Google not retriving the 'images' themselves

tfitz · July 25, 2011

Hello,

I own the site www.society-in-focus.com . I've been in touch with Smugmug support and they tell me ALL of my settings are OK to have Google pick up my site.

When I do a search for a recent gallery, using a multitude of phrases, I get MANY links to my site, which is exactly what I want, YAY!

However, there is not 1 single image in Google Images. How can this be? Is there something I should check. All the usual suspects are fine (SmugIslands, Sharing, etc.). This seems to be a deeper problem.

Thanks,
Tom F.

Luc De Jaeger · July 25, 2011

tfitz wrote: »

Hello,

I own the site www.society-in-focus.com . I've been in touch with Smugmug support and they tell me ALL of my settings are OK to have Google pick up my site.

When I do a search for a recent gallery, using a multitude of phrases, I get MANY links to my site, which is exactly what I want, YAY!

However, there is not 1 single image in Google Images. How can this be? Is there something I should check. All the usual suspects are fine (SmugIslands, Sharing, etc.). This seems to be a deeper problem.

Thanks,
Tom F.

I'm doing extremely well in Google Image Search (with heaps of daily hits aside from Google search). So, don't blame SmugMug!!

I noticed your keywords don't match the content of the images (the word "hospital" and some numbers do not relate to the photos -- to just mention this). Your keywords seem to be wrong. Why is "other" a keyword? Or 0058? Who's going to search for these keywords? Also, some descriptions below the photos are wrong, like this one http://www.society-in-focus.com/Events/Hamptons/DVF-Southampton-Hospital-Fund/18109322_mz6rL7#1389532348_wwFzkVt).

Just my opinion.

Luc

denisegoldberg · July 25, 2011

I'm pretty baffled by how images are chosen as results in Google search. There seems to be a bit of a lag in images getting picked up.

I just took a quick look at your site though, and one thing jumped out at me. Your photos all seem to have the same (or a very similar) set of keywords on them. What do you hope to accomplish with a keyword like "other"? Or "magazine"? Have you considered a targeted set of keywords on each photo? It's hard not to repeat keywords on every photo in a gallery because in many instances the photos really do need the same keywords. Be careful with the number of identical keywords, try to mix things up a bit.

Here are a couple of Google Webmaster Guidelines pages that might be of use:
Webmaster guidelines - http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769#3
Statement on keyword stuffing - http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66358.

Your keyword page has lots of numeric entries that probably are adding anything positive to searches. You might want to consider removing those keywords.

--- Denise

tfitz · July 25, 2011

denisegoldberg wrote: »

I'm pretty baffled by how images are chosen as results in Google search. There seems to be a bit of a lag in images getting picked up.

I just took a quick look at your site though, and one thing jumped out at me. Your photos all seem to have the same (or a very similar) set of keywords on them. What do you hope to accomplish with a keyword like "other"? Or "magazine"? Have you considered a targeted set of keywords on each photo? It's hard not to repeat keywords on every photo in a gallery because in many instances the photos really do need the same keywords. Be careful with the number of identical keywords, try to mix things up a bit.

Here are a couple of Google Webmaster Guidelines pages that might be of use:
Webmaster guidelines - http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769#3
Statement on keyword stuffing - http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66358.

Your keyword page has lots of numeric entries that probably are adding anything positive to searches. You might want to consider removing those keywords.

--- Denise

Thanks for the reply. Some of the keywords are a result of the filenaming convention I'm using while uploading. I might have to change that up. Also, like you said, in a specific gallery if all the guests are at "Joe's House", for example, then it would make sense to include that in all photos. The keywords, after assignment in LR3, have been mostly automated through the SmugMug publisher module in LR3. The keywords that DO change are the names of the people in the photos as these are all mostly people-centric photos (events). So I think the keyword scheme might be close to OK. Also, doesn't Google index the filenames? If so, I guess I can turn off the option to pull words from filenames, because the filenames I use will often overlap with the keywords themselves.

But to me that doesn't explain NO photo showing up. Does it to you? Especially when SO many links show up for various search phrases.

