don't want photos to be public

[yahootintin]

hi,

i'm a new smugmug user and am very excited about using it. i want anyone who goes to my album to be able to view the photos but i don't want the photos to show up in the global keyword search.

is there a way to remove my photos from the global keyword search without making my albums private?

thanks!

[Baldy]

Hey Yahootintin,

Welcome!

The answer to your question, unfortunately, is know if I understand it correctly. Is what you're looking for to have your albums show up to to your visitors when they come to your home page but not be found in global search?

Thanks,
Baldy

[jberd126]

Baldy,

I have the same question. Is it possible to have my albums/photos not show up in the global searches without making them all private? I would still like them to be searchable but only from my personal home page. Could this be done with a setting on the album's configuration page?

Thanks!
-J

The answer to your question, unfortunately, is know if I understand it correctly. Is what you're looking for to have your albums show up to to your visitors when they come to your home page but not be found in global search?

Thanks,
Baldy

[Baldy]

Hey J,

Welcome! We get asked this from time to time and the current answer is no, but let me talk to the crew here and see how hard a feature that might be. I suppose a global setting would be nice, no?

Thanks,
Baldy

[yahootintin]

A global setting would be great for me!

Something like:
[X] Exclude your Keywords from Smugmug Keyword list

Thanks!

Hey J,

Welcome! We get asked this from time to time and the current answer is no, but let me talk to the crew here and see how hard a feature that might be. I suppose a global setting would be nice, no?

Thanks,
Baldy

[jberd126]

A global setting would work perfect for me as well. I think that many personal users could find this feature desirable. Thank you in advance for implementing it! :D

-J

[jberd126]

Not to press, but is the non-global keyword option something that has a chance of being implemented?

-J

[onethumb]

Not to press, but is the non-global keyword option something that has a chance of being implemented?

-J

Here at smugmug, everything has a chance of being implemented, so your answer is yes. :)

This is an interesting question, and might not be too difficult to do, but let me make sure I understand correctly:

You want an option in each gallery that, if the gallery is set to public, you can still restrict keywords to your homepage, and not the global site?

What about full-text searching? Do you want that disabled globally, too, or just keywords?

Do you want us to tell Google not to index it, either, or do you want Google to still index?

Any other gotchas you can think of?

Don

[jberd126]

Thanks for replying Don.

The purpose of this request is to keep my personal photo galleries more private. I love the search capabilities that smugmug supplies but I would like to have it restricted to just my site. I would prefer not to have my photos or galleries in global searches of keywords or captions not have it listed in the Google index.

Here at smugmug, everything has a chance of being implemented, so your answer is yes. :)

This is an interesting question, and might not be too difficult to do, but let me make sure I understand correctly:

You want an option in each gallery that, if the gallery is set to public, you can still restrict keywords to your homepage, and not the global site?

What about full-text searching? Do you want that disabled globally, too, or just keywords?

Do you want us to tell Google not to index it, either, or do you want Google to still index?
Somewhat correct. For myself, the simplest is to have a single checkbox for my account that restrict keywords and caption searching only to my homepage (i.e. all public galleries in my account). Google would also not index my pages.

A single site-wide option would be simplest but I could live with the option on a per-gallery basis.


Any other gotchas you can think of?
New and old galleries should default to global searching (i.e. what it currently is).

I find it great that smugmug actually listens and works with the community to improve the business. :thumb
-J

[4thinker]

Here at smugmug, everything has a chance of being implemented, so your answer is yes. :)

This is an interesting question, and might not be too difficult to do, but let me make sure I understand correctly:

You want an option in each gallery that, if the gallery is set to public, you can still restrict keywords to your homepage, and not the global site?

What about full-text searching? Do you want that disabled globally, too, or just keywords?

Do you want us to tell Google not to index it, either, or do you want Google to still index?

Any other gotchas you can think of?

Don
Don, thank you for looking at this. This issue is the one reason I am considering leaving Smugmug. I can't have my family's photos searchable by Google or any other sites on the web. I've never liked the fact that I have no control over that. The new keywords feature is cool, except that it was turned on without me knowing about it and it got my Smugmug site indexed by Google using my last name.

Now all anyone needs to do to see my family's private photos is to Google me. I'm not happy about that at all. I'd love to see a global setting that allows me to control whether Google and other search engines can index my galleries.

In the mean time, is there a way for me to change Smugmug usernames without having my old URL point to my new one?

[Baldy]

In the mean time, is there a way for me to change Smugmug usernames without having my old URL point to my new one?Good feedback, 4thinker.

As far as changing your username goes, the way it works is a nickname that cannot be found because it doesn't exist anymore gets directed to our home page, not to your new nickname. So if you change your nickname, you shoud be golden.

I hope this helps.

Thanks,
Baldy

[onethumb]

Don, thank you for looking at this. This issue is the one reason I am considering leaving Smugmug. I can't have my family's photos searchable by Google or any other sites on the web. I've never liked the fact that I have no control over that. The new keywords feature is cool, except that it was turned on without me knowing about it and it got my Smugmug site indexed by Google using my last name.

Now all anyone needs to do to see my family's private photos is to Google me. I'm not happy about that at all. I'd love to see a global setting that allows me to control whether Google and other search engines can index my galleries.

In the mean time, is there a way for me to change Smugmug usernames without having my old URL point to my new one?

Note, please, that we cannot tell Google or other search engines what to do. If you can view a page, Google can view a page, and thus, index it for all to see.

We can give it hints, but how well/quickly/accurately it follows those hints is up to Google - they're not going to pay attention to small fry like us if there's some sort of problem.

So this feature, should it happen, is definitely not foolproof. Google may very well index your stuff even if we tell it not to every way we know.

Just wanted to be clear here.

Don

[4thinker]

Note, please, that we cannot tell Google or other search engines what to do. If you can view a page, Google can view a page, and thus, index it for all to see.

We can give it hints, but how well/quickly/accurately it follows those hints is up to Google - they're not going to pay attention to small fry like us if there's some sort of problem.

So this feature, should it happen, is definitely not foolproof. Google may very well index your stuff even if we tell it not to every way we know.

Just wanted to be clear here.

Don
I know that you don't have absolute control over whether Google indexes pages or not. On the other hand, I've never had Google index a page when I've used one of the standard methods for directing browsers not to index (such as putting it in the robots.txt file or using the "No index, no follow" META tag).

[4thinker]

Good feedback, 4thinker.

As far as changing your username goes, the way it works is a nickname that cannot be found because it doesn't exist anymore gets directed to our home page, not to your new nickname. So if you change your nickname, you shoud be golden.

I hope this helps.

Thanks,
BaldyI tried changing my username on Friday. It's now Sunday evening and you can view my pictures at both http://oldusername.smugmug.com (http://oldusername.smugmug.com/) and http://newusername.smugmug.com (http://newusername.smugmug.com/). Did something go wrong or does it just take a while for the old username to phase out?

[Baldy]

Can you email help with your olde and new nicknames? I'd like to see what's happening.

Thanks,
Baldy

[4thinker]

Can you email help with your olde and new nicknames? I'd like to see what's happening.

Thanks,
Baldy
Thanks for looking in to it. I've emailed Ben with the old and new usernames.

[g1r2e3g]

Hi All,

I'd also like to see some global searching and indexing controls placed on galleries. To be completely honest I wouldn't have stumped up my $50 if i'd known i'd be forced into some sort of international show and tell.

Can I suggest the follow security levels:

*Full Public ( as it is now )
- Gallery visible on users homepage
- Allow keyword and caption searching via smugmug.com
- Allow full search engine indexing

* Part Public ( new! )
- Gallery visible on users homepage
- Keywords, Captions, Username, Titles NOT searchable via smugmug.com
- No Index, No Follow Meta Data added to gallery pages

* Private ( as it is now )
- Gallery visible only via direct URL with password
- Keywords and Captions NOT searchable via smugmug.com
- No Index, No Follow Meta Data added to gallery pages

I realy feel that this is a "must have" feature for smugmug. If the site was free then fair enough, but for $50 a year I'd like to have a little privacy. If I had kids and wanted to put their pics up I think I would have defitinely demanded a refund by now. I just assumed that because its not a free site, that some sort of privacy would have been an option.

Thanks for taking note though Baldy & co, it is great to be part of a site that does listen to its customers.

Greg

[Baldy]

Thanks for looking in to it. I've emailed Ben with the old and new usernames.It looks like your nicknames get cached (remembered) for some time after you change them. We're looking into how hard it would be to change this.

