SmugIslands. Kind of the direct print feature of Canon DSLR's.
Whoa....
And herein lies the difference - you might think you know what's important to customers - but we live it, each hour, each day, each week. We heard from zillions of customers about more privacy options.
Don't get me wrong, we want and value your input But I have to say, on this particular instace, I disagree with you.
I'm sorry SmugIslands aren't important to you, but they are to a huge # of customers.
Both Apple and SmugMug seem to reject features requested by some users on the grounds that "most people don't want them", "most people don't care", or (here is the most common one) "most people would be confused by having this feature".
Hi renstar,
Don't forget that we also are mindful about clogging the site with more features (we already have a billion) and then the subsequent maintenance of them We try to balance feature requests fairly. We have our product direction, things we're working on - and we try to do as many user requests as possible - we'll never do them all, that's impossible. But we do have a priorities list, too, and we have to take that into account.
We might not know what's important for others but when I ask something and am told "you don't need it", that's downrignt insulting. I bet we'll have circular thumbnails before relevent titles tags, virtual galleries, recent photos/galeries and deeper levels.
We might not know what's important for others but when I ask something and am told "you don't need it", that's downrignt insulting. I bet we'll have circular thumbnails before relevent titles tags, virtual galleries, recent photos/galeries and deeper levels.
I don't think we've said "You don't need it", at least I hope we'd not say that.
We try to say, "Thanks for telling us how important it is to you." And then you, the customer, have a choice: stick with us, we implement what you want, or you find something else that suits you better. We really try hard to meet customer needs and expectations. We've got an open forum here where the entire company reads and listens. And we encourage you to keep posting your requests and input.
But browbeating us, Erick, won't do the trick, I can tell you that. You have a history of being tough on us - that's fine - we can take it and we love it. But the snarkiness is unflattering and unhelpful. And it's escalating of late with you. I'll repeat: we want your input - we love it and it's truly like gold to us. But my heart sinks lately when I read your posts
It's true I havent been tender but you keep talking about your great service and made promises that never came true. That's from the beggining. Most of questions were never answered. And while searching for answers, I see other people with the same problem but you refuse you acknowledge it. Just look at the posts here. People are getting tired of the "we know better than you" attitude. I didn't invent that. English isn't my first language and just found out what smugness actually means and it fits perfectly.
I don't think we've said "You don't need it", at least I hope we'd not say that.
You pretty much said that in this very thread. And to me regarding the title tags. Every time I brought it up, you dodged the question by mentionning the wiki. Just recently, I was told it was unimportant for search engine. I'm sorry but it's VERY important. Ask anybody who knows SEO. I'll fight until the end membership over this.
That's why I got so mad lately. It's one thing not to offer a feature, but being told what is better for me is another.
That's why I got so mad lately. It's one thing not to offer a feature, but being told what is better for me is another.
Hi Erick, at some point, we get to make decisions. I'll stand by our history of 5+ years of listening and delivering on customer demand, and meeting it. We aren't always as fast as we'd like to be, for sure. And we haven't made every single feature request come true. But we are a company that gives a darn. Thanks again for your input.
It's ironic that SM doesn't allow deeper categories because it adds too many click, while even simple operations require several unnecessary clicks.
That, by the way, is not the only reason that we don't have deeper categorization. The backend and the interface are also major concerns (as well as having other very important features to build).
However, I think there is an important difference between the two operations you mentioned. One is specifically targetted at visitors and the other at site owners. One of the things we absolutely stand by is that your photos look better on SmugMug. And that includes browsing to them and among them. And it's certainly one of the largest draws when someone browses photos on Flickr and then us.
Someone mentioned in the thread how they see accounts with 8 galleries and lots of categories and subcategories. That's the same thing that happened when Flickr added deeper levels: many people think they have to use them or feel compelled to. While we don't want to hinder SmugMuggers from organizing and sharing as they wish, we do want to help them do it properly.
Myspace is a great example of this problem. It was one of the first social networking sites that allowed quite a bit of customization. But people new to it had no idea how ugly and annoying their Myspace sites were becoming. It may be that Myspace developers knew good Web design. But they didn't have a way to encourage or help their customers make good sites.
It's a delicate balance for us. We want every SmugMugger to have a great looking site with as little effort as possible. We also want them to decide what looks great and what doesn't, not us. However, we are the ones who spend countless hours on customer research, interface design, and heat mapping.
