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HarrisPhotographicArts · August 7, 2007

There was a thread a while back about Google pulling the first line of our bio for the description in their search engine. Mine is still showing "the ultimate in photo sharing" etc... I looked at my source code and it still only shows "the ultimate in photo sharing" etc... in the code. There is no reference to my bio gallery whatsoever in the meta tags.

What can be done to change this so Google's crawlers will get it with the right info?

Don
www.harrisphotographicarts.com

denisegoldberg · August 7, 2007

Don -
It's pulling from your bio, not your "about me" gallery. Do you have anything entered in your bio text? (You should be able to see it in your customization panel.)

I just verified mine, and the text in my bio is definitely what is showing up (with the link to my galleries) when I do a google search of my name.

--- Denise

HarrisPhotographicArts · August 7, 2007

denisegoldberg wrote:

Don -
It's pulling from your bio, not your "about me" gallery. Do you have anything entered in your bio text? (You should be able to see it in your customization panel.)

I just verified mine, and the text in my bio is definitely what is showing up (with the link to my galleries) when I do a google search of my name.

--- Denise

Gotcha! Thanks Denise! I know the answer to that. I was looking at the "About Me" page.

Don

GJMPhoto · August 7, 2007

Bio Box and Google

denisegoldberg wrote:

Don -
It's pulling from your bio, not your "about me" gallery. Do you have anything entered in your bio text? (You should be able to see it in your customization panel.)

I just verified mine, and the text in my bio is definitely what is showing up (with the link to my galleries) when I do a google search of my name.

--- Denise

Denise,
Mine still says "The Ultimate in Photo Sharing...etc..." but then the text under it has the bio box contents. I notice yours says, "From the eyes of Denise Goldberg" (nice)...how'd ya do it?
- Gary.

denisegoldberg · August 8, 2007

GJMPhoto wrote:

Denise,
Mine still says "The Ultimate in Photo Sharing...etc..." but then the text under it has the bio box contents. I notice yours says, "From the eyes of Denise Goldberg" (nice)...how'd ya do it?
- Gary.

Oh wow, that went right past me. I am assuming that "From the eyes of Denise Goldberg" comes from the page title. Look in your customization, the page title setting is close to the top of the page. But then again, it looks like you have that filled in on your site too. Is your page title filled in?

If it is, I am also "playing" with the title in my javascript. I'll try to find the post that documents how to change the title based on where you are in the gallery (category, gallery, etc.) and post the link to that here. I have to head to the office, will be a little bit later. But I honestly don't know if that comes into play at all.

--- Denise

GJMPhoto · August 8, 2007

denisegoldberg wrote:

Oh wow, that went right past me. I am assuming that "From the eyes of Denise Goldberg" comes from the page title. Look in your customization, the page title setting is close to the top of the page. But then again, it looks like you have that filled in on your site too. Is your page title filled in?

If it is, I am also "playing" with the title in my javascript. I'll try to find the post that documents how to change the title based on where you are in the gallery (category, gallery, etc.) and post the link to that here. I have to head to the office, will be a little bit later. But I honestly don't know if that comes into play at all.

--- Denise

Denise,
Thanks! I'll be looking to see your solution to the problem...you have a great site and provide a lot of useful info here! Thanks!

In the mean time, I tried to compare our CSS(es?). I did not have a title in my customization, so I put one in. I also put a different set of words in the title of my bio box (which also was blank). I'll keep checking with Google to see if either of these phrases kick in and then I'll be able to tell which one works!

I'm looking forward to this working, as it's been a bit of a frustration since day one (ALL the way back in May...lol)!

Thanks again!
- Gary.

denisegoldberg · August 8, 2007

GJMPhoto wrote:

Denise,
Thanks! I'll be looking to see your solution to the problem...you have a great site and provide a lot of useful info here! Thanks!

In the mean time, I tried to compare our CSS(es?). I did not have a title in my customization, so I put one in. I also put a different set of words in the title of my bio box (which also was blank). I'll keep checking with Google to see if either of these phrases kick in and then I'll be able to tell which one works!

I'm looking forward to this working, as it's been a bit of a frustration since day one (ALL the way back in May...lol)!

Thanks again!
- Gary.

Gary -
Thanks for the compliment on my site. It's always nice to hear that!

I suspect that the "from the eyes of Denise Goldberg" in the google details is coming from the page title in customization - especially since you say that you hadn't specified one there.

But I did find the thread that talks about changing the page title depending on the page you are on in the gallery. Here's a link to that full thread:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=25861&highlight=document.title, and here's a link to the post I made to that thread where I copied in my working Javascript: http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=546098&postcount=76. Hope this helps.

--- Denise

claudermilk · August 8, 2007

It's definitely coming from the Bio box. I ran a search on mine and my little trick just for Google has worked. I put a DIV tag with what I wanted Google to show--then hid the DIV. So Google shows the blub meant for it, but my page shows completely differnet text.

So I have this at the beginning of my bio box code:
[html]<div style="visibility: hidden;">insert Google blurb here</div>[/html]

GJMPhoto · August 9, 2007

Hidden Divs and Google

claudermilk wrote:

It's definitely coming from the Bio box. I ran a search on mine and my little trick just for Google has worked. I put a DIV tag with what I wanted Google to show--then hid the DIV. So Google shows the blub meant for it, but my page shows completely differnet text.