[victor]

I know that you don't have absolute control over whether Google indexes pages or not. On the other hand, I've never had Google index a page when I've used one of the standard methods for directing browsers not to index (such as putting it in the robots.txt file or using the "No index, no follow" META tag). Use of robots.txt to block unwanted crawler activity has been around for a long time.

Google state quite clearly that they won't crawl/index a site if robots.txt is present and set up correctly ... http://www.google.com/webmasters/faq.html#nocrawl. Yahoo also say something similar ... http://help.yahoo.com/us/ysearch/deletions/deletions-03.html (http://help.yahoo.com/us/ysearch/deletions/deletions-03.html)

Those are the only two I've checked out but I suspect that most reputable search engines will honour robots.txt. Of course, if your pages/images have already been indexed by the big boys, then it's a bit late for this.

[victor]

Of course, if your pages/images have already been indexed by the big boys, then it's a bit late for this.
I was wrong, Google does offer a way for sites like SM to remove indexed pages. See http://www.google.com/remove.html

"[the removal options] take effect the next time Google crawls your site, which is usually within six to eight weeks."

[Byam]

If it could be set that keywords could only be searched locally and not globally over smugmug.com would that make it possible to use keywords on private galleries?

Is there anyway that on my homepage where keywords would normally be seen that a password box could be placed there and only after someone entered a password they could view my keywords? Would that allow me to use keywords on private galleries? I would LOVE to use keywords to make it eaiser for my friends and family to find pictures on my site but I also want to keep them private too.

Byam

[jberd126]

Don,

I don't want to become on of those annoying posters but I think this feature would be important for a moderate number of general Smugmug users. Myself and others have stated that they require this feature.

Can you drop a hint on whether this item is one the priority list to being , or even on the list at all?

Flame away.
-J

[onethumb]

Don,

I don't want to become on of those annoying posters but I think this feature would be important for a moderate number of general Smugmug users. Myself and others have stated that they require this feature.

Can you drop a hint on whether this item is one the priority list to being , or even on the list at all?

Flame away.
-J

I respect and listen to everyone's opinion here on dgrin. It's incredibly valuable to us, but it's not 100% of what we base our decisions on.

The way the search engine is set up, this is impossible. Not difficult - impossible. We'd have to re-write search for 21,000,000+ images to make this happen.

Search is difficult. We have to scale to searching billions of images. Exceptions like this cause both slowdowns and complexity.

Finally, we take security and privacy seriously, and there are some serious implications here that are, at best, shaky to think about.

So, while I hate to be the bearer of bad news, this isn't on our todo list. It's unlikely to ever happen. Private galleries are *private*, that's what the option is for.

Don

[jberd126]

Don,
Thank you for writing back about this topic. I understand you are busy and are probably working on a thousand issues but please read this slowly.

I respect and listen to everyone's opinion here on dgrin. It's incredibly valuable to us, but it's not 100% of what we base our decisions on.Of course of course. There are many other factors to take into account.


The way the search engine is set up, this is impossible. Not difficult - impossible. We'd have to re-write search for 21,000,000+ images to make this happen.

Search is difficult. We have to scale to searching billions of images. Exceptions like this cause both slowdowns and complexity.

Finally, we take security and privacy seriously, and there are some serious implications here that are, at best, shaky to think about.

So, while I hate to be the bearer of bad news, this isn't on our todo list. It's unlikely to ever happen. Private galleries are *private*, that's what the option is for.I hope I'm not annoying you (the preceeding remarks allude to this). :cry The answer you gave makes me think that you may be getting the request confused with something else because it makes little sense to me.




The question:Is it possible to have public albums without Smugmug distributing the image's metadata to it's own and external search engines. The solution that is proposed is to make the albums private. This would of course would be one answer but at the expense that only people that have links to the albums or sharegroups would be able to access them. It also destroys the tree structure.


Does making all my albums private change much in the underlying search algorithm? It's a flag, right? Search or don't search the album images based on whether or not it's private. What I'm proposing is to add a qualifier flag that determines whether or not to search public albums, such as 'allowSearch'


Show images when (...) [Same as currently implemented]


Search images when (... and allowSearch is true) [Modification]


The granularity of 'allowSearch' is up to you - whether it's account-wide or album-specific.I'm not trying to create a war. I'm one person but I'm willing to make a bet that if you polled your customers whom have personal accounts whether or not they would want (or require) this ability you would get a resonable response in the affirmative.

-J

[onethumb]

Don,
Thank you for writing back about this topic. I understand you are busy and are probably working on a thousand issues but please read this slowly.

Of course of course. There are many other factors to take into account.

I hope I'm not annoying you (the preceeding remarks allude to this). :cry The answer you gave makes me think that you may be getting the request confused with something else because it makes little sense to me.




The question:Is it possible to have public albums without Smugmug distributing the image's metadata to it's own and external search engines. The solution that is proposed is to make the albums private. This would of course would be one answer but at the expense that only people that have links to the albums or sharegroups would be able to access them. It also destroys the tree structure.


Does making all my albums private change much in the underlying search algorithm? It's a flag, right? Search or don't search the album images based on whether or not it's private. What I'm proposing is to add a qualifier flag that determines whether or not to search public albums, such as 'allowSearch'


Show images when (...) [Same as currently implemented]


Search images when (... and allowSearch is true) [Modification]


The granularity of 'allowSearch' is up to you - whether it's account-wide or album-specific.I'm not trying to create a war. I'm one person but I'm willing to make a bet that if you polled your customers whom have personal accounts whether or not they would want (or require) this ability you would get a resonable response in the affirmative.

-J

Nope, this isn't the way it works. It used to, but the scalability issue is going to get so large that this is no longer the case.

An album or image either exists in the search engine or it doesn't exist in the search engine. There's no other flags or data, because super-fast search results (which we currently deliver for only some results, and we want to deliver for all results) is the goal. Reducing complexity increases speed.

Just so I'm clear, how would you want allowSearch to work? Something like this?

if($public == true && $allowSearch == false) {
$noSearch = true;
}
elseif($public == false && $allowSearch == true) {
$noSearch = false;
}
elseif($public == false && $allowSearch == false) {
$noSearch = true;
}
elseif($public == true && $allowSearch == true) {
$noSearch = false;
}

Or would you rather have allowSearch *only* disable searching, but never enable it?

We'll keep thinking about the issue, but it's a complex one that has long-term ramifications. We can't rapidly make changes to our dataset anymore because it's getting too large.

Don

[jberd126]

Wow - quick responses. Impressed.
Just so I'm clear, how would you want allowSearch to work? Something like this?The global allowSearch parameter that I've defined would be a qualifer to public albums. Private albums would remain as they are - unsearchable - irregardless of this flag. You can short-cut the if statements with simple boolean logic:

$noSearch = not($public and $allowSearch)

where $public must be true AND $allowSearch must both be true to search (otherwise searching is not done):

$noSearch = not(true and true) = false

I would assume allowSearch would default to 'true' for all current and new users so that functionality is not changed. If users want to disable searching they would override this option.
We'll keep thinking about the issue, but it's a complex one that has long-term ramifications. We can't rapidly make changes to our dataset anymore because it's getting too large.Yes, I can image that your dataset is getting quite large. I was looking through the API and from the outside it looks like most of the album parameters are either secuity/permissions or display formatting. Preventing changes to your dataset will cause you to be psuedo-feature locked.

-J

[jberd126]

I think I've been very patient on this subject but I've seen only a little interest from Smugmug, and that was FOUR months ago. I like Smugmug and recommend it to friends but I feel that they're more interested in rolling out new features.

I to put it bluntly I want Smugmug to support the ability to turn off (1) search engine indexing and (2) searching of my photos from the main site or from other people's galleries. I would still want to be able to search my photos from within my gallery though.

I just don't want my stuff broadcast to the world and make it more isolated.

Does anyone else feel that same?

[jfriend]

I to put it bluntly I want Smugmug to support the ability to turn off (1) search engine indexing and (2) searching of my photos from the main site or from other people's galleries. I would still want to be able to search my photos from within my gallery though.

I just don't want my stuff broadcast to the world.

Does anyone else feel that same?
I agree. I do not want my galleries searchable on Google at all (or any other search engine), but I don't want to have to password protect them or my whole site to stop Google indexing because that's too much of an obstacle for eacy sharing with extended family and friends whom I want to be able to use my site without difficulty.

--John

[Mike Lane]

I think I've been very patient on this subject but I've seen only a little interest from Smugmug, and that was FOUR months ago. I like Smugmug and recommend it to friends but I feel that they're more interested in rolling out new features.

