I just wanted to throw my two cents in. I read over most of this thread and I am having a hard time understanding why everyone here is so opposed to sharegroups? I understand certain circumstances (ie parents accounts; not knowing how to set it up) but it is working great for me. I got my Smugmug account so I could have an online portfolio and possibly generate sales. It was only after having it for awhile that I considered using the space to incorporate all our friend and family photos. Obviously in my situation the idea of these galleries showing up at all password protected or not would ruin the professional look. I wouldn't slip my wedding photos into my portfolio would I?
So I set up a sharegroup. Initially when I emailed EVERYONE the link. I would get responses saying they bookmarked the link and couldn't see the photos a week later. So I sent out a second email explaining "SAVE THIS EMAIL" and why... for my privacy and theirs. Now when I add new galleries I just send a bulk email out to everyone telling them what has been added and I list the link again for good measure. Works like a charm. And it is like having two seperate websites IMHO. Now it is true that you loose keywords but I am willing to sacrifice that for some privacy and seperation from my business. One last thing, I think if you play around with categories and subcatogories (professional users only?) you will find a way to present your photos in a way where people won't need keywords. Just one girl's opinion
.... Now it is true that you loose keywords but I am willing to sacrifice that for some privacy and seperation from my business. One last thing, I think if you play around with categories and subcatogories (professional users only?) you will find a way to present your photos in a way where people won't need keywords. Just one girl's opinion
I have over 200 galleries utilizing 8 different categories, a couple of which have sub-categories, most of my 8000 pics are keyworded... all of this is easily accessable via nickname.smugmug.com. I would loose all of these features if I made my galleries private, and created sharegroups. sharegroups can only have galleries in it, (I guess I could simulate categories by having multiple sharegroups... what a mess)... and the keywords don't work... a very awesome feature not replaced by mere categorization. (I can retrieve all the pictures of my dog from accross all my galleries, heck I can pull up all pictures of my dog... at the beach... at sunset... instantly ) http://dmcpics.smugmug.com/keyword/dogs-beach-sunset
Why should I loose all the cool features of smugmug because they can't exclude me from their public search tools?
Keyword handling (and dgrin!) was a big reason why I selected smugmug. I'd love to see the capability extended to private galleries and am patiently waiting for it to happen.
I have over 200 galleries utilizing 8 different categories, a couple of which have sub-categories, most of my 8000 pics are keyworded... all of this is easily accessable via nickname.smugmug.com. I would loose all of these features if I made my galleries private, and created sharegroups. sharegroups can only have galleries in it, (I guess I could simulate categories by having multiple sharegroups... what a mess)... and the keywords don't work... a very awesome feature not replaced by mere categorization. (I can retrieve all the pictures of my dog from accross all my galleries, heck I can pull up all pictures of my dog... at the beach... at sunset... instantly ) http://dmcpics.smugmug.com/keyword/dogs-beach-sunset
Why should I loose all the cool features of smugmug because they can't exclude me from their public search tools?
yes I do see your point. And people do get confused navagating with sharegroups because if they leave to go back to the home page they can't get back to the private galleries. For now I will just have to deal with it I guess.
Note, please, that we cannot tell Google or other search engines what to do. If you can view a page, Google can view a page, and thus, index it for all to see.
We can give it hints, but how well/quickly/accurately it follows those hints is up to Google - they're not going to pay attention to small fry like us if there's some sort of problem.
So this feature, should it happen, is definitely not foolproof. Google may very well index your stuff even if we tell it not to every way we know.
Just wanted to be clear here.
Don
Actually, Don, Google provides very clear instructions on how to exlude their webbots from indexing your site. They say changes will appear ~6-8 weeks later, around the time they typically revisit a site, but that for "emergencies" you can contact them and have things removed quicker. The wayback machine also allows opting out, but it looks like Smugmug must do this for us, we can't do it on our customization pages so far as I can tell.