So I have this at the beginning of my bio box code:
[html]<div style="visibility: hidden;">insert Google blurb here</div>[/html]

I was told Google frowns about hidden tags (or text the same color as the background) and litterally bans you when it determines that's what you're doing...anyone hear about that? Would this technique apply?

My Bio box text IS coming out now in Google...but the header for the google entry is still "The Ultimate Sharing..." thing...Denise got her own slogan as the heading line in Google...THAT'S what I'm after.

Denise: You put a LOT of javascript up there in that link, I'm not sure what the key line in it is...I'll have to do some experimenting. In the meantime, if Andy already knows the answer...please chime in!

Thanks,
- Gary.

denisegoldberg · August 9, 2007

GJMPhoto wrote:

I was told Google frowns about hidden tags (or text the same color as the background) and litterally bans you when it determines that's what you're doing...anyone hear about that? Would this technique apply?

My Bio box text IS coming out now in Google...but the header for the google entry is still "The Ultimate Sharing..." thing...Denise got her own slogan as the heading line in Google...THAT'S what I'm after.

Denise: You put a LOT of javascript up there in that link, I'm not sure what the key line in it is...I'll have to do some experimenting. In the meantime, if Andy already knows the answer...please chime in!

Thanks,
- Gary.

Gary -
I suspect it wasn't the Javascript but is the page title in the customization. That Javascript changes the page title based on where you are in my galleries, but I keep the "from the eyes of Denise Goldberg" at the beginning of the title.

It may just take a while for your page title to propagate through Google.

--- Denise

GJMPhoto · August 9, 2007

denisegoldberg wrote:

Gary -
I suspect it wasn't the Javascript but is the page title in the customization. That Javascript changes the page title based on where you are in my galleries, but I keep the "from the eyes of Denise Goldberg" at the beginning of the title.

It may just take a while for your page title to propagate through Google.

--- Denise

Yes, Thanks Denise. I'm tackling it in a scientific manner

My customization says one thing, the title in my bio says another...we'll see which one appears in Google...IF one of them works, I'll broadcast to the DGRIN world how it's done!

- Gary.

GJMPhoto · August 9, 2007

But, by the way, if the person who wrote the code that takes the Bio info and puts it in the reference tags that Google reads, happens to see this thread and already KNOWS the answer...feel free to chime in and save me the experimentation "fun"!

claudermilk · August 9, 2007

GJMPhoto wrote:

I was told Google frowns about hidden tags (or text the same color as the background) and litterally bans you when it determines that's what you're doing...anyone hear about that? Would this technique apply?

Never heard of that before. I have no idea of this would fall under that--I would hope not since they are grabbing the meta tag which is built off the bio box code, so they are seeing this:

[html]< meta name="description" content="My Google blurb

...Now the rest of the bio box... [/html]

I have a bunch of empty space following the blurb to try and get what follows out since it's a style definithion & looks messy on Google. <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/rolleyes1.gif" border="0" alt="" >

GJMPhoto · August 9, 2007

claudermilk wrote:

Never heard of that before. I have no idea of this would fall under that--I would hope not since they are grabbing the meta tag which is built off the bio box code, so they are seeing this:

[html]< meta name="description" content="My Google blurb

...Now the rest of the bio box... [/html]

I have a bunch of empty space following the blurb to try and get what follows out since it's a style definithion & looks messy on Google. <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/rolleyes1.gif" border="0" alt="" >

Yes! I notice this in the source of my site as well. The Description tag on mine has many spaces prior to and after the description. Since Google hasn't updated its record of my site yet, I don't know what it's going to look like when it finally gets there.

Is there a way to remove those spaces???
- Gary.

claudermilk · August 10, 2007

Not that I know if. But then I'm deliberately making a bunch of space--like I said the very next text in my bio box is actually a style definition--which gets picked up in the meta tag, and looks crummy on the Google page.

scwalter · August 10, 2007

claudermilk wrote:

Never heard of that before. I have no idea of this would fall under that--I would hope not since they are grabbing the meta tag which is built off the bio box code, so they are seeing this:

Volkswagen got in trouble for doing this, although what smugmug is doing seems to be legit,since they take it from your bio (even if it's a hidden div) and add it to the meta tag, which is the correct method. It would nice if someone from smugmug would document this (Bueller.... Bueller... release notes)

VW Busted for Scamming Google

-Scott

GJMPhoto · August 15, 2007

Verdict is In!

GJMPhoto wrote:

Yes, Thanks Denise. I'm tackling it in a scientific manner My customization says one thing, the title in my bio says another...we'll see which one appears in Google...IF one of them works, I'll broadcast to the DGRIN world how it's done!

- Gary.

Ok gang...it's completely official! The title of your Google search results comes from the Page Title (you were right Denise!) in your customization and NOT from the title tags in your bio box. The body of the Google entry will come directly from the body of your bio box. SO set up your bio box for content, then put in what you'd like the header of Google to read in the Page Title of your customization.

It takes a bit of time for Google to find you...but then it actually works!

- Gary.

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