If we build deeper levels, there will be many people who use it when they shouldn't simply because they don't understand click fatigue. But there will also be people who desperately need it and improve the overall browsing experience of their visitors.
The unfortunate side effect of spending so much effort on making the browsing and viewing experience for your visitors so good is that the interface you deal with (tools, control panel, etc.) has suffered from neglect. It is right now one of our top priorities to drastically improve that. And we will.
By the way, if anyone doesn't really believe in click fatigue (I do think it is a terrible name, but a very real thing), take a close look at Amazon. While the retail mentality has for centuries been to get customers into stores and keep them there as long as possible, Amazon has gone to great lengths to make the experience very quick and painless.
You can find items quickly through searching or categories. They assist you with browsing history and product recommendations. You can skip the cart completely with one-click purchases. And it works really, really well.
Simply include html links to your "sub galleries" in the gallery description area of the "top level" gallery. Of course, you'll need to link backwards also and keep track of your links and navigation, but it's not that hard and it serves the purpose well.
Edit: OK ... I didn't read the whole thread before posting this and I should have. I know my solution isn't all that elegant but it works, assuming I understand the issue, which I may not. I'll butt out now.
<o:p></o:p> Andy - I didn't mean to imply anything about the costs of storage not mattering (I know how expensive storage is, I have over 10TB of RAID10 spinning disk in my rack). That's a different issue. I was responding to your response to CJYPHOTO's question: "why don't we have copy to gallery! " which was "We do allow unlimited storage of photos on SmugMug." That totally missed the point of the question. <o:p></o:p>
If we build deeper levels, there will be many people who use it when they shouldn't simply because they don't understand click fatigue. But there will also be people who desperately need it and improve the overall browsing experience of their visitors.
<o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p> I understand these concerns. However, not implementing functionality that is really important to some of your pros because a few inept folks may misuse the feature isn't really the best course of action IMO. If you are concerned about misuse, maybe have this level of feature only available with Pro accounts, or a feature that customers have to specifically request be enabled on their account, or make it a paid add-on. If people have to pay a little more to add the feature, only those that need it will pay for it. Just a thought....<o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p>
The backend and the interface are also major concerns. The backend and the interface are also major concerns (as well as having other very important features to build).
<o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p> Having some development experience, this is IMO really the most valid reason for not doing something (or having it take a while to implement). With that said, I see a lot of threads in the past (three plus years back) where features I want/need have been discussed and, from what I can see, no movement at all has taken place. With that said, SM is making good money here, and if dev resources are the issue, maybe hiring a few more folks to work on the backend might help....<o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p>
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<o:p></o:p> I can really understand Erick's frustration with the SEO situation. The feeling I come away with from reading your posts around this Andy is that you don't really feel that any of this is important or necessary because you believe that keywording solves the issue. It doesn't. I know from experience with one of my other websites (non-photo related). I have complete control over everything on that site, and I can tell you that everything Erick is saying is correct. My other site has significantly less traffic than my smugmug hosted site (due to the nature of what the site caters to), but it is much more discoverable via search. Further, it is recrawled at a much higher rate. With respect to the recrawl rate, I did some testing over the last two months to see specifically what was influencing the recrawl rate, and I can conclusively say that it's the sitemap. When I remove the sitemap from my other site, my recrawl rate plummets. When I put it back, all the search engine recrawl rates go up significantly. This is a critical flaw in smugmug's feature set IMO, and I have seen zero movement on it in over three years of posts that I've seen in dgrin.<o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p> I don't want you guys to take this as me bashing smugmug as that's not my intent here. If I didn't like your overall feature set, or your service, I'd never have signed up or stuck around. However, when I see what I consider to be major missing functionality that's been discussed for years with no visible action taken, I question if these issues will ever be addressed.... some examples: SEO, self-fulfillment, package pricing. These have all been discussed for YEARS but, as far as I can tell, they have not and will not be fixed/addressed. I know you take our feedback seriously. I understand the challenges involved with implementing complex features on a platform that supports this many users, but I really hope you guys will take steps to address these areas in a more rapid fashion.