Be seeing you,
The Duck
[SIZE=-0](From Google) - Remove your entire website [/SIZE]
If you wish to exclude your entire website from Google's index, you can place a file at the root of your server called robots.txt. This is the standard protocol that most web crawlers observe for excluding a web server or directory from an index. More information on robots.txt is available here: http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html. Please note that Googlebot does not interpret a 401/403 response ("Unauthorized"/"Forbidden") to a robots.txt fetch as a request not to crawl any pages on the site.
To remove your site from search engines and prevent all robots from crawling it in the future, place the following robots.txt file in your server root:
User-agent: *
Disallow: / To remove your site from Google only and prevent just Googlebot from crawling your site in the future, place the following robots.txt file in your server root:
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: / Each port must have its own robots.txt file. In particular, if you serve content via both http and https, you'll need a separate robots.txt file for each of these protocols. For example, to allow Googlebot to index all http pages but no https pages, you'd use the robots.txt files below.
For your http protocol (http://yourserver.com/robots.txt):
User-agent: *
Allow: / For the https protocol (https://yourserver.com/robots.txt):
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
Actually, Don, Google provides very clear instructions on how to exlude their webbots from indexing your site. They say changes will appear ~6-8 weeks later, around the time they typically revisit a site, but that for "emergencies" you can contact them and have things removed quicker. The wayback machine also allows opting out, but it looks like Smugmug must do this for us, we can't do it on our customization pages so far as I can tell.
Be seeing you,
The Duck
[SIZE=+0](From Google) - Remove your entire website [/SIZE]
If you wish to exclude your entire website from Google's index, you can place a file at the root of your server called robots.txt. This is the standard protocol that most web crawlers observe for excluding a web server or directory from an index. More information on robots.txt is available here: http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html. Please note that Googlebot does not interpret a 401/403 response ("Unauthorized"/"Forbidden") to a robots.txt fetch as a request not to crawl any pages on the site.
To remove your site from search engines and prevent all robots from crawling it in the future, place the following robots.txt file in your server root:
User-agent: *
Disallow: / To remove your site from Google only and prevent just Googlebot from crawling your site in the future, place the following robots.txt file in your server root:
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: / Each port must have its own robots.txt file. In particular, if you serve content via both http and https, you'll need a separate robots.txt file for each of these protocols. For example, to allow Googlebot to index all http pages but no https pages, you'd use the robots.txt files below.
For your http protocol (http://yourserver.com/robots.txt):
User-agent: *
Allow: / For the https protocol (https://yourserver.com/robots.txt):
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
From a lay person's viewpoint, this is the first bit of very encouraging "news" on this thread-bare topic. I'm glad I'm not the one charged with the responsibility to "make it happen", this appears (to a non-techie, at least) to be something a bright techie should be able to "figure out". If puting a bit of code in a power or pro account could be written so the Smugmug subscriber could add it, or a tick-box option could be ticked (especially for Standard account holder) which would prompt Smugmug to send whatever is needed to the good folks at Google, it would be a major feather in Smugmug's cap. It sure would put a lot of misplaced emotion to rest.
From a lay person's viewpoint, this is the first bit of very encouraging "news" on this thread-bare topic. I'm glad I'm not the one charged with the responsibility to "make it happen", this appear (to a non-techie, at least) to be something a bright techie should be able to "figure out". If putting a bit of code in a power or pro account could be written so the Smugmug subscriber could add it, or a tick-box option could be ticked (especially for Standard account holder) which would prompt Smugmug to send whatever is needed to the good folks at Google, it would be a major feather in Smugmug's cap. It sure would put a lot of misplaced emotion to rest.
Papa, please don't be encouraged by that. It's nothing so simple. Sorry I don't have a better answer for you!
