Google Images/Web Search Engine links

[photodoug]

I didn't find a good thread about this, so here goes. If I was interested in promoting my smugmug site to be found by Google's search engine, what steps must I take?

What I'm aware of:

1. enter keywords when customizing a folder
2. make folder public

What I'm not sure of:

1. external links?
2. more?

Thanks in advance for any input on this.

[Mike Lane]

I didn't find a good thread about this, so here goes. If I was interested in promoting my smugmug site to be found by Google's search engine, what steps must I take?

What I'm aware of:

1. enter keywords when customizing a folder
2. make folder public

What I'm not sure of:

1. external links?
2. more?

Thanks in advance for any input on this.
External links are huge as far as I can tell. I have a blog that is linked to via a group blogroll with 200+ other blogs. I noticed a great upturn in google hits (and then other search engines) after I posted about my SM site on my blog. Now I get lots of hits (sometimes strange ones). My best hit so far was a google search for: inexpensive photography tacoma -- although I have since taken off the word inexpensive and now I don't see anything (maybe I should put that back on). My strangest search result? Young Thai Girls pictures (or something like that).

But I digress. You could also fork over a few bones for a google ad.

[onethumb]

I didn't find a good thread about this, so here goes. If I was interested in promoting my smugmug site to be found by Google's search engine, what steps must I take?

What I'm aware of:

1. enter keywords when customizing a folder
2. make folder public

What I'm not sure of:

1. external links?
2. more?

Thanks in advance for any input on this.

You've got the basic idea. I've written smugmug so that Google really likes crawling us and makes it easy for your pages to get indexed by them. So I'm telling Google how relevant to a given subject you are, which is half the equation.

But what I can't do is tell Google how popular you are, which is the other half of the equation. Google does that by not only counting the # of links to you, but also how high quality those links are.

A link from Yahoo.com counts a lot more than a link from mynameisfred.com, for example.

Beware joining linkfarms or other "evil" practices, because that'll get your site destroyed in Google's rankings.

Don

[mbrady]

External links are huge as far as I can tell. I have a blog that is linked to via a group blogroll with 200+ other blogs. I noticed a great upturn in google hits (and then other search engines) after I posted about my SM site on my blog. Now I get lots of hits (sometimes strange ones). My best hit so far was a google search for: inexpensive photography tacoma -- although I have since taken off the word inexpensive and now I don't see anything (maybe I should put that back on). My strangest search result? Young Thai Girls pictures (or something like that).

But I digress. You could also fork over a few bones for a google ad.
How are you viewing and tracking the links to your smugmug site?

Matt

[photodoug]

You've got the basic idea. I've written smugmug so that Google really likes crawling us and makes it easy for your pages to get indexed by them. So I'm telling Google how relevant to a given subject you are, which is half the equation.

But what I can't do is tell Google how popular you are, which is the other half of the equation. Google does that by not only counting the # of links to you, but also how high quality those links are.

A link from Yahoo.com counts a lot more than a link from mynameisfred.com, for example.

Beware joining linkfarms or other "evil" practices, because that'll get your site destroyed in Google's rankings.

Don
I had chose all the options I outlined....but did not choose or mention "filename"...which I'd turned off. Google never picked anything up. I've now turned it on...we'll see. Anyone concur on this detail?

[Mike Lane]

How are you viewing and tracking the links to your smugmug site?

Matt
www.statcounter.com

highly recommended and easy to install on your site (plus you can make the counter invisible).

[onethumb]

I had chose all the options I outlined....but did not choose or mention "filename"...which I'd turned off. Google never picked anything up. I've now turned it on...we'll see. Anyone concur on this detail?

Any and all useful text on the page will increase Google's ability to tie you to the right search results.

Description, Keywords, Caption, etc. Filenames will help, but entering appropriate Captions will help more.

Don