I really want you guys to know that I'm impressed by the fact that you take the time to personally respond to customers in this form. I know how much time this takes out of your day. A lot of other providers would just have a few low level folks do the customer interaction and call it good enough. Your interaction at this level was prompted me to place my business here in the first place. <o:p></o:p>
I can really understand Erick's frustration with the SEO situation. The feeling I come away with from reading your posts around this Andy is that you don't really feel that any of this is important or necessary because you believe that keywording solves the issue.
Are the things that can be done with your sites on SmugMug to maximize findability.
If I could wave a wand, and make page titles happen, I'd do it
What makes me scratch my head, is when folks complain that they aren't being found, but then won't / don't do the things that we say will help - I've seen it over and over again
Someone mentioned in the thread how they see accounts with 8 galleries and lots of categories and subcategories. That's the same thing that happened when Flickr added deeper levels: many people think they have to use them or feel compelled to. While we don't want to hinder SmugMuggers from organizing and sharing as they wish, we do want to help them do it properly.
Myspace is a great example of this problem. It was one of the first social networking sites that allowed quite a bit of customization. But people new to it had no idea how ugly and annoying their Myspace sites were becoming. It may be that Myspace developers knew good Web design. But they didn't have a way to encourage or help their customers make good sites.
Not to poo poo on Flickr users (well, maybe a little ) but Smugmug/Zenfolio users & Flickr users usually arent the same type of people. I don't wanna sound snobby, but I think there is a reason why most pros & people with just higher standards overall pay the premium for Smug/Zen. And I think those same types of people can be trusted more to not screw up their site as much as a Flickr users would. I'm not trying to make harsh generalizations, but I think thats a fair statement.
Same with Myspace. Even if a myspace user doesnt know diddly about coding (which most dont), that wont stop them from making their sites as ugly as sin & less functional overall. Not really the same as here, but its related to my point.
The point being, you've already opened that can of coding worms for most users here. Which means, you have to trust their judgment somewhat or else you wouldnt offer the level of customization that you do to the end user. So why is adding deeper levels to the breadcrumb such an issue then?? It does seem a little ass-backwards in that line of thinking.
And listen, Im not gonna bash you guys, thats not what I do. I try to offer constructive criticism. But I think what most people are mad about overall is that you guys will work hard & long on "neat" features that people arent really asking for too much, but you wont add simple things like more sub-categories that would REALLY help out tons of people. So, its sorta like saying "Oh, you dont need that features you've all been asking about for years. But check THIS new feature out that you probably wont use. Pretty cool, huh??" Yes, its cool, but that doesnt really help us out.
Not to say you shouldnt always be pushing the envelope for new & exciting features, you should. But you have to address these things first, get all your ducks in a row first, so to speak. Streamline & rework that user interface already guys (its long overdue), add these simple features that people have been asking for for years, etc. THEN work on the other features that no one is asking for.
But I think what most people are mad about overall is that you guys will work hard & long on "neat" features that people arent really asking for too much,
Can you name some that fall in this category? I'd really like to know, it'd be very helpful... thanks!
but you wont add simple things like more sub-categories that would REALLY help out tons of people.
Can you name some that fall in this category? I'd really like to know, it'd be very helpful... thanks!
Seeing photos on Google Maps & iPhone integration. Not to say those arent useful & cool, but I don't remember users screaming for them for years either.
Streamline & rework that user interface already guys (its long overdue)
AMEN to that. deal
Not to be snarky but the UI could be a lot cleaner. That's why I have an account at Zenfolio.
On the other hand...it seems to me that some of these knowledgeable (web stuff) complainers would be better served to have there own websites and really see what's involved.
Obviously, people would rather pay to have someone do it for them.
I think that if you want to make some real money at this game you need your own site and invest the time and dollars that goes along with it.
For us lazier more timid types...SM and Zen will have to do. (they do it pretty good)
After all it's really their toys we are renting.:D
What makes me scratch my head, is when folks complain that they aren't being found, but then won't / don't do the things that we say will help - I've seen it over and over again
If I'm one of those, I haven't complained about not being found. I wrote post on this here. I knew I'd take a hit when joining SM because of URL changes but I'm worried about recovery.
Before I joined SM, some of my pages were competing for first place on Google with official sites, like a national park for exemple. Not bad for tiny site. I never used descriptions or keywords because despite what the wiki page says, they don't help that much, especially keywords. Lots of people don't even bother with keywords anymore.