From a lay person's viewpoint, this is the first bit of very encouraging "news" on this thread-bare topic. I'm glad I'm not the one charged with the responsibility to "make it happen", this appears (to a non-techie, at least) to be something a bright techie should be able to "figure out". If puting a bit of code in a power or pro account could be written so the Smugmug subscriber could add it, or a tick-box option could be ticked (especially for Standard account holder) which would prompt Smugmug to send whatever is needed to the good folks at Google, it would be a major feather in Smugmug's cap. It sure would put a lot of misplaced emotion to rest.
Thanks Rando...but I'm afraid it's all a bit over my head at this point...I don't want to "break" anything. I need a Smugmug-Power-User-specific instruction tutorial with a definitive "Here's how to keep Google from crawling your site (and still be able to run your own keyword searches on your site)..., 1) Put this line in your CSS, 2) put this line in your style sheet...etc".
...and as Andy points out, despite there being a lot of discussion about it within the Smugmug brain trust, it doesn't yet sound as if anything is imminently forthcoming to "solve" the dilemma.
Perhaps what you linked to would do it, but I'm not techie enough to know how (or if) I can post something to a "root server" (SmugMug's, right?...so it doesn't seem to me that I have, nor should I have, access to that) that controls my pages. Without a "turn here, go straight here, left here", road map, I'm lost. But thank you for trying to help. There seems to be a lot (and a growing number) of us that want this.
Thanks Rando...but I'm afraid it's all a bit over my head at this point...I don't want to "break" anything. I need a Smugmug-Power-User-specific instruction tutorial with a definitive "Here's how to keep Google from crawling your site (and still be able to run your own keyword searches on your site)..., 1) Put this line in your CSS, 2) put this line in your style sheet...etc".
Hi Papajay, I need to be clear, NO such thing exists right now. Set your galleries, or your site, to private, and that will do it.
...and as Andy points out, despite there being a lot of discussion about it within the Smugmug brain trust, it doesn't yet sound as if anything is imminently forthcoming to "solve" the dilemma.
There's no dilemma, the site/functionality is working as the site was built. We are reading your posts, we are discussing it, but you cannot put a round peg in a square hole...
Hi Papajay, I need to be clear, NO such thing exists right now. Set your galleries, or your site, to private, and that will do it.]
I know no such thing exists right now, which is why I said it.
[There's no dilemma, the site/functionality is working as the site was built. We are reading your posts, we are discussing it, but you cannot put a round peg in a square hole...
...and never suggested the site isn't working as designed and built...which, pardon me. There is a "dilemma", however, Andy...it's the dilemma of wanting to have cake and eat it too, perhaps, but that's the nature of dilemmas. I'm glad you are discussing it, and no one realisticly expects you to put a round peg in a square hole (unless the round peg is small enough ). And just so I am clear...the dilemma is....only being given the option of privitizing my galleries and having to give up one of the coolest SmugMug features (keyword searching ) in the process.
...and never suggested the site isn't working as designed and built...which, pardon me. There is a "dilemma", however, Andy...it's the dilemma of wanting to have cake and eat it too, perhaps, but that's the nature of dilemmas. I'm glad you are discussing it, and no one realisticly expects you to put a round peg in a square hole (unless the round peg is small enough ). And just so I am clear...the dilemma is....only being given the option of privitizing my galleries and having to give up one of the coolest SmugMug features (keyword searching ) in the process.
Good - I just wanted to make sure that you knew you couldn't customize differently, now
Hi Papajay, I need to be clear, NO such thing exists right now. Set your galleries, or your site, to private, and that will do it.
There's no dilemma, the site/functionality is working as the site was built. We are reading your posts, we are discussing it, but you cannot put a round peg in a square hole...
I'm also not happy about my Smugmug site being list by seach engines. I don't want to make the site private. Are you going to correct the issue for public sites/pages or is making your site private the only option we have?
If making the site private is the only option then look for me to cancel my service ASAP. I would rather take the photos off line than change everything to private.
I wish your company would have been up front about this issue as I would never have joined if I knew my site was going to be listed by every web crawler.
I wish your company would have been up front about this issue as I would never have joined if I knew my site was going to be listed by every web crawler.
