Still no images when searching google

jnrpotography · December 2, 2009

Hi when I search my name of website I get many web results on google, but never anything in the images results. When I search the name of someone in my galleries I get them listed in the web results but not in the image results. What am I doing wrong? I want my images to come up in the results. Thanks!

www.jnrphotography.smugmug.com

Andy · December 2, 2009

Are you naming your files like this:

beautiful-desert-landscape.jpg

or

IMG_1234.jpg

?

Allen · December 2, 2009

Andy wrote:

Are you naming your files like this:

beautiful-desert-landscape.jpg

or

IMG_1234.jpg

?

Are you saying captions and keywords have nothing to do with photo
searches? I have almost 15000 bird photos and it would be almost
impossible to rename and upload them.:D

pilotdave · December 2, 2009

Allen wrote:

Are you saying captions and keywords have nothing to do with photo
searches? I have almost 15000 bird photos and it would be almost
impossible to rename and upload them.:D

Which is exactly why I believe smugmug's nicenames for filenames is poorly implemented. Why use the original filename for anything? Or, at least give us the ability to edit filenames... preferably using some keywords.

Smugmug, what percent of images on smugmug have truly unique, descriptive filenames? You can be approximate...

I bet a higher percent have some decent keywords. Then again, the junky filenames have mostly ended up as junky keywords...

Dave

Andy · December 2, 2009

Allen wrote:

Are you saying captions and keywords have nothing to do with photo
searches? I have almost 15000 bird photos and it would be almost
impossible to rename and upload them.:D

I didn't say anything of the sort, Allen. Here's what's important: captions, keywords, page title, album descriptions, gallery titles, getting cross-linked, and more. All here: http://www.smugmug.com/help/search-engines

And I know you know this

Andy · December 2, 2009

pilotdave wrote:

Which is exactly why I believe smugmug's nicenames for filenames is poorly implemented. Why use the original filename for anything? Or, at least give us the ability to edit filenames... preferably using some keywords.

Heh, we've seen folks' rankings soar since we released nicenames. Google loves 'em.

And google will use the filename, especially when indexing for Google Image Search.

pilotdave · December 3, 2009

Andy wrote:

Heh, we've seen folks' rankings soar since we released nicenames. Google loves 'em.

And google will use the filename, especially when indexing for Google Image Search.

The SEO improvements have been great... I get a lot more hits from google than I used to. But I don't find much on google image search.

Image search uses (presumably) your file names. In other words, the nice names. My point was that the nicename could have been generated from keywords instead of from our original filenames. I typically upload 100-200 pics per week. I keyword them. I caption them. I am not going to give each one a cute name before I upload. That would be completely redundant and a waste of time. I can't do it after the upload because you don't provide that capability. It takes me hours every week to do all my captions and keywords. I do it on smugmug so I don't have to delay my upload to get it done locally. And of course removing junk from keywords when I can't just empty the whole list is a major pain.

So, to make nicenames for filenames work really nicely, you could either generate them based on keywords or captions or at least let us edit the nicename or the filename. Nicenames based on keywords or captions is actually something I suggested a year and a half ago... http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=831374&postcount=7 (I didn't come up with the catchy name though). Things have improved a lot since then, but I wish this feature had been implemented differently.

I am guessing that the vast majority of smugmug users do one of two things with their filenames. Either they leave their camera default filenames, or they give all the photos they upload very similar names like "pretty bird 001.jpg" and "pretty bird 002.jpg" and so on. The first group, using default names, can't take advantage of nicenames for filenames without changing their workflow. The second group, with sequential filenames, will probably upload a picture of a flower in between bird shots every now and then. That flower shot gets a name like "pretty bird 374.jpg." If google image search works as advertised, you just put junk from filenames in their database.

Keywording from filenames is a bad idea, nicenames from filenames is a bad idea. Just my opinion. People that upload one photo at a time might disagree.

Dave

denisegoldberg · December 3, 2009

pilotdave wrote:

...I keyword them. I caption them. I am not going to give each one a cute name before I upload. That would be completely redundant and a waste of time.

Keywording from filenames is a bad idea, nicenames from filenames is a bad idea. Just my opinion. People that upload one photo at a time might disagree.

I'm in full agreement with you. I do rename my photos for organizational purposes and unique filename across camera purposes. My names are no better than the camera-generated names in terms of describing the photos - that is, the names don't describe the photos and never will.

Thing I've noticed is that photos I have included in my blog are (sometimes) found in google image search - but of course they point back to my blog and not to my smug site.

I would also like to see the photo nicenames generated from captions or keywords.

