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Does changing gallery's subcategory destroy SEO data?
colinpurrington
Registered Users Posts: 49 Big grins
Sorry to ask a stupid question, but I'm curious about the consequences of
1. renaming a photograph
2. moving a photograph to a new gallery
3. moving a gallery to a different category
I never worried about this when I was at Flickr (but maybe should have), but am concerned enough that I'm sort of avoiding arranging galleries in a better way. If anyone could point me to a discussion of these issues, I'd be grateful...I couldn't find it via Search of forums.
1. renaming a photograph
2. moving a photograph to a new gallery
3. moving a gallery to a different category
I never worried about this when I was at Flickr (but maybe should have), but am concerned enough that I'm sort of avoiding arranging galleries in a better way. If anyone could point me to a discussion of these issues, I'd be grateful...I couldn't find it via Search of forums.
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The short answer to all three is yes, but "SEO Data" is kind of a vague term. What you will "break" (by changing any of the three) is the URL that is currently indexed by Google, etc.. In the past this was an issue because it took the search bots a long period to index new URLs. This is no longer the case and you really don't need to worry about this.
What I would caution you about is changing the URL for any image, gallery, category, subcategory names that is currently generating decent traffic to your site. You may not be able to recover your search ranking (and resulting search traffic) if you change any of the URLS that are producing traffic to your site.
If you use Google Analytics, you can figure out what URLs are generating the most traffic to your site by looking at the Landing Page reporting, and then filtering for Search Traffic.
If your links include the SmugMug image ID_key (for direct photo links) or the galleryID_key (for gallery links), it doesn't matter if you assign a gallery to a (sub)category or rename any portion of it. The links should still work if the IDs are included.
For example in this gallery link:
http://cmac.smugmug.com/SmugMug/Support-Heroes-painted-faces/2504559_TrBCmb#131487110_FdKeW
2504559_TrBCmb is the galleryID_key
It's followed by the imageID_key which allows you to link to a specific photo within a gallery.
For public galleries, you do have the option to leave out the galleryID_key like this:
http://cmac.smugmug.com/SmugMug/Support-Heroes-painted-faces/
but we don't recommend it as the link will stop working if you make reorganize the gallery or rename any part of its structure.
Now for a direct photo link like this one:
http://cmac.smugmug.com/SmugMug/Support-Heroes-painted-faces/SuperheroGroup/131487110_FdKeW-L-5.jpg
131487110_FdKeW is the imageID_key. It's not possible to use a direct photo link without an imageID_key. It's required at all times.
Note that for newer photos the link may look a bit different. Here's an example of the direct photo link for a newer photo:
http://cmac.smugmug.com/SmugMug/Support-Heroes-painted-faces/i-mqnqbRW/0/L/carolineheroshot-L.jpg
You can see the filename of your file is now part of the filename on SmugMug as well. That helps with SEO.
But again, there's a unique identifier included for the specific photo:
i-mqnqbRW
so it won't matter if you move the photo to another gallery - the direct photo link would still work.
SmugMug Support Hero
SmugMug Support Hero
1. Sure, the next time the sitemap is updated, it should include such changes.
2. I'm not sure I understand. If the app uses our API to change the details on SmugMug, it wouldn't be any different than making the changes through the SmugMug site.
Just drag a gallery within the Lightroom SmugMug publish service to a different category. Once you click publish, the changes would be performed on SmugMug and you could view the gallery in their new location within SmugMug.
SmugMug Support Hero
For Galleries and Categories, in Lightroom (as far as I've seen) there is no way to "drag and drop" a gallery or category to a new location. You can add or delete, but you can't move. This would have to be done within the SmugMug Admin, In a situation like this, it's likely that SmugMug will store the association from old location to new (or old name to new name) AND be able to do a redirect. Good for SEO
The original question also asked about "renaming a photograph". To me that means renaming the file itself, something that SmugMug does not allow you to do (they do allow you to change the photo "title"). So again, there would be no reference or ability to redirect from old to new. Bad for SEO.
The original poster had multiple questions including moving a gallery to a different category which is why I gave different examples.
As for photos, you can use the Tools button > this photo > more > replace tool on a photo and that'll allow you to replace the photo with a photo of a different filename. Note that the replacing photo has to differ from the one already in the gallery so you can't replace it with a binary identical one.
Once replaced with a photo with a different filename, the filename in the direct photo link should be updated as well.
SmugMug Support Hero
Back to the original topic though.., there are situations where SmugMug doesn't have the ability to redirect a renamed folder or image to the correct URL. In these instances it will have a negative impact on your SEO. I suppose someone should document these better, but I would certainly be careful doing any type of renaming or you risk losing the search rankings on those items.
That's probably it. I don't use the Friedl plug-in, but our SmugMug publish plugin:
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93281-uploading-from-lightroom
2. I don't know what you mean. Could you elaborate with a specific example?
SmugMug Support Hero
If these items are edited outside of the SmugMug Admin Tool OR the SmugMug Plugin, SmugMug won't know what the previous file/directory was, and in effect not be able to redirect from the previous name or location, to the new name or location. A redirect passes pagerank. If the redirect isn't in place, then the search engines will think it's a new file and any prior pagerank will be lost. This is a negative in terms of SEO efforts.
One example of how this could happen is if you edit the name of a image file on your computer and then re-upload it. In this case, the original file would still exist and users would not be redirected to the new file. Another example of this is if you use the Friedl plug-in (via Lightroom) to move an image from one gallery to another. In an instance like this, when published, the original file would remain where it was... with a copy of that image placed in the new location. In essence, you would have two separate files on SmugMug, with no redirect between either. If the original file is deleted, then the link will be broken, and a redirect will not exist for the new file. In essence, the search bots will need to re-index the file in it's new location.
Most people using SmugMug probably use the SmugMug Admin Tool OR the SmugMug Plugin to edit image names, galleries, categories or sub-categories. They should be okay renaimg or moving files, etc.. Other users need to be aware that any link they change (via a rename or move) may negatively impact their SEO efforts.
Hope this is clearer...
I wouldn't generalize what third party apps may or may not do without specific testing of the app in question.
If you're unsure if an app that you use allows for reassigning of galleries, you can just verify that with a test gallery with one photo in it. Make a note of the gallery link and the direct photo link. Then move the gallery to another category in the tool and compare the gallery and direct photo link whether the galleryID and photoID is still the same.
SmugMug Support Hero
"if you are NOT using the SmugMug Admin Tool OR the SmugMug Plugin (via Lightroom)"
which in my point of view goes well beyond the Friedl plugin you mentioned in your main paragraph as an example.
Cheers,
Sebastian
SmugMug Support Hero
This included the word "may" Obviously I can't speak for all tools out there (I don't think anyone could). But what I can mention are specific situations where a link on SmugMug can be broken given use of certain tools or situations. This (IMO) is the more important aspect.