Hi, I'm sorry you feel we are being sneaky about it.... we are very upfront, we talk about security and privacy prominently in our help pages and gallery settings pages.
All the input here is being processed. And we thank you for telling us how important this is to you you!
I'm also not happy about my Smugmug site being list by seach engines. I don't want to make the site private. Are you going to correct the issue for public sites/pages or is making your site private the only option we have?
If making the site private is the only option then look for me to cancel my service ASAP. I would rather take the photos off line than change everything to private.
I wish your company would have been up front about this issue as I would never have joined if I knew my site was going to be listed by every web crawler.
What about adding the following in your HTML header configuration:
< meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" >
Of course, you can always notify Google and Yahoo to exclude your particular URL.
Johnny J. Chin ~ J. Chin Photography Facebook ♦ Flickr ♦ SmugMug
SmugMug referral coupon code: ix3uDyfBU6xXs
(use this for a discount off your SmugMug subscription)
And just so I am clear...the dilemma is....only being given the option of privitizing my galleries and having to give up one of the coolest SmugMug features (keyword searching ) in the process.
Hey papajay,
A patent troll who successfully sued Kodak, Shutterfly, Webshots and EZ Prints has been vexing us for awhile with US patents 6321231 and 6332146.
The language of the patents is very unclear but their claims appear to cover finding/searching for private images. We have yet another call with a law firm this week to attempt to understand these patents. I hope it's not the case that they have to go to trial to understand what the intent of the patent office was when they issued them.
It seems so strange that someone who never built a photo sharing site could prevent those of us who did from introducing features, at least in the U.S.
Reading through some of this thread, I'm probably missing something very simple and am 2 years late to the party, but why couldn't we solve 90% of this by just providing an option for each subscriber to check a box in their control panels that says something like:
A patent troll who successfully sued Kodak, Shutterfly, Webshots and EZ Prints has been vexing us for awhile with US patents 6321231 and 6332146....
...Reading through some of this thread, I'm probably missing something very simple and am 2 years late to the party, but why couldn't we solve 90% of this by just providing an option for each subscriber to check a box in their control panels that says something like:
"Tell search engines not to index my pages"
Baldy:
Thank you so much for the most encouraging post on this topic (and it's not the only thread that touches on the subject matter) since day one!
The first time through, I "mis-read" the opening sentence in your post as, "A PATIENT TROLL..." instead of a "patent troll". I thought for a moment you were going to tell me a fairy tale about a troll who eventually got what he wanted through a combination of persistence and patience.
For another moment, I didn't even mind being compared to a "troll" if my patience was to finally be rewarded with a fix (I even felt a bit guilty because I know I haven't always been so patient with SmugMug on this topic). Reality set in when I realized it was patents you were talking about, not patience.
Nevertheless, if you can, in fact, provide me with a control page option to stop search engines from indexing my pages, but allow me to still perform keyword searches when logged into my own site, I will indeed be one very happy SmugMug customer!!!.
Please, do this post haste, if at all possible. And I am certain I won't be the only SmugMug subscriber to kneel at your feet in gratitude.
Nevertheless, if you can, in fact, provide me with a control page option to stop search engines from indexing my pages, but allow me to still perform keyword searches when logged into my own site, I will indeed be one very happy SmugMug customer!!!.
Please, do this post haste, if at all possible. And I am certain I won't be the only SmugMug subscriber to kneel at your feet in gratitude.
Additionaly providing a "global" keyword replace capability (across my site all at once instead of having to use the bulk edit function one gallery at a time) would be truly AWESOME!
I hope it's not the case that they have to go to trial to understand what the intent of the patent office was when they issued them.
Mmmmm...patent trials seldom revolve around the intent of the USPTO. Rather, trials typically are about claim limitation interpretation in view of ordinary skill standards, the prior art, and the patent's written description and prosecution history.
However, no matter what, the best defense to a patent is to have the information to make what the patent owner believes is the correct interpretation invalid under 35 USC 102/103.