--- Denise

Andy · December 3, 2009

denisegoldberg wrote:

I'm in full agreement with you. I do rename my photos for organizational purposes and unique filename across camera purposes. My names are no better than the camera-generated names in terms of describing the photos - that is, the names don't describe the photos and never will.

I'm so sorry. But that's how google will index them, and it seems they weight filenames pretty highly for google image search.

pilotdave · December 3, 2009

Andy wrote:

I'm so sorry. But that's how google will index them, and it seems they weight filenames pretty highly for google image search.

We get that. I'm not sure if you're missing the point or ignoring it... Smugmug has control of the filenames that google sees. They could be made more accurate for most users (I am guessing) and editable.

Dave

Andy · December 3, 2009

pilotdave wrote:

We get that. I'm not sure if you're missing the point or ignoring it... Smugmug has control of the filenames that google sees. They could be made more accurate for most users (I am guessing) and editable.

Dave

Could be- but I believe what you are asking for is a big deal.

We have made it so filenames get seen and indexed by Google

I'm not ignoring this at all, Dave. It's a hugely important subject to us, as evidenced by the massive amount of money, time, energy and Sorcerer resource we've spent on SEO in 2009. And we'll continue to do so.

photowinz · December 3, 2009

It seems there is something else besides the lack of a good image name that is preventing Google from showing our images in the "images" results. My Smugmug images never come up in the "images" search, but my images posted on just about every other website (blogs, forums, other sites, etc.) are what show up in the search. The images are keyworded and named exactly the same way.

There has to be some other indexing issue with Smugmug. I'm not sure what it is, but I don't believe that even if all my images had a very descriptive name, they would show up in the search results.

Thoughts?

Erick L · December 4, 2009

Andy wrote:

Heh, we've seen folks' rankings soar since we released nicenames. Google loves 'em.

And google will use the filename, especially when indexing for Google Image Search.

Nicenames have their problems too. I put some galleries in subcategories and lost half my images from Google images index and at least a third from web search. And for those that were still there, the results pointed to the first page of a given gallery instead leading visitors to the right picture. Traffic was down and bouncing percentage went up.

richpepp · December 4, 2009

I wonder if the reason that images in blogs appear more than from the SmugMug site is that Google likes to group images from the same place and only show one or two. So for example it I search in google images for 'kitchen gardens afghanistan' I will find two pictures from our site http://photos.miseast.org but not all of them even though many are keyworded like that.

That's fine for us of course as the intention is to drive people to our site rather than to a particular photo. However for you folks where the photo is the important thing this sort of grouping isn't helpful

Richard

jnrpotography · December 4, 2009

I am naming my files with the persons name. I do alot of band photography and I name the file like this - Jane Doe_1_detail Wouldn't that be enough for google images to recognize that?It's been almost a year and the only time Ihave ever found my images in ggogle search was when I posted some galleries to a community. Again - my stuff is all over google through web search. But being a photographer I need my stuff to appear in google image results. So now that you know how my files are named any other thoughts? Thanks

LichtenHansen · December 4, 2009

Google recommandations for filenames and the Smugmug implementation

Andy wrote:

We have made it so filenames get seen and indexed by Google

Google do have a lot of help pages for webmasters. Here is the one for images: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=114016

Give your images detailed, informative filenames
The filename can give Google clues about the subject matter of the image. Try to make your filename a good description of the subject matter of the image. For example, my-new-black-kitten.jpg is a lot more informative than IMG00023.JPG. Descriptive filenames can also be useful to users: If we're unable to find suitable text in the page on which we found the image, we'll use the filename as the image's snippet in our search results.

Before Smugmug made the changes with filenames the filenames looked like this: 24815903-1qRs4-L-1.jpg.

After the "We have made it so filenames get seen and indexed by Google" the filenames looks like this: 24815903-1qRs4-L-1.jpg.

No change at all to filenames.

I can not see anywhere on http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/ that foldernames will help image search.

I will suggest Smugmug to reopen the allow images to be found in google image search and make it right this time.

Just changing the filenames not going to help much: On the same page they also suggest:

Create great alt text
Anchor text
Create a great user experience
- standalone landing page for each image
- putting your images high up on the page
- structuring your directories so that similar images are saved together

And most importantly Follow Goggle's usual webmaster guidelines.
(The usual stuff: Sitemap, quality content, avoid duplicate content and much more - most of which Smugmug is not following)

jnrpotography wrote:

I am naming my files with the persons name. I do a lot of band photography and I name the file like this - Jane Doe_1_detail Wouldn't that be enough for google images to recognize that?It's been almost a year and the only time Ihave ever found my images in ggogle search was when I posted some galleries to a community. Again - my stuff is all over google through web search. But being a photographer I need my stuff to appear in google image results. So now that you know how my files are named any other thoughts? Thanks

Some Smugmug users have named their images right for years - It doesn't help at all. (like some of the photographers with photos on the all-time most popular Smugmug photos)

Personally I don't care about this anymore - I have already given up. I an just frustrated on behalf of all Smugmug users that are frustrated of the poor Smugmug SEO performance. This thread could take years and be as long as How To Maximize Your Findability without going nowhere.