I to put it bluntly I want Smugmug to support the ability to turn off (1) search engine indexing and (2) searching of my photos from the main site or from other people's galleries. I would still want to be able to search my photos from within my gallery though.

I just don't want my stuff broadcast to the world and make it more isolated.

Does anyone else feel that same?
If you're a pro you can prevent indexing to your galleries by hacking the smugmug cobranding. Put the following in your stylesheet html box at the very top:

</style>

<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX">

<style type="text/css">

[jfriend]

If you're a pro you can prevent indexing to your galleries by hacking the smugmug cobranding. Put the following in your stylesheet html box at the very top:

</style>

<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX">

<style type="text/css">
I have done that already. I don't know how well it will work thought because this just leads to conflicting META tags. The first tag, supplied by smugmug is:
<meta name="robots" content="all, index, follow" /> I then add mine (which smugmug places after it's own):
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW">

The specs I read don't specify what a robot is supposed to do
if it encounters two conflicting tags or whether it even keeps
looking for another meta tag once it's found the first one.

--John

[gblotter]

I am very interested in this topic as well. In this thread, others have well articulated my privacy issues/desires. I will only add that I believe this is a shared concern for many smugmug loyalists.

I don't want to encumber access with account passwords or private galleries. But I do want to localize the use of keywords and captions within my account (hide the visibility of keywords and captions from Google searches and smugmug global searches). This is what I call the "semi-private" option. I think this is what we are all talking about here.

Through experimentation, I have discovered that enabling an account password does not accomplish this goal. My keywords and captions are still visible to Google searches and smugmug global searches even with an account password enabled. An account password seems to be effective only for restricting access through the front door. Backdoor access remains wide open via direct URL from Google.

From what I can tell, hiding keywords and captions from Google searches and smugmug global searches is only possible by creating private galleries. For me, that kinda defeats the whole purpose of photo sharing.

So, while I hate to be the bearer of bad news, this isn't on our todo list. It's unlikely to ever happen. Private galleries are *private*, that's what the option is for.Given this unfortunate reality, I am very interested to learn about any partial solutions. If re-writing smugmug search functionality is not possible because of complexity and volume issues, can we at least hide keywords and captions from Google searches via robot meta tags as mentioned in the previous post? Does smugmug search rely upon the same robot crawler functionality as Google search? Let's keep this discussion going please to learn how Google cloaking might be accomplished.

[luke_church]

Caveat: I'm not from Smugmug, My opinions are my own, I don't know how Smugmug have build they're data architectures. I mearly hope to offer advice based on best guesses and hope they're helpful. Please don't consider them conclusive.

If re-writing smugmug search functionality is not possible because of complexity and volume issues, can we at least hide keywords and captions from Google searches via robot meta tags as mentioned in the previous post?
Some points to consider:

1. Robot tags are entirely optional, there is nothing to stop a robot completly ignoring them.

2. The 'standard' for Robot META Exclusion states:
You obviously should not specify conflicting or repeating directives such as:

<meta name="robots" content="INDEX,NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW,FOLLOW,FOLLOW">


3. Google advocate the use of: <META NAME="Googlebot" CONTENT="nofollow">

you can read about their search engine here: http://www.google.com/bot.html

4. Hiding from search engines such as Google without using strong protection such as access control is ultimately not going to succeed, you are too dependent on

- The whim of the search indexer, if it decides to follow your links and fake an IE 6 UserAgent, then there's not a lot you can do about it
- No body, anywhere on the internet linking to your site, ever (or these days, sending a link to anyone using a GMail account etc.)

In combination, the general advise to web developers is don't bother too hard about trying. Sorry... :uhoh

Does smugmug search rely upon the same robot crawler functionality as Google search?
I would say, that IMHO it was massively unlikely.

Crawlers are slow, nasty, messy, computationally and network expensive things to use. They also have a tendency to leave hole in semi-unconnected networks, need to be written very carefully to avoid dying in cyclic networks. In networks of shifting topology (the interconnected mess of webpages), they are not trivial things to write, if you want a good one...

Search engines only use Crawlers, because they have no other option. They can't ask for a structured database of all the information on a website.

By its very nature, Smugmug already has this, and indeed uses it to serve up the Smugmug pages. Hence there is little if any need for them to use crawlers, which would be costly, slow to update and generally a pain...

So I think it much more likely that they will build their search databases from their own production data, rather than re-crawling their own site to get the information.

That's how I think I'd do it anyway...

Having said which, if I was trying to build something the size of Smugmug, I'd probably give it more than the 2 minutes thought I just have, so I could well be wrong :):

I'll just leave you with a final thought from Googlebot's description page:


6. Why is Googlebot downloading information from our "secret" web server?

It's almost impossible to keep a web server secret by not publishing any links to it. As soon as someone follows a link from your "secret" server to another web server, your "secret" URL may appear in the referrer tag and can be stored and published by the other web server in its referrer log. So, if there's a link to your "secret" web server or page on the web anywhere, it's likely that Googlebot and other web crawlers will find it.

Sorry I can't be more encouraging, hope this helps anyhow,

Luke

PS. Incidentally a good way of hiding from Google is by inducing the use of very common keywods, so that the search clauses will be swamped... Try googling for me to see what I mean: 'Luke Church'. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Luke+Church
The results are quite funny.

[onethumb]

I think I've been very patient on this subject but I've seen only a little interest from Smugmug, and that was FOUR months ago. I like Smugmug and recommend it to friends but I feel that they're more interested in rolling out new features.

I to put it bluntly I want Smugmug to support the ability to turn off (1) search engine indexing and (2) searching of my photos from the main site or from other people's galleries. I would still want to be able to search my photos from within my gallery though.

I just don't want my stuff broadcast to the world and make it more isolated.

Does anyone else feel that same?

You only list two points, but there are really three, and the third one is the kicker:

1) No search engine indexing
2) No searching from the main site
3) But allowing people to search within your photos

It's #3 that's basically impossible today without a *lot* of work. I've been working on making #1 and #2 happen for quite awhile now, since our last discussion, but for some reason I either missed or misunderstood #3.

At this time, I just can't make #3 happen. I'd like to sometime in the future, if I can, but that's a long ways out, I'm afraid.

Don

[onethumb]

I am very interested in this topic as well. In this thread, others have well articulated my privacy issues/desires. I will only add that I believe this is a shared concern for many smugmug loyalists.

I don't want to encumber access with account passwords or private galleries. But I do want to localize the use of keywords and captions within my account (hide the visibility of keywords and captions from Google searches and smugmug global searches). This is what I call the "semi-private" option. I think this is what we are all talking about here.

Again, I hate to beat a dead horse, but this is a massive project. Keywords weren't built with this in mind, so they're not going to happen this way. I hate to say never, but this one is probably never.

"Searching only in your account" is possible, but a lot of work. I want to make this happen some day, but it's both not a high priority and a ton of work, meaning it's gonna be awhile.

Through experimentation, I have discovered that enabling an account password does not accomplish this goal. My keywords and captions are still visible to Google searches and smugmug global searches even with an account password enabled. An account password seems to be effective only for restricting access through the front door. Backdoor access remains wide open via direct URL from Google.

From what I can tell, hiding keywords and captions from Google searches and smugmug global searches is only possible by creating private galleries. For me, that kinda defeats the whole purpose of photo sharing.

Are you sure about this? If so, this is a *bug* and not expected behavior. Google cannot get to your pages to index them, so your pages will fall out of their index the next time they crawl.

As for smugmug, we check for user passwords and drop your results automagically from the search engine. (At least, that's what it's supposed to do and what we tested it to do. Bugs do happen, though :).

Given this unfortunate reality, I am very interested to learn about any partial solutions. If re-writing smugmug search functionality is not possible because of complexity and volume issues, can we at least hide keywords and captions from Google searches via robot meta tags as mentioned in the previous post? Does smugmug search rely upon the same robot crawler functionality as Google search? Let's keep this discussion going please to learn how Google cloaking might be accomplished.

Robot tags would remove Google, yes, but we have a tag conflict problem.

As I stated in my last post, I'm working on making it so you can have Google not index your gallery pages on a gallery-by-gallery basis. Also allowing public galleries which do not show up in smugmug's search.

But the side effects are that keywords will cease to function in those galleries as well.

Don

[onethumb]

Caveat: I'm not from Smugmug, My opinions are my own, I don't know how Smugmug have build they're data architectures. I mearly hope to offer advice based on best guesses and hope they're helpful. Please don't consider them conclusive.