Papa, remember, Baldy didn't say anything about if/when we'd do this. I'm just sayin' ...
..hearin' ya loud and clear, Andy. Not everything, or everyone's "pet peeve", can be Priority #1.
But I have to believe that, "If Baldy wants it done, by golly, there's a good chance it'll get done!" (I know SmugMug isn't the military, but if it were...a five-star general usually gets what he wants).:D
Mmmmm...patent trials seldom revolve around the intent of the USPTO. Rather, trials typically are about claim limitation interpretation in view of ordinary skill standards, the prior art, and the patent's written description and prosecution history.
However, no matter what, the best defense to a patent is to have the information to make what the patent owner believes is the correct interpretation invalid under 35 USC 102/103.
Actually, the best defense is to show that you don't infringe. Proving invalidity is much, much harder than showing non-infringement - particularly in some courts that just assume the patent office never makes mistakes.
Nevertheless, if you can, in fact, provide me with a control page option to stop search engines from indexing my pages, but allow me to still perform keyword searches when logged into my own site, I will indeed be one very happy SmugMug customer!!!.
So let me make sure I understand:
Currently, when we make a gallery private, it makes it unavailable to SmugMug search and it keeps ethical search engines from indexing it.
If we were to provide a switch to accomplish the second half of that sentence, that's useful even if we don't do the first half?
Account passwords
If I understand correctly (but I may not as there are a lot of posts in this thread to read) if I password protect my account instead of just a gallery I can keep keyword functionality, prevent anyone without the password seeing my photos and well as 'asking' google & co. not to search it.
If that is the case how about giving us two accounts instead of just one? We could use one for the stuff we are happy for the world to see and keep the other for the sensitive stuff that is really for our own consumption. I confess I was a little shocked the first time I looked through the Google analytics reports and discovered people got to our photos by searching for the keyword 'children'.
Currently, when we make a gallery private, it makes it unavailable to SmugMug search and it keeps ethical search engines from indexing it.
If we were to provide a switch to accomplish the second half of that sentence, that's useful even if we don't do the first half?
Hi Baldy...I haven't had my coffee yet this morning, so had trouble decifering which "sentence" your were referring to (yours or mine).
Let me clarify...speaking entirely for MYSELF:
a.) I want to be able to perform keyword searching of my own site. But at the same time, I don't want to allow anyone else performing SmugMug searches (which search Smugmug sites for words in captions, gallery descriptions, or keyword fields), SmugMug keyword-only searches, or search-engine searches (GOOGLE or othewise) to find my photos or galleries in their search results.
b.) While it may seem counterintuitive, I'm comfortable enough with "public" versus "private" galleries because 1) I do not have to set a password on my galleries, 2) then communicate that password to my friends and relatives, and 3) "inconvenience"* my friends and relatives by requiring them to enter the password in order view my galleries.
*If SmugMug's policies or capabilities allowed me (alone) to conduct keyword searches of my own private galleries, I might have to re-think whether or not to make my site private and simply provide a password to all my friends and relatives.
Again...the above describes MY preferences. I know SmugMug subscriber "dmc", for example, is also a strong "keyword (but with privacy)" proponent, and has provided many detailed posts on the topic.
And I know there are many (pros especially) that actually want their customers, friends, relatives and the general public to access their sites via google searches etc. That's fine...afterall, it's how they make their living.
But I want a fair degree of "prvacy" for my family (peace of mind, really, for me, my wife, my daughter-in-law and son, etc. to know that pictures I take and post of my granddaughter are not being searched/viewed/chanced-upon by some of the low-lifes that troll the internet)...and yet I want to be able to share those same pictures readily and easily with people I love and trust.
I hope that clarifies my "preferences" well enough. I know I'm not alone. I'm truly hopeful that SmugMug will not only understand, but will soon find a way to satisfy this niche of it's user community.