Smugmug need to change their attitude to recommendations from Google.
I doubt they will.

Once I was a dedicated Smugmug fan - not any more.

nazquel · March 30, 2010

interesting to hear your issues... i myself only see ONE photo appear when doing a google image search result:

query: "site:navinsarmaphotography.com" under images.

i havent necessarily used the best filenames, but i use detailed keywords and captions. neither of which really matter when im querying google to return ALL results of images on my website. the fact that it returns only one is troubling.

any fixes to these issues as of yet?

Andy · March 30, 2010

nazquel wrote:

interesting to hear your issues... i myself only see ONE photo appear when doing a google image search result:

query: "site:navinsarmaphotography.com" under images.

i havent necessarily used the best filenames, but i use detailed keywords and captions. neither of which really matter when im querying google to return ALL results of images on my website. the fact that it returns only one is troubling.

any fixes to these issues as of yet?

Google images likes awesome filenames, you should add that to your SEO repertoire.

Google does index our images into Google Site search:
http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&tbs=isch:1&q=site:www.moonriverphotography.com&sa=N&start=20&ndsp=20

nazquel · March 30, 2010

does google only index photos that have a meaningful filename? doing a search for all the images on the entire site would return all the images it indexed, i would think, despite what they are called.

and... i would definitely change my filenames had i known earlier. at this point, i have captions, keywords, and locations tagged for each photo. is there a way to transfer this information to another image of a different name?

i wish there were a way to change the filenames already uploaded to your servers. from what i know, there is not.

jachang · March 31, 2010

I used captions and keywords, but left my file names as they were from the camera, because I want to be able to go back to the correct RAW file, if need be. If I've changed the file name, then it's going to be difficult to find my original file.

If I use a file name that is descriptive PLUS the camera file name, for instance "carolina-wren DSC_1234", will that make the image found on Google Image Search?

If someone is searching for a particular image--say, a cardinal--when they type in "cardinal", I'd like to know that all of my cardinal images are going to come up.

This shouldn't be so hard!

FrankC · March 31, 2010

Andy wrote:

Google images likes awesome filenames, you should add that to your SEO repertoire.

Google does index our images into Google Site search:
http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&tbs=isch:1&q=site:www.moonriverphotography.com&sa=N&start=20&ndsp=20

Hmmm, interesting.

I tried that search for my site, and it returned 27 images - I have about 27,000 on the site, albeit many with default or no meaningful title.

jachang · March 31, 2010

FrankC wrote:

Hmmm, interesting.

I tried that search for my site, and it returned 27 images - I have about 27,000 on the site, albeit many with default or no meaningful title.

If I Google my site name in "Image Search", I get 6 images--a thumbnail of most of my galleries, then if I click on the image, it takes me to my SM home page. If I put quotes around "Jean Chang Photography" and do a Google Image Search, I get 7 thumbnails for photos, and 3 for videos. The videos are pulling from a site called "123people.com" and YouTube.

I have no problem with people hitting my site if they Google my site name or my name, but they have to already KNOW my name in order to reach my site. I want people to Google for an image of a bird--cardinal, blue jay, chickadee, or whatever--and have the image search return my photos. THEN when they click on the image it should take them to my site. That is not happening. I've tried Googling my captions and keywords and NONE of my images come up on a Google image search. It's disheartening. It's nice that they find my site if they Google my name, but let's face it, most of the world has no clue what my name or site name is, so they're not going to start searching for it. They would, however, Google for images based on the subject material they're looking for. That's where my site suddenly turns up nonexistent!

nazquel · March 31, 2010

it seems as though the captions you have for your photos in moonriverphotography is what google is indexing. did you change your filenames to match the captions as well? i agree with the last comment... i dont necessarily want to change the names of my files in case I want to revert to the original raw.

if there is any additional guidance or settings that need to be changed... please let it be known.

in writing to smugmug support, the response i got was to check http://www.smugmug.com/help/search-engines. I replied that this does not cover image searches, and the response was, "Our information applies to Google search only, it's not for Google image search. I'm not aware of the specifics on how you can enter Google image search. You may have to check the documentation available from Google or run a search on that."

Andy · March 31, 2010

Add captions, yes. VERY important. Descriptive filenames are extra juice that google will use.

jachang · March 31, 2010

Andy wrote:

Add captions, yes. VERY important. Descriptive filenames are extra juice that google will use.