Some points to consider:

1. Robot tags are entirely optional, there is nothing to stop a robot completly ignoring them.

2. The 'standard' for Robot META Exclusion states:
You obviously should not specify conflicting or repeating directives such as:

<meta name="robots" content="INDEX,NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW,FOLLOW,FOLLOW">


3. Google advocate the use of: <META NAME="Googlebot" CONTENT="nofollow">

you can read about their search engine here: http://www.google.com/bot.html

4. Hiding from search engines such as Google without using strong protection such as access control is ultimately not going to succeed, you are too dependent on

- The whim of the search indexer, if it decides to follow your links and fake an IE 6 UserAgent, then there's not a lot you can do about it
- No body, anywhere on the internet linking to your site, ever (or these days, sending a link to anyone using a GMail account etc.)

In combination, the general advise to web developers is don't bother too hard about trying. Sorry... :uhoh


I would say, that IMHO it was massively unlikely.

Crawlers are slow, nasty, messy, computationally and network expensive things to use. They also have a tendency to leave hole in semi-unconnected networks, need to be written very carefully to avoid dying in cyclic networks. In networks of shifting topology (the interconnected mess of webpages), they are not trivial things to write, if you want a good one...

Search engines only use Crawlers, because they have no other option. They can't ask for a structured database of all the information on a website.

By its very nature, Smugmug already has this, and indeed uses it to serve up the Smugmug pages. Hence there is little if any need for them to use crawlers, which would be costly, slow to update and generally a pain...

So I think it much more likely that they will build their search databases from their own production data, rather than re-crawling their own site to get the information.

That's how I think I'd do it anyway...

Having said which, if I was trying to build something the size of Smugmug, I'd probably give it more than the 2 minutes thought I just have, so I could well be wrong :):

I'll just leave you with a final thought from Googlebot's description page:


Sorry I can't be more encouraging, hope this helps anyhow,

Luke

PS. Incidentally a good way of hiding from Google is by inducing the use of very common keywods, so that the search clauses will be swamped... Try googling for me to see what I mean: 'Luke Church'. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Luke+Church
The results are quite funny.

Great points, Luke.

Let me point out, though, that all of the major search engines *do* adhere strictly to the META tags. I'm not aware of one that doesn't.

They have to, otherwise admins block their sites on their routers and they lose the ability to crawl at all.

So don't get all paranoid that your META tags will be ignored - they won't be.

Oh, and the only reason Google recommends putting "Googlebot" in the META tag is if you'd like to only restrict Google and not Yahoo/MSN/etc.

Don

[luke_church]

Let me point out, though, that all of the major search engines *do* adhere strictly to the META tags. I'm not aware of one that doesn't.
Agreed. Though I don't know how they behave with tag conflicts?

So don't get all paranoid that your META tags will be ignored - they won't be.
Sure, sorry I probably wasn't clear enough. My point is that META tags give 'privacy', they do not give 'security'. They will keep 99.99% of people away by hiding from major search engines, however they do not gaurentee anything.

But I agree, for this purpose they are fine.

If people want better than 99.99% then access protection is the only way to go, with its associated annoyances.

Oh, and the only reason Google recommends putting "Googlebot" in the META tag is if you'd like to only restrict Google and not Yahoo/MSN/etc.
Of couse, I should have mentioned that as well.

Cheers,

Luke

[gblotter]

I hate to say never, but this one is probably never. ""Searching only in your account" is possible, but a lot of work. I want to make this happen some day, but it's both not a high priority and a ton of work, meaning it's gonna be a while.From the beginning of this thread (over six months ago), the idea of modifying smugmug search has been the focus of most of the discussion. I accept your conclusion that the effort required makes such smugmug search modifications improbable. I would rather shift the focus of the discussion to a partial solution that makes it possible to cloak keywords and captions from Google robot crawling for public galleries.

As I stated in my last post, I'm working on making it so you can have Google not index your gallery pages on a gallery-by-gallery basis. Also allowing public galleries which do not show up in smugmug's search. But the side effects are that keywords will cease to function in those galleries as well.All sounds very good, except the part about disabling keywords - bummer. I love keywords and use them heavily.

Robot tags would remove Google, yes, but we have a tag conflict problem.Instead of swallowing the whole elephant (modifying smugmug search), how about just a light snack? Perhaps something more simple that removes the meta tag conflict, and leaves alone the smugmug search and keywords functionality. Granted - it is not a complete solution to all the issues raised in this thread. However, it would be a relatively easy change that would address at least half of the privacy concerns. Just eliminating all the prying eyes that might stumble into my galleries from Google searches would be a big comfort. Sorry if I am talking like a simpleton - I don't mean to dismiss the complexities of such changes.

[jberd126]

Don,

Like other users are saying, there needs to be a middle-of-the-road when it comes to privacy.

Again, I hate to beat a dead horse, but this is a massive project. Keywords weren't built with this in mind, so they're not going to happen this way. I hate to say never, but this one is probably never.

"Searching only in your account" is possible, but a lot of work. I want to make this happen some day, but it's both not a high priority and a ton of work, meaning it's gonna be awhile.I know we're beating this but I'm still not convinced why this is not possible within a reasonable amount of work. We had discussed this months ago in this thread and I thought we were getting somewhere.

Is the resistance because there's a single database of public keywords that would require reworking?

Looking at it from my view I see that
1) If an album is made private, the keywords are not indexed in smugmug searches, and
2) I can already search only within my gallery for my photos without including anyone elses.

Why can search results not include photos that the users had made semi-private because they are not being searched from within that user's gallery? It appears that a possible solution could reside in a search results filter.

I urge Smugmug, again, to look at this with its user's privacy in mind and not to brush this off because "it's a lot of work" and "not a high priority." I'm sure with more analysis there's a solution that is meets both the requirements of the users without as much work as initially anticipated. I'm not trying to be overly anal about this but I'll bet that if enough Smugmug users were surveyed about this topic you would get a persuasive number of responses in the affirmative.

[gblotter]

Clarification of my previous comment:Through experimentation, I have discovered that enabling an account password does not accomplish this goal. My keywords and captions are still visible to Google searches and smugmug global searches even with an account password enabled. An account password seems to be effective only for restricting access through the front door. Backdoor access remains wide open via direct URL from Google.Response from Don below:Are you sure about this? If so, this is a *bug* and not expected behavior. Google cannot get to your pages to index them, so your pages will fall out of their index the next time they crawl.Yep - I'm sure about the Google part. I just verified it again. It is very easy to get into our passworded smugmug account via backdoor URLs available from a Google search. If you are interested in learning more, I'll be happy to sit down with you for a few minutes to demonstrate.As for smugmug, we check for user passwords and drop your results automagically from the search engine. (At least, that's what it's supposed to do and what we tested it to do. Bugs do happen, though :).My bad - you are correct on this point. Smugmug searches work exactly as your describe when an account password is set.

[g1r2e3g]

Don,
I urge Smugmug, again, to look at this with its user's privacy in mind and not to brush this off because "it's a lot of work" and "not a high priority." I'm sure with more analysis there's a solution that is meets both the requirements of the users without as much work as initially anticipated. I'm not trying to be overly anal about this but I'll bet that if enough Smugmug users were surveyed about this topic you would get a persuasive number of responses in the affirmative.I totally agree, and let's be honest here, a lot of the new competitor photo sharing websites are probably reading this forum and throwing some cash at their site to implement this semi private style as we speak.

And I love smugmug and dont want to leave, but the full frontal or password being the only security option does bug the hell out of me.

[duncan]

I too would like to disable global search on my photos, but have public galleries that are visible to anyone if they go to my homepage. But I really want to still be able to use keywords on my photos.

If keeping the complexity down on the global search is the main concern (ie you don't want to add a "where allowSearch=true" clause), couldn't you have a separate database table for these photos' keywords?

I'm keen on smugmug because it has better privacy features than flickr, but not being able to have keyword search on photos if they aren't globally searchable is a bit of a killer!

[shiffy]

Would it at least be feasible to give members the option to shut off all indexing in smugmug's meta tags? I have mostly password-protected albums, but had a few that I didn't protect also. This means that my smugmug home page gets indexed, which I'd prefer it not be. I saw the suggestion about putting in new meta tags in the customization page, but am not sure that that would work given that the first reference to robot tags is set to index, and a customized tag would simply create a conflict.

How about adding a choice to the account settings which would insert the no index / no follow robot tags into that member's pages regardless of whether or not they have password-protected albums?

Thanks.


I too would like to disable global search on my photos, but have public galleries that are visible to anyone if they go to my homepage. But I really want to still be able to use keywords on my photos.

