and cant find it by searching.
    Many thanks,
    Caroline
    shrekie wrote:
    (Andy, your suggestion to post the pics up in a Picasa account is a good workaround, although this is time consuming and it would be much better if Google could find our images within Smugmug itself.)
    Mendip Blog - Blog from The Fog, life on the Mendips
    www.carolineshipsey.co.uk - Follow me on G+

    [/URL]
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited February 3, 2009
    No photos every show up for Google Image search.

    Please read about that on my wiki page:
    http://wiki.smugmug.net/display/SmugMug/Maximize+Search+Engine+Findability
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited February 3, 2009
    caroline wrote:
    Hi Shrekie

    With ref to the para below, could you please give me a link to this ?
    I'm interested to read the context in which this was suggested and cant find it by searching.
    Many thanks,
    Caroline
    Using Picasa is not a "workaround" it's just another vehicle / way to get your name found. I do it purely so that Google Image Search may find my stuff and then visitors may get to my main site from that search.
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited February 3, 2009
    caroline wrote:
    Hi Shrekie

    With ref to the para below, could you please give me a link to this ?
    I'm interested to read the context in which this was suggested and cant find it by searching.
    Many thanks,
    Caroline
    From within this thread, use Search >This thread and search for the word picasa. Then it's easy to find this posting:

    http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=749149&highlight=picasa#post749149
  • denisegoldbergdenisegoldberg Administrators Posts: 14,383 moderator
    edited February 3, 2009
    caroline wrote:
    With ref to the para below, could you please give me a link to this ?
    I'm interested to read the context in which this was suggested and cant find it by searching.
    The only thing I found was this post by Andy, didn't see any results from his "test" - http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=749149&postcount=112.

    In my experience, my images pop up on a search on Google images if I have included a link to them in by blog. I don't see images pop up in an image search based on keywords on the photos. That still seems a bit odd to me, but I guess I just don't understand how the "global" image searches work.

    I just did a search for you using your full name in quotes, and the first page of results look to be your photos - http://images.google.com/images?ndsp=21&um=1&hl=en&rlz=1T5GGLL_enUS272US272&q=%22caroline+shipsey%22&start=0&sa=N. Of course that's not the search you want to find your images, is it? I'm kind of assuming you're interested in getting hits on Mendip Hills as opposed to your name. To my searching eyes, it still appears that references to photos in blog entries is what helps get them into image search results.

    --- Denise
  • shrekieshrekie Registered Users Posts: 285 Major grins
    edited February 3, 2009
    Andy wrote:
    Using Picasa is not a "workaround" it's just another vehicle / way to get your name found. I do it purely so that Google Image Search may find my stuff and then visitors may get to my main site from that search.

    Thanks Andy. By a workaround, I mean that by doing everything else APART from putting my pics up onto a Picasa account, my images don't show up on Google Images. So if they DO show up after putting them into Picasa, then it is a workaround because Google is obviously not finding the keywords in our smugmug site. It works but it is also cumbersome that someone searching for an image has to go to your Picasa account first and then click through to your smugmug account when it would be much better if image search results went straight to your smugmug site.

    Also, putting images up in Picasa helps but is also not ideal because if you have a huge amount of photos, you are basically restricted to uploading a select few, unless you have the time to upload your entire catalogue of pics into Picasa.

    Any answers to the questions 1-3?

    Thanks.
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited February 3, 2009
    shrekie wrote:
    Thanks Andy. By a workaround, I mean that by doing everything else APART from putting my pics up onto a Picasa account, my images don't show up on Google Images. So if they DO show up after putting them into Picasa, then it is a workaround because Google is obviously not finding the keywords in our smugmug site. It works but it is also cumbersome that someone searching for an image has to go to your Picasa account first and then click through to your smugmug account when it would be much better if image search results went straight to your smugmug site.

    Also, putting images up in Picasa helps but is also not ideal because if you have a huge amount of photos, you are basically restricted to uploading a select few, unless you have the time to upload your entire catalogue of pics into Picasa.

    Any answers to the questions 1-3?

    Thanks.
    It's not a workaround.

    It's another method to be found.

    Google indexes SmugMug keywords, fully and completely.

    Google Image search will find images that are keyworded with html meta info...
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited February 3, 2009
    shrekie wrote:
    Hi All,

    This is a long thread and I have gone through it and found some questions which were posed but no answers as yet, so I thought I might make a quick list as well as make a note of some recent observations.


    1. As suggested by smugmug, I added keywords, captions, and gallery descriptions for all my photos and a few months back, I recalled that this made a big difference to my google ranking and I would show up in the top 3 results when doing a google search for "Looking Glass Photography". However, I have not done any changes to my site at all and I just did a search the other day and now I am half way down page 3 and the link is to one of my galleries as well rather than my main page. Has anyone experienced the same problem, and any ideas on how to rectify this?
    More cross links. More other sites that link to you. More promotion.

    2. Are we able to change file names after the photos have been uploaded? It's been mentioned before that Google image search looks at the file name and also the text next to the image. I am assuming that this would be the caption and the keywords. If that's the case and I have keyworded them properly, is there any use in going and changing the file names for all the photos if google will pick them up anyway?
    No, you can't change the file names, I'm sorry.

    3. In entering Gallery keywords, should they be separated by a comma, and any multiple words be enclosed in inverted commas?
    Commas. These are for SmugMug search, not Google search.
  • shrekieshrekie Registered Users Posts: 285 Major grins
    edited February 3, 2009
    Andy wrote:
    It's not a workaround.

    It's another method to be found.

    Google indexes SmugMug keywords, fully and completely.

    Google Image search will find images that are keyworded with html meta info...

    Hi Andy,

    What I mean is that if I don't use Picasa at all and I just use all the other things like keywords, links etc etc, I STILL don't get the images showing up in Google Image search results. Therefore, without Picasa, google doesn't seem to find these images in their search at all.

    If Google is indexing Smugmug keywords fully and completely as you say, I am at a loss as to why it still doesn't show up any of my images in search despite, as I said, having done all the other tips (apart from Picasa).

    (Thanks for the answers to 1-3:))
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