Comments
So I set up a sharegroup. Initially when I emailed EVERYONE the link. I would get responses saying they bookmarked the link and couldn't see the photos a week later. So I sent out a second email explaining "SAVE THIS EMAIL" and why... for my privacy and theirs. Now when I add new galleries I just send a bulk email out to everyone telling them what has been added and I list the link again for good measure. Works like a charm. And it is like having two seperate websites IMHO. Now it is true that you loose keywords but I am willing to sacrifice that for some privacy and seperation from my business. One last thing, I think if you play around with categories and subcatogories (professional users only?) you will find a way to present your photos in a way where people won't need keywords. Just one girl's opinion
www.shawnaseto.com
Nobody gets in to see the wizard. Not nobody, not no how.
Join Smugmug get $5 bucks off!
I have over 200 galleries utilizing 8 different categories, a couple of which have sub-categories, most of my 8000 pics are keyworded... all of this is easily accessable via nickname.smugmug.com. I would loose all of these features if I made my galleries private, and created sharegroups. sharegroups can only have galleries in it, (I guess I could simulate categories by having multiple sharegroups... what a mess)... and the keywords don't work... a very awesome feature not replaced by mere categorization. (I can retrieve all the pictures of my dog from accross all my galleries, heck I can pull up all pictures of my dog... at the beach... at sunset... instantly
http://dmcpics.smugmug.com/keyword/dogs-beach-sunset
Why should I loose all the cool features of smugmug because they can't exclude me from their public search tools?
my broken record here...
yes I do see your point. And people do get confused navagating with sharegroups because if they leave to go back to the home page they can't get back to the private galleries. For now I will just have to deal with it I guess.
www.shawnaseto.com
Nobody gets in to see the wizard. Not nobody, not no how.
Join Smugmug get $5 bucks off!
Actually, Don, Google provides very clear instructions on how to exlude their webbots from indexing your site. They say changes will appear ~6-8 weeks later, around the time they typically revisit a site, but that for "emergencies" you can contact them and have things removed quicker. The wayback machine also allows opting out, but it looks like Smugmug must do this for us, we can't do it on our customization pages so far as I can tell.
Be seeing you,
The Duck
[SIZE=-0](From Google) - Remove your entire website [/SIZE]
If you wish to exclude your entire website from Google's index, you can place a file at the root of your server called robots.txt. This is the standard protocol that most web crawlers observe for excluding a web server or directory from an index. More information on robots.txt is available here: http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html. Please note that Googlebot does not interpret a 401/403 response ("Unauthorized"/"Forbidden") to a robots.txt fetch as a request not to crawl any pages on the site.
To remove your site from search engines and prevent all robots from crawling it in the future, place the following robots.txt file in your server root:
User-agent: *
Disallow: / To remove your site from Google only and prevent just Googlebot from crawling your site in the future, place the following robots.txt file in your server root:
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: / Each port must have its own robots.txt file. In particular, if you serve content via both http and https, you'll need a separate robots.txt file for each of these protocols. For example, to allow Googlebot to index all http pages but no https pages, you'd use the robots.txt files below.
For your http protocol (http://yourserver.com/robots.txt):
User-agent: *
Allow: / For the https protocol (https://yourserver.com/robots.txt):
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
From a lay person's viewpoint, this is the first bit of very encouraging "news" on this thread-bare topic. I'm glad I'm not the one charged with the responsibility to "make it happen", this appears (to a non-techie, at least) to be something a bright techie should be able to "figure out". If puting a bit of code in a power or pro account could be written so the Smugmug subscriber could add it, or a tick-box option could be ticked (especially for Standard account holder) which would prompt Smugmug to send whatever is needed to the good folks at Google, it would be a major feather in Smugmug's cap. It sure would put a lot of misplaced emotion to rest.
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Pooof!...Up, then Crashed to the floor again!
When we have something to add about this, we surely will, I promise.
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This can be handled by a simple meta tag to DISALLOW robots but the way smugmug forces a meta tag that ALLOWS robots, there is a conflict.