If keeping the complexity down on the global search is the main concern (ie you don't want to add a "where allowSearch=true" clause), couldn't you have a separate database table for these photos' keywords?

I'm keen on smugmug because it has better privacy features than flickr, but not being able to have keyword search on photos if they aren't globally searchable is a bit of a killer!

[Oakley]

I just spent hours and hours and hours applying keywords to all my photos only to realize that these keywords are going to be viewable by global search engines such as google, yahoo, msn, ect. not to mention to anyone who searches for photos through the smugmug homepage.

So to keep my privacy, my only option is to make all my galleries private through password protection, right? Well, that also makes my keywords on my homepage useless and a big pain in the a** for my friends and family who will have to search through my category, sub-category, gallery, password system to find photos that could be so easy to access through keywords.

This problem is a showstopper for me.

Basically, the way I see it, the only use for smugmug would be for pros or serious amateurs to sell or showcase "professional photos" that they don't hold as sacred and private. However, for someone who is looking to share photos with thier friends and family, there is a huge risk of advertising your private life (including the private life of your family and friends who are in your photos) to the whole world.

This is a serious issue.

I will cancel my account with smugmug if I do not see some serious progress to solve this problem ASAP.

And if you read through this thread, you'll see there are many other smugmug costomers who share my concerns.

Smugmug....you have a good reputation here....do not let this issue slide and jepordize the hard work you've accomplised to date with your relationships with your costomers.

Now, what are you going to do?

[JWY]

Hello Ryan,

Ouch, I'm so sorry you are not a happy camper when it comes to keywords.

I wish I had a better answer for you but I'm afraid there really isn't much smugmug can do in the near future to allow for keyword searching in private galleries without a complete redesign of the system. Making the changes to allow for the kind of functionality would be a very large and lengthy project.

I'm very sorry that there isn't more smugmug can do for you right now. We are discussing this feature and are very aware that this is an area that could use some improvement. Unfortunately, I don't know when we will be able to start and undertake a project this size.

I wish I could give you a better answer.

John
smugmug customer support

[gblotter]

I wish I had a better answer for you but I'm afraid there really isn't much smugmug can do in the near future to allow for keyword searching in private galleries without a complete redesign of the system. Making the changes to allow for the kind of functionality would be a very large and lengthy project.
John - with respect, I think you are missing the point of this thread. I don't think this group of concerned smugmuggers is asking for keyword searching of private galleries. What we want is to hide our public galleries and associated keywords/captions from Google searches and Smugmug global searches (while keeping keywords functional within a specific account). This is what we have been calling the "semi-private" option.

Over the course of this discussion, it has become clear that keyword functionality was designed specifically to enable global search capability. Some smugmug users however don't understand the global intent of keywords and desire to use them in a different manner (not to enable global audience access, but rather to facilitate local indexing of photos within a smugmug account). Keywords are a great piece of functionality, but Smugmug's intended use is not our desired use. This seems to be the sticking point.

[Oakley]

John - with respect, I think you are missing the point of this thread. I don't think this group of concerned smugmuggers is asking for keyword searching of private galleries. What we want is to hide our public galleries and associated keywords/captions from Google searches and Smugmug global searches (while keeping keywords functional within a specific account). This is what we have been calling the "semi-private" option.

Over the course of this discussion, it has become clear that keyword functionality was designed specifically to enable global search capabilility. Some smugmug users however don't understand the global intent of keywords and desire to use them in a different manner (not to enable global audience access, but rather to facilitate local indexing of photos within a smugmug account). Keywords are a great piece of functionality, but Smugmug's intended use is not our desired use. This seems to be the sticking point.
Perfectly said gblotter. That is exactly what I want.

Perhaps, since smugmug has determined that this feature would require too many resources for the benifit, smugmug users should be forewarned about two very important facts regarding keywords before they spend hours and hours of thier time applying them to thousands of picture (bitter...no...):

1) Keywords can ONLY be applied to public pictures and galleries and will NOT work for galleries you want to remain private.

2) Applying keywords to pictures and galleriers will make them searchable on google, yahoo, msn...and the general smugmug keyword search for anyone to see.

I would also remind smugmug users that they might want to get the permission of thier friends and family before they decide to expose them to the searchable world wide web.

Just a thought....

Yikes, I am a :cry :cry :cry man right now. I wish it could be fixed. I don't want to leave smugmug......but I might have no choice.

Thanks for listening.

[Oakley]

How ironic...

As I post about privacy issues with smugmug, my hit count on my site goes through the roof.

Karma...

[gblotter]

I'm still searching for any possible solutions that will allow me to cloak my keywords/captions from Google crawlers. Even though this would only partially address my privacy concerns, it is certainly worth the effort to explore.

Previous posts in this thread provide helpful reference information about robot meta tags.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/remove.html
http://help.yahoo.com/us/ysearch/deletions/deletions-03.html

I can add meta tags to instruct the crawler to perform no indexing. However, others have pointed out that unprectable crawler behavior will result because of the conflict with smugmug's own meta tags.

I noticed that the URL references above also describe a robots.txt file as an alternate way to provide instructions to a crawler.

Question: Could a robots.txt file be used as a possible workaround solution for the meta tag conflict previously discussed?

As an experiment, I have placed the following line in my smugmug CSS customization text:

<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW, NOARCHIVE">

According the the Google reference, it takes 6-8 weeks for such changes to become effective (time waiting for the robot to re-crawl web pages). I will report back in November to let you know how the Google crawler behaved with the meta tag conflict.

FWIW: Google searches return a variety of backdoor links into my passworded smugmug account. However, a similar Yahoo search returns nothing. I guess that just proves how well Google does its job.

[gblotter]

My wife and I were discussing this privacy topic last night (she is even more concerned about Google visibility to our photos than I am, and is urging me to pull the smugmug plug now - sorry, this is a very tough issue in our family). She raised an idea that at first seemed odd, but makes more sense as I think about it.

I can see why it would be difficult for smugmug to change its meta tags to "nofollow, noindex, noarchive". To deliberately cloak Google searches would be very unpopular with professional photographers and others who use smugmug to run their business. They certainly want the publicity, traffic, and maximum exposure. In addition, smugmug itself wants as many Google hits as possible to expand their user base and grow their own business.

So my wife's idea was that smugmug could spinoff a new/separate website for families and other folks who are concerned with privacy issues. It could use all the same underlying technology as the existing smugmug except that meta tags and robot.txt files would be set for maximum privacy. As I think about it more, this could also be a good business opportunity for smugmug to branch out and develop sites with functionality that is more specific to the home photographer and the professional photographer. Isn't that what other businesses do all the time? - fragment their own product line to achieve maximum market penetration.

Just an idea, but maybe worth considering.

[Andy]

Just an idea, but maybe worth considering.

thanks 'blotter.. i'm fwding this to the smugmug team.

[jfriend]

My wife and I were discussing this privacy topic last night (she is even more concerned about Google visibility to our photos than I am, and is urging me to pull the smugmug plug now - sorry, this is a very tough issue in our family).
Just so you know this is an option, but rather than pulling the smugmug plug, you can immediately set up an account password and tell all your family members what the password is. Even better, yo ucan make the password self describing to anyone who knows you, by using the password hint so that any family member would know the password as soon as they saw the prompt. As an example, set up an account password. Set the "hint text" to "Type the name of our dog" or "Type the name of our yougest daughter". And, then set the password to be that name that anyone who knows you should know.

I agree this isn't the ultimate solution as we'd rather have many of the other things in this thread, but if your wife is asking you to pull the plug, this should allay her concerns. I myself have a variety of different kinds of content in my site, some of which I want open to all, some of which I need protected with an "event" password for school/children privacy reasons and some of which I want to protect with a "family" password. What's bumming me about this is that I can't use keywords and search if I want any form of privacy. Some of smugmug's best features go away if you want any privacy.

--John

[gblotter]

... rather than pulling the smugmug plug, you can immediately set up an account password and tell all your family members what the password is.Thanks for the suggestion - been there, done that. We already have an account password. The problem is that Google search still shows backdoor links to my password-protected photos. I obviously don't want to further publicize those backdoor URLs here, so I won't be more specific. However, I have communicated directly with smugmug support about the details so that they are at least aware of the backdoor access issue. On the plus side, account passwords appear to be a completely effective solution for Smugmug global searches.