There's no real need for a meta description except for homepage, as a "signature line". Besides incoming links, page title, H1, H2, H3, photo captions, alt tags and plain text are the real deal, page title being the most important by faaaaar.
One of thing the wiki page says is to add a description. In a bird gallery, the breadcrumb says "Birds" and the page is full of bird pictures. Adding a description just adds clutter. On my old site without description, Google would use the page content as description, like alt tags with actual bird names. No need for a description. BUT, because I don't need a description, SM adds it's own about "photo sharing" and bla bla bla. Smugmug is hurting me for not doing something!
Seeing photos on Google Maps & iPhone integration. Not to say those arent useful & cool, but I don't remember users screaming for them for years either.
Maps are extremely popular and folks love 'em. I'm glad we have it. We came out with maps years ago
Maybe, but it seemed like it took you guys no time to release that iPhone app.
True enough! But we're not talking on the same scale as what's being asked for in this thread. Thanks Kerry!
Maybe, but it seemed like it took you guys no time to release that iPhone app.
Hint: That's because it was very easy to build compared to most other features.
I know in everyone's mind their own feature requests are the most important. I completely understand that. But the iPhone interface is very important to some other people.
Are the things that can be done with your sites on SmugMug to maximize findability.
If I could wave a wand, and make page titles happen, I'd do it
What makes me scratch my head, is when folks complain that they aren't being found, but then won't / don't do the things that we say will help - I've seen it over and over again <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/ne_nau.gif" border="0" alt="" >
If I misconstrued what you've said, I apologize.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p> I totally agree with the head scratching when folks aren't following the recommendations that you've posted.<o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p> Understand that I'm not complaining about not being found in the broader sense (I've followed most of the items on the list). Stuff that's been up for a while does bubble up in the search results, but anything new takes an unaccepatably long time to show up in the search results, and that's where the recrawl interval comes into play. Sitemaps solve that issue and should be a relatively easy thing to implement given it's just a basic xml file in the root of the site....
To give you a comparison, I can add a page to my other site, update my sitemap with the search engines, and within two days I've been recrawled and that page is showing up in the search results. The same can't be said for my SM hosted site.
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Hint: That's because it was very easy to build compared to most other features.
I know in everyone's mind their own feature requests are the most important. I completely understand that. But the iPhone interface is very important to some other people.
Hey, that was me who said that.
And the point isnt what takes longer or is easier to implement, its about priority. And "important" to who? A few privileged iPhone users here & there?? If I remember correctly, not many users were clamoring for an iPhone app mere weeks after the phone's release, but Smugmug seemed to think it was important enough to move up to the front of the line.
Thats my point. Those I mentioned earlier (Maps, iPhone app) arent really features at all, & certainly not deal breaker features. But mere add-on "toys" to play with that no one was really asking for. The point is focus, the point is to prioritize & to listen what people NEED. Not just fun stuff to play with. People NEED more sub-categories for better organization, people NEED a better UI that doesnt look tired & they needed it years ago. They didnt need to browse Smugmug on their iPhones weeks after its release. And frankly, it shouldnt have taken this long to aknowledge those said needs. SM is way behind in that regard.
I was preaching about this stuff 2 years ago & was getting blown off left & right. Now its a problem. Tell the coding monkeys to stop brain storming for new & exciting flashy features for the moment & handle the important stuff first.
If I remember correctly, not many users were clamoring for an iPhone app mere weeks after the phone's release, but Smugmug seemed to think it was important enough to move up to the front of the line.
It wasn't moved to the "front of any line" we do have a large Sorcery team and many things are worked on at once.
People NEED more sub-categories for better organization,
Some have said that, yes. We'll see what happens!
people NEED a better UI that doesnt look tired & they needed it years ago.
Yes, and if you're reading this thread, you'll know it's a big priority and that we're working that as we speak. Plenty done already (CP Tabs, AddToCart), Cart is in the works and moving along (finally!), Default theme (asking for opinions now on Dgrin!), Admin tools are being worked on as we speak and we hope to have something to show for that rather soon, and overall Tools UI is a huge priority for the whole team.
Tell the coding monkeys to stop brain storming for new & exciting flashy features for the moment & handle the important stuff first.
That's rather harsh, Kerry. I don't think you'd appreciate being called names, would you?