Andy,

I think everyone has mentioned this already--we ARE using captions on every image, but it is to no avail. Google search does not return any images if you search by caption or keyword.

Jean

nazquel · March 31, 2010

Agree with you, Jean.

jachang wrote:

Andy,

I think everyone has mentioned this already--we ARE using captions on every image, but it is to no avail. Google search does not return any images if you search by caption or keyword.

Jean

jachang · March 31, 2010

nazquel wrote:

Agree with you, Jean.

What's frustrating is that everyone seems to agree except SmugMug!

Jean

Andy · March 31, 2010

jachang wrote:

What's frustrating is that everyone seems to agree except SmugMug!

Jean

I really don't know more about Google Image Search than anyone here - just that I do have images that appear - and I just follow all the steps on our SEO page in our help section. Working Google is really, really hard work.

jachang · April 1, 2010

Andy wrote:

Google images likes awesome filenames, you should add that to your SEO repertoire.

Google does index our images into Google Site search:
http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&tbs=isch:1&q=site:www.moonriverphotography.com&sa=N&start=20&ndsp=20

Andy,

I just checked out your link that you show here. First of all, I must say your photos are gorgeous!!

I noticed, though, that in the search string you typed "site:www.moonriverphotography.com" for the image search. That also works for me up to a point when I type in my site name in image search, but it only returns a few thumbnails, no images other than six thumbs. The thumbs are all taken from my home page as the featured image for each gallery. It's not finding any of my other images, like it does for yours.

There seems to be two different things going on here.

PROBLEM #1: I don't know why, but if I do an image search of "moonriverphotography", it brings up several pages of your photos. When I do an image search on "jeanachang" I only get six thumbnails. So apparently, there is something different on your website that is getting those images to come up based on just the name of your website. Okay, so that's one thing I'd love some help to figure out so that I can do the same thing. However, even if the images DID come up by Googling my website, that's not helping with problem 2:

PROBLEM #2: As I've said before, the image search by SUBJECT doesn't work.

As a test, I typed in the names of a couple of your photos, and they came right up in image search. I'm thinking that the search words must HAVE to be in the file name in order for the photo to appear in image search when you're searching by subject. I know you've said over and over that it "helps" to have descriptive file names, but apparently for image search to work, it's imperative. Captions and keywords bring up hits for web search only--nothing for image search.

The web search is excellent. If I type the name of my caption, I also get hits right on the first page of web search, but nothing for image search.

Now, if only there could be a way to somehow tie the caption to the file name so that Google would find it in image search, and not just in web search. Is that at all possible to do from SmugMug's end?

Sorry for the long post, but I'd really like to get my images found by subject. Any help you can come up with will really be appreciated.

Jean

richpepp · April 1, 2010

jachang wrote:

I know you've said over and over that it "helps" to have descriptive file names, but apparently for image search to work, it's imperative. Captions and keywords bring up hits for web search only--nothing for image search.

I'm not sure that is completely true. If you do an image search for 'Triple Arch' then one of Andy's pictures appear on the first page of results. If you click through then you find that Triple Arch is in the caption but not in the filename or gallery title. So as far as I can see it does actually work, just not well for you :cry

Taking a look at your site though I think there are a couple of things working against you:

1. Your pagerank is low (2). This means that if there are similar searches on other people's pages then they will appear higher than you. You have to work on getting that up (Moonriver is 5 which is about as good as most people get). For a start your site should be in your signature here. I don't know how much difference it makes but every little helps.

2. You don't have very descriptive galleries, at least in those that I looked at. So, for example, the 'insects-arachnids' gallery has no description and the photo of a spider just has a caption of 'spider'. My guess is that that isn't good enough to make your picture of a spider appear high in a list. It may also be that Google doesn't associate 'arachnids' with spiders so doesn't consider that photo relevant to the gallery.

My experience has been that you need good descriptive captions in the gallery, good titles for the gallery and then great captions for the pictures (but not too large either). So, for example, try adding the specific name of the type of spider if you know it, or the colour. Try adding 'spiders' in the gallery description as well. Do anything you can to help Google think your photos are relevant to the gallery that it is in.

Good luck - this stuff is horribly difficult

Rich

richpepp · April 1, 2010

richpepp wrote:

2. You don't have very descriptive galleries, at least in those that I looked at.

Actually I found some other galleries of yours that have better descriptions but still don't appear so I might be wrong :cry. I can say that I do all of the things in the SEO page and do manage to get images to appear but it does seem a bit random. All of the other pages that appear when I search for images from you have higher pageranks so that looks as though it may be part of the picture.

good luck

Rich

Still no images when searching google

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