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35303
Thanks Rando...but I'm afraid it's all a bit over my head at this point...I don't want to "break" anything. I need a Smugmug-Power-User-specific instruction tutorial with a definitive "Here's how to keep Google from crawling your site (and still be able to run your own keyword searches on your site)..., 1) Put this line in your CSS, 2) put this line in your style sheet...etc".
...and as Andy points out, despite there being a lot of discussion about it within the Smugmug brain trust, it doesn't yet sound as if anything is imminently forthcoming to "solve" the dilemma.
Perhaps what you linked to would do it, but I'm not techie enough to know how (or if) I can post something to a "root server" (SmugMug's, right?...so it doesn't seem to me that I have, nor should I have, access to that) that controls my pages. Without a "turn here, go straight here, left here", road map, I'm lost. But thank you for trying to help. There seems to be a lot (and a growing number) of us that want this.
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...and never suggested the site isn't working as designed and built...which, pardon me. There is a "dilemma", however, Andy...it's the dilemma of wanting to have cake and eat it too, perhaps, but that's the nature of dilemmas. I'm glad you are discussing it, and no one realisticly expects you to put a round peg in a square hole (unless the round peg is small enough
Cheers Papa
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I'm also not happy about my Smugmug site being list by seach engines. I don't want to make the site private. Are you going to correct the issue for public sites/pages or is making your site private the only option we have?
If making the site private is the only option then look for me to cancel my service ASAP. I would rather take the photos off line than change everything to private.
I wish your company would have been up front about this issue as I would never have joined if I knew my site was going to be listed by every web crawler.
All the input here is being processed. And we thank you for telling us how important this is to you you!
Thanks for posting, and welcome to Dgrin!
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What about adding the following in your HTML header configuration:
Of course, you can always notify Google and Yahoo to exclude your particular URL.
Facebook ♦ Flickr ♦ SmugMug
SmugMug referral coupon code: ix3uDyfBU6xXs
(use this for a discount off your SmugMug subscription)
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
A patent troll who successfully sued Kodak, Shutterfly, Webshots and EZ Prints has been vexing us for awhile with US patents 6321231 and 6332146.
The language of the patents is very unclear but their claims appear to cover finding/searching for private images. We have yet another call with a law firm this week to attempt to understand these patents. I hope it's not the case that they have to go to trial to understand what the intent of the patent office was when they issued them.
It seems so strange that someone who never built a photo sharing site could prevent those of us who did from introducing features, at least in the U.S.
Reading through some of this thread, I'm probably missing something very simple and am 2 years late to the party, but why couldn't we solve 90% of this by just providing an option for each subscriber to check a box in their control panels that says something like:
"Tell search engines not to index my pages"
Baldy:
Thank you so much for the most encouraging post on this topic (and it's not the only thread that touches on the subject matter) since day one!
The first time through, I "mis-read" the opening sentence in your post as, "A PATIENT TROLL..." instead of a "patent troll". I thought for a moment you were going to tell me a fairy tale about a troll who eventually got what he wanted through a combination of persistence and patience.
For another moment, I didn't even mind being compared to a "troll" if my patience was to finally be rewarded with a fix (I even felt a bit guilty because I know I haven't always been so patient with SmugMug on this topic). Reality set in when I realized it was patents you were talking about, not patience.
Nevertheless, if you can, in fact, provide me with a control page option to stop search engines from indexing my pages, but allow me to still perform keyword searches when logged into my own site, I will indeed be one very happy SmugMug customer!!!.
Please, do this post haste, if at all possible. And I am certain I won't be the only SmugMug subscriber to kneel at your feet in gratitude.
Additionaly providing a "global" keyword replace capability (across my site all at once instead of having to use the bulk edit function one gallery at a time) would be truly AWESOME!
However, no matter what, the best defense to a patent is to have the information to make what the patent owner believes is the correct interpretation invalid under 35 USC 102/103.