Tell the coding monkeys to stop brain storming for new & exciting flashy features for the moment & handle the important stuff first.
That's incredibly unfair and a rather foolish thing to say. Do you know who actually built the iPhone interface? Did you know that it wasn't any of our "coding monkeys"? They had other projects.
Take a look at some of the features we have built over the last year:
New slide show
Square thumbnails
Redesigned help pages
Album and image keys (privacy/security)
Video
Hidden photos
SmugNews
Greeting cards
New display sizes (SmugMungous)
Customer-controlled photo sharpening
Native PNG's and GIF's
New shipping calculator
In-house Mac uploader
Add-to-cart inferface
iPhone interface
Visitor help pages
Add photos menu
SmugIslands
Each and every one of those was a result from feedback we received from SmugMuggers.
Our developers have very long to-do lists that are prioritized according to a number of criteria: Need, development time, impact, etc. I'm fairly confident our feature list is considerably longer than any other photo sharing site out there and we do it with very few "coding monkeys". They work extremely hard, so please don't insult them.
UI change...
I would hate to see SM change the UI a whole lot. It seems to work very well to me. I think that while Zenfolio is nice, it just doesn't compare with SM for ease of use or image quality (maybe thats just me).
I've only been a member of SM since 2005. I have had galleries at other photo sharing sites (some paid, some free) but I am completely satisfied with the incremental improvements that SM keeps making and would probably just throw in the towel if it were another Zenfolio.
Seeing photos on Google Maps & iPhone integration. Not to say those arent useful & cool, but I don't remember users screaming for them for years either.
I think people also need to remember that a large majority of smugmug users don't participate actively here at dgrin but may voice their opinions via email. Just because certain issues are hot topics here doesn't mean it is representative of the entire smugmug client base. That said, I think the smugmug team as a whole does a great job of listening to feedback and implementing changes. We may complain that some long-requested features haven't been added yet, but most companies wouldn't actively respond to user requests like smugmug does.
That's rather harsh, Kerry. I don't think you'd appreciate being called names, would you?
Didnt mean any disrespect. Honestly I cant believe you guys havent heard that term before. Its not an insult nor did I mean it to be one. Its a playful term for programmers, nothing more. Heck, there was even a show called Code Monkeys on G4 years ago.
Didnt mean any disrespect. Honestly I cant believe you guys havent heard that term before. Its not an insult nor did I mean it to be one. Its a playful term for programmers, nothing more. Heck, there was even a show called Code Monkeys on G4 years ago.
I would hate to see SM change the UI a whole lot. It seems to work very well to me. I think that while Zenfolio is nice, it just doesn't compare with SM for ease of use or image quality (maybe thats just me).
I've only been a member of SM since 2005. I have had galleries at other photo sharing sites (some paid, some free) but I am completely satisfied with the incremental improvements that SM keeps making and would probably just throw in the towel if it were another Zenfolio.
Hi, we're talking about things like creating a custom category - is where now? Buried in Control panel. That's just an example But we're gonna try and make things easier for you to find and use. We're not talking about a wholesale change or anything like that. Just trying to un-dumb a some things
Comments
Whoa....
And herein lies the difference - you might think you know what's important to customers - but we live it, each hour, each day, each week. We heard from zillions of customers about more privacy options.
Don't get me wrong, we want and value your input
I'm sorry SmugIslands aren't important to you, but they are to a huge # of customers.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Don't forget that we also are mindful about clogging the site with more features (we already have a billion) and then the subsequent maintenance of them
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
borealphoto.smugmug.com
We try to say, "Thanks for telling us how important it is to you." And then you, the customer, have a choice: stick with us, we implement what you want, or you find something else that suits you better. We really try hard to meet customer needs and expectations. We've got an open forum here where the entire company reads and listens. And we encourage you to keep posting your requests and input.
But browbeating us, Erick, won't do the trick, I can tell you that. You have a history of being tough on us - that's fine - we can take it and we love it. But the snarkiness is unflattering and unhelpful. And it's escalating of late with you. I'll repeat: we want your input - we love it and it's truly like gold to us. But my heart sinks lately when I read your posts
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
You pretty much said that in this very thread. And to me regarding the title tags. Every time I brought it up, you dodged the question by mentionning the wiki. Just recently, I was told it was unimportant for search engine. I'm sorry but it's VERY important. Ask anybody who knows SEO. I'll fight until the end membership over this.