To quote Don from an earlier post in this thread:

Private galleries are *private*, that's what the option is for.Given current smugmug technology, private galleries seem to be the only real solution. If it is necessary to impose restrictive access controls (i.e. private galleries) in order to shield my photos from Google's prying eyes, I am then left to answer a few fundamental questions. Does that kind of access restriction defeat the whole purpose of photo sharing? Is it worth $50 per year to host photos that cannot be easily shared? As I said before, this is a tough issue for our family. We have invested a lot of time and energy in building and customizing a nice smugmug site for our family photos. Aside from the privacy issues, we are thrilled with the entire smugmug offering. We have promoted smugmug to many friends and family members. However, when the photos and names of our very young children end up plastered all over Google searches - well, that is kind of a trump card for us. In addition to regular Google search, there is also a separate Google IMAGE search. Try out Google IMAGE search - it can be very jarring to learn that the names and associated face photos of your young children are so easily accessible to the entire world. My wife almost started crying when she saw the search results come back. Thus, you can see that we are faced with some very difficult decisions.

[Oakley]

I would like everyone to know how I have set up my site to accommodate public visitors and protect the privacy of my family and friends. It may help some of you who are having problems with organization and security.


Note, I use PhotoshopBridge to organize my files on my computer.


1) Applied ratings to all of my pictures from 1 to 5 (this info does not get attached to the pictures permanent metadata)


2) Applied keywords to all of my pictures including the words like "friends", "family", "cats", "architecture", "1 star", "2 stars", ect. (keywords ARE embedded in the metadata)


3) Organized photos in the following folder structure on my computer:

2002
January
Cats and Dogs
Trip to Australia
February
.....
....
2003
....
....

4) Using the same file structure that I set up on my computer, in smugmug I used 2002, 2003, ect for my categories, and months for my sub-categories...and then the description of the photos for gallery names.


5) Made all of these galleries PRIVATE thus making their keywords useless in smugmug. (OUCH)


6) Created a Public Gallery and uploaded any 4 or 5 star pictures (I think about 50 of them) which I wanted to share to the world. I figured only friends and family would ever want to see my 3, 2, or 1 star photos.


7) Created links to keywords in my bio for easy access to special interest galleries - ex. 5 stars, 4 stars, black and white, architecture, ect...

Now I just need to change the colors of my links and get rid of the underline and I'll be happy with that...


8) One more thing which I haven't done yet, is caption each of my public photos with information on which gallery that photo came from and information on how to get there (ex. if you see a picture of a sunset it will say - 2002, June, Nelson Sunsets). This way friends and family can find the private gallery to see more pictures.


I think that's it for now. It is the closest balance I can find to making my photos private while also giving some tools for anyone to find the pictures I want to share with the world.


Obviously, there is a little more to it then this simplified version, so if you have any questions go to my site and click "contact" to email me with your questions.


Thanks and I have to apologize to smugmug and it's loyal customers for my uncontrolled rants yesterday. Needless to say, I will NOT be canceling my smugmug account. I am now a happy camper.

[gblotter]

I'm not giving up yet.

When considering a possible solution that will allow me to cloak my photos/keywords/captions from Google crawlers, could an alternate secure path through https be the solution?

The Google reference mentions that separate robot.txt files can be used for content served up through http and https. See:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/remove.html

Each port must have its own robots.txt file. In particular, if you serve content via both http and https, you'll need a separate robots.txt file for each of these protocols. For example, to allow Googlebot to index all http pages but no https pages, you'd use the robots.txt files below.
For your http protocol (http://yourserver.com/robots.txt):

User-agent: *
Allow: /

For the https protocol (https://yourserver.com/robots.txt):

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

If this is possible, could smugmug channel content through http or https depending on a user-specified account setting, and thereby provide options for users to shield photos/keywords/captions from Google crawlers through a robot.txt file? I know nothing about https, so please pardon if this is a completely silly idea - I'm searching for any kind of solution at this point. My preference is not to abandon smugmug.

[Oakley]

I'm not giving up yet.

When considering a possible solution that will allow me to cloak my photos/keywords/captions from Google crawlers, could an alternate secure path through https be the solution?

The Google reference mentions that separate robot.txt files can be used for content served up through http and https. See:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/remove.html

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If this is possible, could smugmug channel content through http or https depending on a user-specified account setting, and thereby provide options for users to shield photos/keywords/captions from Google crawlers through a robot.txt file? I know nothing about https, so please pardon if this is a completely silly idea - I'm searching for any kind of solution at this point. My preference is not to abandon smugmug.Would my solution not work for you? At least temporarily until smugmug finds a way to separate keyword searches in individual smugmug pages from google and the general smugmug searches?

Or could you tell me why my setup doesn't work?

[gblotter]

Would my solution not work for you? At least temporarily until smugmug finds a way to separate keyword searches in individual smugmug pages from google and the general smugmug searches?

Or could you tell me why my setup doesn't work?I just saw your post. I need to digest what you have done a bit more to understand it and determine if it would work for me. I'll be in touch.

[gblotter]

I would like everyone to know how I have set up my site to accommodate public visitors and protect the privacy of my family and friends ...

... Made all of these galleries PRIVATE thus making their keywords useless in smugmug.Are you confusing password-protected galleries with private galleries? After looking over your site, it appears to me that you have applied a password to each of your galleries, but you did not mark them private. If your galleries were marked private, I would not be able to see them at all when I browse your site.

That is one of the biggest problems with using private galleries to ensure that Google doesn't crawl over your personal information - private galleries also make it virtually impossible to share your photos with visitors to your smugmug site because private galleries become invisible. The only way for you to share photos in private galleries is to send the exact cryptic URL for that gallery or photo (and the associated password if you have set one).

Let me know if I have misunderstood something about your configuration.

[Oakley]

I hear ya. So does that mean my password protected galleries are not "private" from smugmug and google searches?

Are you saying my setup does not solve the privacy issue?

[asd]

That is one of the biggest problems with using private galleries to ensure that Google doesn't crawl over your personal information - private galleries also make it virtually impossible to share your photos with visitors to your smugmug site because private galleries become invisible. The only way for you to share photos in private galleries is to send the exact cryptic URL for that gallery or photo (and the associated password if you have set one).

You can create a Sharegroup and put the private galleries in it. Consider this the starting point for anything sensitive that friends and family will visit. This is a bit of work, but allows you to keep photos private but easily accessible (instead of bookmarking blah.smugmug.com, they bookmark blah.smugmug.com/share/laksjdlakjsdlkj). You can even chain sharegroups by creating others to group galleries and putting links to them in the first sharegroup's description.

While this won't get around the fact that keywords will not work for the private/passworded albums, it will give you a way to hide your albums completely but share them with others.

[Oakley]

Thanks asd...but I am yet to hear why my password protected galleries are not secure.

I would like to keep my site as I've set it up with password protected galleries, but I don't want to jeapordize my family and friends privacy.

[gblotter]

Thanks asd...but I am yet to hear why my password protected galleries are not secure.

I would like to keep my site as I've set it up with password protected galleries, but I don't want to jeapordize my family and friends privacy.Well, I think the answer depends on who you ask. In a previous posting within this thread, Onethumb said that Google should not be able to crawl your passworded galleries. However my smugmug account has a password, and I still find multiple Google links to my smugmug photos. Your configuration is different than mine, so I guess you should just give it the Google test after a couple of months. On the plus side, password protection appears to be completely effective with Smugmug global searches.

[gblotter]

While this won't get around the fact that keywords will not work for the private/passworded albums ...Throughout this thread I have read various comments like the one above that did not necessarily match my own experience/understanding, so I decided to do some more thorough research and experimentation. For me, this has been somewhat of a breakthrough in properly understanding the nature of this problem. We have been using similar language, but not necessarily talking about the same thing in every instance. http://www.digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/11doh.gif

Here is what I found out:


First the Private Galleries topic ...

Keywords with Private Galleries:
Keywords do not work with private galleries. Keywords associated with private gallery photos do not appear in the keyword index at the bottom of the homepage.

Smugmug Search with Private Galleries:
Smugmug search omits results for private galleries.


Now the Gallery Password topic ...

Keywords with Gallery Passwords:
Keywords do not work with password-protected galleries. Keywords associated with password-protected gallery photos do not appear in the keyword index at the bottom of the homepage.

Smugmug Search with Gallery Passwords:
Smugmug search omits results for password-protected galleries.


Now the Account Password Topic ...

Keywords with Account Passwords:
I have an account password on my smugmug account, and I use keywords extensively with no problems. With an account password set, the keyword index for all my photos is still displayed at the bottom of my Smugmug homepage, and I can click on individual keywords to see the associated photos. From my experience, keywords work just fine with account-level password protection.