Thanks,
Tom

Luc De Jaeger · July 25, 2011

tfitz wrote: »

Also, doesn't Google index the filenames? If so, I guess I can turn off the option to pull words from filenames, because the filenames I use will often overlap with the keywords themselves.

But to me that doesn't explain NO photo showing up. Does it to you? Especially when SO many links show up for various search phrases.

Thanks,
Tom

I don't use the filenames and the photos come up nicely in Google Image Search...

Luc

denisegoldberg · July 25, 2011

I don't know where this stands in terms of getting images indexed, but do you have inbound links to your site? Not just text links, but photos displayed elsewhere where a click takes the viewer directly to the photo on your site.

--- Denise

Hikin' Mike · July 25, 2011

tfitz wrote: »

...
But to me that doesn't explain NO photo showing up. Does it to you? Especially when SO many links show up for various search phrases.

Thanks,
Tom

I agree. Using keywords, too many keywords, no keywords etc should have no bearing on Google not listing your Smugmug site (images). You should have something indexed, unless your site is brand new.

From my experience, Smugmug is slow when it comes to Google indexing my images. My regular site gets indexed (images) way faster. About 4-5 months ago, I changed my jpgs from file numbers to descriptive names....starting with my Smugmug site first, then my regular site. Just a few weeks ago all 237 images from my regular site are now indexed from Google. I'm still waiting on over 80 images from my Smugmug site.

tfitz · July 26, 2011

denisegoldberg wrote: »

I don't know where this stands in terms of getting images indexed, but do you have inbound links to your site? Not just text links, but photos displayed elsewhere where a click takes the viewer directly to the photo on your site.

--- Denise

Denise,

I have some for the parent website www.thefphoto.com and I see those in Google Images, so good point. I think I'm going to begin to blog the best 2 or 3 photos per week and hyperlink them to the galleries. That might be a good starting point.

And the site is brand new (2 weeks), so maybe that has something to do with it. But I will say this, Google picks up the standard links within one day, so we seem to be doing AWESOME on that front. We're usually on Page 1 of Google, often beating out the larger corporations that send photographers to shoot the events.

Thanks for the help everyone!

tfitz · July 26, 2011

tfitz wrote: »

Denise,

I have some for the parent website www.thefphoto.com and I see those in Google Images, so good point. I think I'm going to begin to blog the best 2 or 3 photos per week and hyperlink them to the galleries. That might be a good starting point.

And the site is brand new (2 weeks), so maybe that has something to do with it. But I will say this, Google picks up the standard links within one day, so we seem to be doing AWESOME on that front. We're usually on Page 1 of Google, often beating out the larger corporations that send photographers to shoot the events.

Thanks for the help everyone!

On another note, I also have "feeds" enabled and those are all blocked by the robots.txt, so far 1,888 URL's have been blocked. Are feeds particularly useful is I'm not explicitly using them?

Hikin' Mike · July 26, 2011

tfitz wrote: »

Denise,

I have some for the parent website www.thefphoto.com and I see those in Google Images, so good point. I think I'm going to begin to blog the best 2 or 3 photos per week and hyperlink them to the galleries. That might be a good starting point.

And the site is brand new (2 weeks), so maybe that has something to do with it. But I will say this, Google picks up the standard links within one day, so we seem to be doing AWESOME on that front. We're usually on Page 1 of Google, often beating out the larger corporations that send photographers to shoot the events.

Thanks for the help everyone!

That's the "problem". Give it time.

stlracing · July 31, 2011

Do you have to turn "PROTECTED" to No in gallery settings to allow Google Images to retrieve them?

stlracing · August 16, 2011

I thought I read this somewhere before...

Do you have to turn "PROTECTED" to No in gallery settings to allow Google Images to retrieve them?

Andy · August 16, 2011

stlracing wrote: »

Do you have to turn "PROTECTED" to No in gallery settings to allow Google Images to retrieve them?

This image is one of many of mine that are in Google Image Search it is protected with rcp on in the gallery.

Google not retriving the 'images' themselves

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