That's why I got so mad lately. It's one thing not to offer a feature, but being told what is better for me is another.
borealphoto.smugmug.com
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
That, by the way, is not the only reason that we don't have deeper categorization. The backend and the interface are also major concerns (as well as having other very important features to build).
However, I think there is an important difference between the two operations you mentioned. One is specifically targetted at visitors and the other at site owners. One of the things we absolutely stand by is that your photos look better on SmugMug. And that includes browsing to them and among them. And it's certainly one of the largest draws when someone browses photos on Flickr and then us.
Someone mentioned in the thread how they see accounts with 8 galleries and lots of categories and subcategories. That's the same thing that happened when Flickr added deeper levels: many people think they have to use them or feel compelled to. While we don't want to hinder SmugMuggers from organizing and sharing as they wish, we do want to help them do it properly.
Myspace is a great example of this problem. It was one of the first social networking sites that allowed quite a bit of customization. But people new to it had no idea how ugly and annoying their Myspace sites were becoming. It may be that Myspace developers knew good Web design. But they didn't have a way to encourage or help their customers make good sites.
It's a delicate balance for us. We want every SmugMugger to have a great looking site with as little effort as possible. We also want them to decide what looks great and what doesn't, not us. However, we are the ones who spend countless hours on customer research, interface design, and heat mapping.
If we build deeper levels, there will be many people who use it when they shouldn't simply because they don't understand click fatigue. But there will also be people who desperately need it and improve the overall browsing experience of their visitors.
By the way, if anyone doesn't really believe in click fatigue (I do think it is a terrible name, but a very real thing), take a close look at Amazon. While the retail mentality has for centuries been to get customers into stores and keep them there as long as possible, Amazon has gone to great lengths to make the experience very quick and painless.
You can find items quickly through searching or categories. They assist you with browsing history and product recommendations. You can skip the cart completely with one-click purchases. And it works really, really well.
Simply include html links to your "sub galleries" in the gallery description area of the "top level" gallery. Of course, you'll need to link backwards also and keep track of your links and navigation, but it's not that hard and it serves the purpose well.
As an example, look at all the blue buttons in the gallery description area at http://www.customrideportraits.com/gallery/4333313_xE9eY#254168726.
You can also build HTML only pages that link to your galleries as in http://www.customrideportraits.com/gallery/4345166_vEzY5.
I hope this helps.
Chuck Cannova
www.customrideportraits.com
Edit: OK ... I didn't read the whole thread before posting this and I should have. I know my solution isn't all that elegant but it works, assuming I understand the issue, which I may not. I'll butt out now.
www.socalimages.com
Artistically & Creatively Challenged
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Andy - I didn't mean to imply anything about the costs of storage not mattering (I know how expensive storage is, I have over 10TB of RAID10 spinning disk in my rack). That's a different issue. I was responding to your response to CJYPHOTO's question: "why don't we have copy to gallery! " which was "We do allow unlimited storage of photos on SmugMug." That totally missed the point of the question.
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I'm optimistic that if/when you release this it'll help address some of these issues. <o:p></o:p>
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I understand these concerns. However, not implementing functionality that is really important to some of your pros because a few inept folks may misuse the feature isn't really the best course of action IMO. If you are concerned about misuse, maybe have this level of feature only available with Pro accounts, or a feature that customers have to specifically request be enabled on their account, or make it a paid add-on. If people have to pay a little more to add the feature, only those that need it will pay for it. Just a thought....<o:p></o:p>
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Having some development experience, this is IMO really the most valid reason for not doing something (or having it take a while to implement). With that said, I see a lot of threads in the past (three plus years back) where features I want/need have been discussed and, from what I can see, no movement at all has taken place. With that said, SM is making good money here, and if dev resources are the issue, maybe hiring a few more folks to work on the backend might help....<o:p></o:p>
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I can really understand Erick's frustration with the SEO situation. The feeling I come away with from reading your posts around this Andy is that you don't really feel that any of this is important or necessary because you believe that keywording solves the issue. It doesn't. I know from experience with one of my other websites (non-photo related). I have complete control over everything on that site, and I can tell you that everything Erick is saying is correct. My other site has significantly less traffic than my smugmug hosted site (due to the nature of what the site caters to), but it is much more discoverable via search. Further, it is recrawled at a much higher rate. With respect to the recrawl rate, I did some testing over the last two months to see specifically what was influencing the recrawl rate, and I can conclusively say that it's the sitemap. When I remove the sitemap from my other site, my recrawl rate plummets. When I put it back, all the search engine recrawl rates go up significantly. This is a critical flaw in smugmug's feature set IMO, and I have seen zero movement on it in over three years of posts that I've seen in dgrin.<o:p></o:p>
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I don't want you guys to take this as me bashing smugmug as that's not my intent here. If I didn't like your overall feature set, or your service, I'd never have signed up or stuck around. However, when I see what I consider to be major missing functionality that's been discussed for years with no visible action taken, I question if these issues will ever be addressed.... some examples: SEO, self-fulfillment, package pricing. These have all been discussed for YEARS but, as far as I can tell, they have not and will not be fixed/addressed. I know you take our feedback seriously. I understand the challenges involved with implementing complex features on a platform that supports this many users, but I really hope you guys will take steps to address these areas in a more rapid fashion.