Smugmug Search with Account Passwords:
Smugmug search displays matching keywords even when an account password is set. When clicking on the matching keyword, I am able to then see the associated photos even if I never enter my account password. I believe this is the reason why Google is able to generate backdoor links into my password-protected smugmug account.


So to summarize:

Private galleries and password-protected galleries both seem to provide similar levels of privacy. The main difference is that private galleries are not displayed at all, whereas password-protected galleries are displayed but require a viewing password for entry.

Account level password protection seems to have its own rules, especially concerning keywords. This provides a backdoor that Google is able to exploit for access into password-protected smugmug accounts. Not sure if this is by design or mistake, but I suspect it is a bug that I am taking advantage of in my smugmug customization.


Although this helps me better understand the nature of the problem, it still does not provide a resolution. (But as any 12-step program will tell you, recognition of the problem is the first step http://www.digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/1drink.gif- LOL).

These are my observations only - not necessarily the definitive word. Please let me know if you have encountered something different.

[jberd126]

I'm in the same camp as gblotter.

I believe that Smugmug needs to elevate this as something that is BROKEN and unacceptable and not something the is a feature request. This issue affects everyone. The constant rebuffing from Smugmug is not encouraging. I also wonder if there's underlying reasons other than technical that Smugmugis not disclosing.

True, professional users probably want information regarding their photos and galleries spread out across the net, but for the vast majority of non-professional customers this is something I really doubt they want.

I like Smugmug. No, I LOVE Smugmug. When I was searching for an on-line photo sharing site I found this site had pretty much everything I wanted. I also like the involvement of the Smugmug team in these forums. I find the keyword searches to be one of the most powerful features but its useless if I have to lock down my galleries.

I've also run into problems where I had to remove photos or lock down galleries because of requests from people in those photos. They too didn't like the privacy problems. Hoo. Ray.

Unless Smugmug commits to actually trying to fix this problem I too am going to call it quits. My privacy, and that of my family and friends, is more important.


Thanks for the suggestion - been there, done that. We already have an account password. The problem is that Google search still shows backdoor links to my password-protected photos. I obviously don't want to further publicize those backdoor URLs here, so I won't be more specific. However, I have communicated directly with smugmug support about the details so that they are at least aware of the backdoor access issue. On the plus side, account passwords appear to be a completely effective solution for Smugmug global searches.

Given current smugmug technology, private galleries seem to be the only real solution. If it is necessary to impose restrictive access controls (i.e. private galleries) in order to shield my photos from Google's prying eyes, I am then left to answer a few fundamental questions. Does that kind of access restriction defeat the whole purpose of photo sharing? Is it worth $50 per year to host photos that cannot be easily shared? As I said before, this is a tough issue for our family. We have invested a lot of time and energy in building and customizing a nice smugmug site for our family photos. Aside from the privacy issues, we are thrilled with the entire smugmug offering. We have promoted smugmug to many friends and family members. However, when the photos and names of our very young children end up plastered all over Google searches - well, that is kind of a trump card for us. In addition to regular Google search, there is also a separate Google IMAGE search. Try out Google IMAGE search - it can be very jarring to learn that the names and associated face photos of your young children are so easily accessible to the entire world. My wife almost started crying when she saw the search results come back. Thus, you can see that we are faced with some very difficult decisions.

[joffun]

Is there likely to be any movement on this issue? I also would like to see a Google 'cloak' or simply an option to switch off the galleries showing up in a google search.

I also discovered that even with an account level password that google does index the keywords & so people can see my photos without a password!

[bwg]

... I also wonder if there's underlying reasons other than technical that Smugmugis not disclosing...when skynet becomes self aware, terminators will use keyword searches on smugmug to track you down.

[jberd126]

I highly douby Smugmug will move on this. It is very evident that they do not really care about privacy as they see it more as a 'feature request' and not a 'requirement'.

I had been very pro-Smugmug but the lack of Smugmug involvement on these security problems have soured me. I have been steering people away and have been looking for a better alternative...

Is there likely to be any movement on this issue? I also would like to see a Google 'cloak' or simply an option to switch off the galleries showing up in a google search.

I also discovered that even with an account level password that google does index the keywords & so people can see my photos without a password!

[yahootintin]

I think I will remove all keywords from my photos before I upload them. That will make it more difficult for the public to find my photos. Friends who I send the link to, will be able to view my photos without a password but will not be able to do searches.

Question: Will the data in my captions still be searchable?

[Andy]

My privacy, and that of my family and friends, is more important.

Hi jberd,

Thanks again for posting - what I can tell you is that this is still a very active issue. Stay tuned please.... And, thanks for your continued patience, and for being our customer.

[zanthrus]

I also see this as an important issue. There should be middle ground somewhere between private and public galleries.

The account password protection seems like a pretty good choice. That is, if it actually does keep pictures from showing up in Google as it should. Does it do this? It seems like there are conflicting reports here. What is the point of this option if it doesn't protect from search engines? I would guess that the number of people that find pictures through google search is much much greater than the number that find pictures through smugmug search. I actually wouldn't care if my pictures came up in smugmug search, but having them exposed in google and google images bothers me.

There is also the option of using all private galleries with sharegroups, but then you have to update the sharegroup when ever a new gallery is added. You also lose the tree structure of the homepage. I don't want to give all that up.

Search isn't important to me. If all my pictures could be protected from google, I'd be fine with not having a search feature. My galleries are organized enough that it's not critical for me. From all the comments from smugmug here, it seems that this is possible with a small amount of difficulty.

Finally, I like google maps. I want a mixture of public and private galleries so that I can use them. So, even if the account password option worked as promised, I wouldn't want to use it.

[Andy]

I also see this as an important issue. There should be middle ground somewhere between private and public galleries.

The account password protection seems like a pretty good choice. That is, if it actually does keep pictures from showing up in Google as it should. Does it do this? It seems like there are conflicting reports here. What is the point of this option if it doesn't protect from search engines? I would guess that the number of people that find pictures through google search is much much greater than the number that find pictures through smugmug search. I actually wouldn't care if my pictures came up in smugmug search, but having them exposed in google and google images bothers me.

There is also the option of using all private galleries with sharegroups, but then you have to update the sharegroup when ever a new gallery is added. You also lose the tree structure of the homepage. I don't want to give all that up.

Search isn't important to me. If all my pictures could be protected from google, I'd be fine with not having a search feature. My galleries are organized enough that it's not critical for me. From all the comments from smugmug here, it seems that this is possible with a small amount of difficulty.

Finally, I like google maps. I want a mixture of public and private galleries so that I can use them. So, even if the account password option worked as promised, I wouldn't want to use it.

Hi Zanthrus - thanks for adding your voice to this thread - we really appreciate you taking the time to do so. I'll make sure the engineers see this thread for sure!

RE: Google maps - I'm sorry to say, we can't allow the maps feature on private galleries without violating the terms of our agreement with Google. I wish I had a better answer for you on that.

All the best,

[zanthrus]

Upon looking into this further. I am able to duplicate gblotter's problem. This is a *BUG*. There is no other way to put it.

Steps to duplicate.

1. Have an account with at least one picture with a keyword.
2. Set a viewing password on the account.
3. Close the browser and clear all cookies. (I used a completely different browser to be sure.)
4. Go to the homepage of the smugmug account. Say myusername.smugmug.com
5. It will ask for a password. Don't enter one.
6. Instead, go to myusername.smugmug.com/keyword/
7. You can see all the keywords.
8. Click on any keyword and you can see all the pictures.



Through experimentation, I have discovered that enabling an account password does not accomplish this goal. My keywords and captions are still visible to Google searches and smugmug global searches even with an account password enabled. An account password seems to be effective only for restricting access through the front door. Backdoor access remains wide open via direct URL from Google.

From what I can tell, hiding keywords and captions from Google searches and smugmug global searches is only possible by creating private galleries. For me, that kinda defeats the whole purpose of photo sharing.
Are you sure about this? If so, this is a *bug* and not expected behavior. Google cannot get to your pages to index them, so your pages will fall out of their index the next time they crawl.

As for smugmug, we check for user passwords and drop your results automagically from the search engine. (At least, that's what it's supposed to do and what we tested it to do. Bugs do happen, though :).


See a picture from my password protected account here: http://www.smugmug.com/keyword/testingthisthing

There you go, it's a bug, and we just reproduced it. The password does protect access to any of my galleries or direct links to pictures. But any picture that has a keyword can still be accessed from both the user keyword page or the smugmug search page.