GreyLeaf PhotoGraphy
Papa, remember, Baldy didn't say anything about if/when we'd do this. I'm just sayin' ...
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..hearin' ya loud and clear, Andy. Not everything, or everyone's "pet peeve", can be Priority #1.
But I have to believe that, "If Baldy wants it done, by golly, there's a good chance it'll get done!" (I know SmugMug isn't the military, but if it were...a five-star general usually gets what he wants).:D
Actually, the best defense is to show that you don't infringe. Proving invalidity is much, much harder than showing non-infringement - particularly in some courts that just assume the patent office never makes mistakes.
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Currently, when we make a gallery private, it makes it unavailable to SmugMug search and it keeps ethical search engines from indexing it.
If we were to provide a switch to accomplish the second half of that sentence, that's useful even if we don't do the first half?
If I understand correctly (but I may not as there are a lot of posts in this thread to read) if I password protect my account instead of just a gallery I can keep keyword functionality, prevent anyone without the password seeing my photos and well as 'asking' google & co. not to search it.
If that is the case how about giving us two accounts instead of just one? We could use one for the stuff we are happy for the world to see and keep the other for the sensitive stuff that is really for our own consumption. I confess I was a little shocked the first time I looked through the Google analytics reports and discovered people got to our photos by searching for the keyword 'children'.
Still loving it here though
Richard
Hi Baldy...I haven't had my coffee yet this morning, so had trouble decifering which "sentence" your were referring to (yours or mine).
Let me clarify...speaking entirely for MYSELF:
a.) I want to be able to perform keyword searching of my own site. But at the same time, I don't want to allow anyone else performing SmugMug searches (which search Smugmug sites for words in captions, gallery descriptions, or keyword fields), SmugMug keyword-only searches, or search-engine searches (GOOGLE or othewise) to find my photos or galleries in their search results.
b.) While it may seem counterintuitive, I'm comfortable enough with "public" versus "private" galleries because 1) I do not have to set a password on my galleries, 2) then communicate that password to my friends and relatives, and 3) "inconvenience"* my friends and relatives by requiring them to enter the password in order view my galleries.
*If SmugMug's policies or capabilities allowed me (alone) to conduct keyword searches of my own private galleries, I might have to re-think whether or not to make my site private and simply provide a password to all my friends and relatives.
Again...the above describes MY preferences. I know SmugMug subscriber "dmc", for example, is also a strong "keyword (but with privacy)" proponent, and has provided many detailed posts on the topic.
And I know there are many (pros especially) that actually want their customers, friends, relatives and the general public to access their sites via google searches etc. That's fine...afterall, it's how they make their living.
But I want a fair degree of "prvacy" for my family (peace of mind, really, for me, my wife, my daughter-in-law and son, etc. to know that pictures I take and post of my granddaughter are not being searched/viewed/chanced-upon by some of the low-lifes that troll the internet)...and yet I want to be able to share those same pictures readily and easily with people I love and trust.
I hope that clarifies my "preferences" well enough. I know I'm not alone. I'm truly hopeful that SmugMug will not only understand, but will soon find a way to satisfy this niche of it's user community.
This thread is 15 pages long...
It is over 2 years old...
Baldy just asked for input from us (in this thread 2-25-2007) on what exactly we would like...
http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=493235&postcount=147
Baldy asked for input from us on what we would like.... over 2 years ago (in this thread 2-5-2005) as well
http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=57007&postcount=2
I really try to stay out of this subject and being redundant, but cmon, you just messing with us now??
Here is my summary of what should be included in the account settings.. from 2 feature request threads ago...
http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=365605&postcount=19
My question is:
If we provide a switch that lets you tell the search engines not to index your site even if your galleries are public
but
we still let people find you through SmugMug's search, is it worth doing? In terms of importance, does it solve 80% of the problem or 20%?
If I'm understanding papajay's and dmc's responses, it's maybe 20%, solving a token amount of the problem.