I really want you guys to know that I'm impressed by the fact that you take the time to personally respond to customers in this form. I know how much time this takes out of your day. A lot of other providers would just have a few low level folks do the customer interaction and call it good enough. Your interaction at this level was prompted me to place my business here in the first place.
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Back to lurking.....<o:p></o:p>
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www.bellafaccie.com
http://wiki.smugmug.com/display/SmugMug/Maximize+Search+Engine+Findability
Are the things that can be done with your sites on SmugMug to maximize findability.
If I could wave a wand, and make page titles happen, I'd do it
What makes me scratch my head, is when folks complain that they aren't being found, but then won't / don't do the things that we say will help - I've seen it over and over again
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Same with Myspace. Even if a myspace user doesnt know diddly about coding (which most dont), that wont stop them from making their sites as ugly as sin & less functional overall. Not really the same as here, but its related to my point.
The point being, you've already opened that can of coding worms for most users here. Which means, you have to trust their judgment somewhat or else you wouldnt offer the level of customization that you do to the end user. So why is adding deeper levels to the breadcrumb such an issue then?? It does seem a little ass-backwards in that line of thinking.
And listen, Im not gonna bash you guys, thats not what I do. I try to offer constructive criticism. But I think what most people are mad about overall is that you guys will work hard & long on "neat" features that people arent really asking for too much, but you wont add simple things like more sub-categories that would REALLY help out tons of people. So, its sorta like saying "Oh, you dont need that features you've all been asking about for years. But check THIS new feature out that you probably wont use. Pretty cool, huh??" Yes, its cool, but that doesnt really help us out.
Not to say you shouldnt always be pushing the envelope for new & exciting features, you should. But you have to address these things first, get all your ducks in a row first, so to speak. Streamline & rework that user interface already guys (its long overdue), add these simple features that people have been asking for for years, etc. THEN work on the other features that no one is asking for.
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Maybe, but it seemed like it took you guys no time to release that iPhone app.
AMEN to that.
Not to be snarky but the UI could be a lot cleaner. That's why I have an account at Zenfolio.
On the other hand...it seems to me that some of these knowledgeable (web stuff) complainers would be better served to have there own websites and really see what's involved.
Obviously, people would rather pay to have someone do it for them.
I think that if you want to make some real money at this game you need your own site and invest the time and dollars that goes along with it.
For us lazier more timid types...SM and Zen will have to do. (they do it pretty good)
After all it's really their toys we are renting.:D
If I'm one of those, I haven't complained about not being found. I wrote post on this here. I knew I'd take a hit when joining SM because of URL changes but I'm worried about recovery.
Before I joined SM, some of my pages were competing for first place on Google with official sites, like a national park for exemple. Not bad for tiny site. I never used descriptions or keywords because despite what the wiki page says, they don't help that much, especially keywords. Lots of people don't even bother with keywords anymore.
There's no real need for a meta description except for homepage, as a "signature line". Besides incoming links, page title, H1, H2, H3, photo captions, alt tags and plain text are the real deal, page title being the most important by faaaaar.
One of thing the wiki page says is to add a description. In a bird gallery, the breadcrumb says "Birds" and the page is full of bird pictures. Adding a description just adds clutter. On my old site without description, Google would use the page content as description, like alt tags with actual bird names. No need for a description. BUT, because I don't need a description, SM adds it's own about "photo sharing" and bla bla bla. Smugmug is hurting me for not doing something!
borealphoto.smugmug.com
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It's a top priority for us, Ric - there's a lot we can do and we must do, to make the site be easier to admin, use, and navigate.
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Sometimes...new rims, a tune up, and a bobblehead, just aren't enough. If you want to be cool and get the chicks, a new car is sometimes necessary.
Trust me, we are well aware of it. There will be some tune-ups before the new car arrives though.
Hint: That's because it was very easy to build compared to most other features.
I know in everyone's mind their own feature requests are the most important. I completely understand that. But the iPhone interface is very important to some other people.
If I misconstrued what you've said, I apologize.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
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I totally agree with the head scratching when folks aren't following the recommendations that you've posted.<o:p></o:p>
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Understand that I'm not complaining about not being found in the broader sense (I've followed most of the items on the list). Stuff that's been up for a while does bubble up in the search results, but anything new takes an unaccepatably long time to show up in the search results, and that's where the recrawl interval comes into play. Sitemaps solve that issue and should be a relatively easy thing to implement given it's just a basic xml file in the root of the site....
To give you a comparison, I can add a page to my other site, update my sitemap with the search engines, and within two days I've been recrawled and that page is showing up in the search results. The same can't be said for my SM hosted site.
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www.bellafaccie.com
And the point isnt what takes longer or is easier to implement, its about priority. And "important" to who? A few privileged iPhone users here & there?? If I remember correctly, not many users were clamoring for an iPhone app mere weeks after the phone's release, but Smugmug seemed to think it was important enough to move up to the front of the line.
Thats my point. Those I mentioned earlier (Maps, iPhone app) arent really features at all, & certainly not deal breaker features. But mere add-on "toys" to play with that no one was really asking for. The point is focus, the point is to prioritize & to listen what people NEED. Not just fun stuff to play with. People NEED more sub-categories for better organization, people NEED a better UI that doesnt look tired & they needed it years ago. They didnt need to browse Smugmug on their iPhones weeks after its release. And frankly, it shouldnt have taken this long to aknowledge those said needs. SM is way behind in that regard.
I was preaching about this stuff 2 years ago & was getting blown off left & right. Now its a problem. Tell the coding monkeys to stop brain storming for new & exciting flashy features for the moment & handle the important stuff first.
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That's incredibly unfair and a rather foolish thing to say. Do you know who actually built the iPhone interface? Did you know that it wasn't any of our "coding monkeys"? They had other projects.
Take a look at some of the features we have built over the last year:
- New slide show
- Square thumbnails
- Redesigned help pages
- Album and image keys (privacy/security)
- Video
- Hidden photos
- SmugNews
- Greeting cards
- New display sizes (SmugMungous)
- Customer-controlled photo sharpening
- Native PNG's and GIF's
- New shipping calculator
- In-house Mac uploader
- Add-to-cart inferface
- iPhone interface
- Visitor help pages
- Add photos menu
- SmugIslands
Each and every one of those was a result from feedback we received from SmugMuggers.Our developers have very long to-do lists that are prioritized according to a number of criteria: Need, development time, impact, etc. I'm fairly confident our feature list is considerably longer than any other photo sharing site out there and we do it with very few "coding monkeys". They work extremely hard, so please don't insult them.
I would hate to see SM change the UI a whole lot. It seems to work very well to me. I think that while Zenfolio is nice, it just doesn't compare with SM for ease of use or image quality (maybe thats just me).
I've only been a member of SM since 2005. I have had galleries at other photo sharing sites (some paid, some free) but I am completely satisfied with the incremental improvements that SM keeps making and would probably just throw in the towel if it were another Zenfolio.
-Steve
http://steveandbecky.smugmug.com/
I think people also need to remember that a large majority of smugmug users don't participate actively here at dgrin but may voice their opinions via email. Just because certain issues are hot topics here doesn't mean it is representative of the entire smugmug client base. That said, I think the smugmug team as a whole does a great job of listening to feedback and implementing changes. We may complain that some long-requested features haven't been added yet, but most companies wouldn't actively respond to user requests like smugmug does.
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