This really makes sense though. From what everyone at smugmug was saying, it is impossible to have private galleries with keywords, but account passwords claimed to do just that.

In conclusion, I first looked at smugmug as a Christmas present to my parents. I got an account for testing, and I'm keeping it. Smugmug is really cool. But I'm unsure if I want to give it to my parents. These privacy issues concern my, and while I can find ways to work around them (private galleries and sharegroups). That's a lot to explain to my parents. Here's how I'd like it to work:

My parents just upload pictures with "Send to Smugmug", and everyone that knows the URL (username.smugmug.com) can now see the pictures.

But, if we want those pictures to be private, I have to explain to them how they have to check private in Send to Smugmug, and then they need to visit the album, copy the URL, send the URL to everyone. Or, add it to a sharegroup, and send the sharegroup URL.

It's just so much more complicated than it needs to be. If private accounts actually worked, that would be all they'd need. Even then though, the only reason for the password would be to keep search engines out. Which could just as easily be done with a meta tag. The password for the account would probably be someting like "password" and the hint would be "enter "password"". So, why do we need to make all our users jump through that hoop just to keep search engines out?

[Andy]

There you go, it's a bug, and we just reproduced it.

Thanks for posting, zanthrus. Onethumb is aware of it. I don't have word on if/when this will be fixed, but you could keep an eye on (subscribe to) our release notes (http://blogs.smugmug.com/release-notes/) blog for updates.

Thanks again,

[zanthrus]

Thanks for posting, zanthrus. Onethumb is aware of it.Thanks for the reply. It's nice to know its getting looked at. I'm just trying to spark some life into this thread. It didn't seem like it was going anywhere, and I think this is an important issue for a lot of users.

[Andy]

Thanks for the reply. It's nice to know its getting looked at. I'm just trying to spark some life into this thread. It didn't seem like it was going anywhere, and I think this is an important issue for a lot of users.

Everyone's aware of it. In fact, we were discussing it this week...

[mdweisen]

Everyone's aware of it. In fact, we were discussing it this week...

OK, so I waited as long as I could (a full month) before I had to ask if there is any news on this issue? I recently signed up, and having this work would be most excellent for how I would like to use smugmug.

[mrqcho]

OK, so I waited as long as I could (a full month) before I had to ask if there is any news on this issue? I recently signed up, and having this work would be most excellent for how I would like to use smugmug.
I'm on the same boat here. I've been watching this topic since probably 4 months, and I've forgotten to check back on it till now.

I took all my photos and site down last year, and I feel dumb for overlooking this and even upgrading as a power user, as this was one of the reasons I didn't like flickr for this purpose, besides the fact that I couldn't customize my galleries.

I have looked into and have actually set up my own gallery on my own hosting site, which I have all the control I need to, though I do not have unlimited space there, so I can't share my full resolution photos directly for my family to print them.

Plus I like smugmugs interface better than the one I have set up(with Gallery v2).

I thought this was a brilliant idea, and one that may even generate more business for you guys, as the same post said:

Basically have a spinoff site for families and the like, with these privacy issues solved, but with all the smugmug features we have available now.

Original post (http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=164411&postcount=49)
"... So my wife's idea was that smugmug could spinoff a new/separate website for families and other folks who are concerned with privacy issues. It could use all the same underlying technology as the existing smugmug except that meta tags and robot.txt files would be set for maximum privacy. As I think about it more, this could also be a good business opportunity for smugmug to branch out and develop sites with functionality that is more specific to the home photographer and the professional photographer. Isn't that what other businesses do all the time? - fragment their own product line to achieve maximum market penetration ..."

[papajay]

thanks 'blotter.. i'm fwding this to the smugmug team.

I'm in the same camp as others who love the keyword functionality smugmug provides, but cringes at the "invasive potential" provided to identity thieves through public galleries...I'm still not entirely convinced that the everyone at smugmug "gets it" for casual/personal users.

I'm not a geek...META means very little to me...(probably should, but likely won't, learn "all there is to know about it"..which isn't smugmug's problem per se, but is something smugmug needs to accept as a reality for what I'm sure is an important segment of it's "paying" customer base...and dismissing the concern with a "sorry, but happy to refund your money" response misses the point entirely.

I want to be able to use keyword functionality to find/select MY OWN PICTURES according the criteria (keywords) I choose any time I want. Further I wouldn't mind allowing INVITED guests (friends, family) the ability to similarly find/select MY "non-private" images.

As I understand it, though, the minute I make a gallery or my entire site "private" by adding a password...keyword search functionality is in effect, disabled.

To me, adding a password for my invited guests is preferred...I frankly do not want anyone other than people I invite to have access...but "privitizing" my own galleries defeats the most significant functionality smugmug has to offer to casual/personal users...the ability to search one's picture library for a specific selection on an ad hoc basis.

There's always an element of "piling-on" regarding a hot-button issue like this. But I worry about smugmug users even less computer saavy than I, and therefore even less "aware" of how at-risk they might be using smugmug to "safely store and secure" an "unlimited number" of thier priceless/personal images. Doesn't that count for something?

If "the risk" was clearly communicated to the smugmug user community (as in on the smugmug homepage), my guess is smugmug would find out very quickly that this "affected" user pool is bigger than it now believes. No, I do not want a refund...I want smugmug to find a way to address this. Perhaps the suggestion of the previous poster is they way...separate the products between pro's and "just plain folks".

PapaJay

[Andy]

If "the risk" was clearly communicated to the smugmug user community (as in on the smugmug homepage), my guess is smugmug would find out very quickly that this "affected" user pool is bigger than it now believes. No, I do not want a refund...I want smugmug to find a way to address this. Perhaps the suggestion of the previous poster is they way...separate the products between pro's and "just plain folks".

PapaJay

Hi PapaJay,

Thanks so much for telling us exactly how you feel about this.

I think we are upfront about security and keywords, but we're always interested in how we can improve on this...

http://www.smugmug.com/help/site-security
http://www.smugmug.com/help/private-albums
http://www.smugmug.com/help/keywords-tags

We tell customers that keywords enable folks to find their photos. We say that they don't work in private or passworded galleries. We even say that google *will* find them if they are in public galleries.

[shiffy]

Andy,

I don't think there's anything that tells the user -- at least on the page about using a password to protect your site -- that if you use keywords your site will be able to be found by google (and that a backdoor into the site, without the use of a password, may be created). I'd prefer to be able to have my whole site protected and still be able to use keywords, but will settle for the assurance that my site is fully protected from search engines. I think it is now, with a site-wide password, and no keywords. But, I didn't know that this was the way to do it without looking through posts here (and after I had added some keywords and, to my surprise, found my site was listed on google and could be accessed without a password by following the keyword links). If the use of keywords can't be reconciled with password protected galleries, I think that there should be a specific warning that such use could expose the galleries on both the pages instructing about the use of keywords and those instructing about passwords and privacy.

I don't mean to be too negative -- I love the site and think you guys do an amazing job continually improving it and responding to your customers. Nevertheless, like the others who have posted here, I would like to see a bit more privacy protection options added in the near future.

Thanks.

Steve


Hi PapaJay,

Thanks so much for telling us exactly how you feel about this.

I think we are upfront about security and keywords, but we're always interested in how we can improve on this...

http://www.smugmug.com/help/site-security
http://www.smugmug.com/help/private-albums
http://www.smugmug.com/help/keywords-tags

We tell customers that keywords enable folks to find their photos. We say that they don't work in private or passworded galleries. We even say that google *will* find them if they are in public galleries.

[Andy]

Andy,

I don't think there's anything that tells the user -- at least on the page about using a password to protect your site -- that if you use keywords your site will be able to be found by google (and that a backdoor into the site, without the use of a password, may be created). I'd prefer to be able to have my whole site protected and still be able to use keywords, but will settle for the assurance that my site is fully protected from search engines. I think it is now, with a site-wide password, and no keywords. But, I didn't know that this was the way to do it without looking through posts here (and after I had added some keywords and, to my surprise, found my site was listed on google and could be accessed without a password by following the keyword links). If the use of keywords can't be reconciled with password protected galleries, I think that there should be a specific warning that such use could expose the galleries on both the pages instructing about the use of keywords and those instructing about passwords and privacy.

I don't mean to be too negative -- I love the site and think you guys do an amazing job continually improving it and responding to your customers. Nevertheless, like the others who have posted here, I would like to see a bit more privacy protection options added in the near future.

Thanks.

Steve

Thanks Steve.

Currently we say this (http://www.smugmug.com/help/site-security):


When a password is set:
A lock icon appears next to your name on your home page.
Your name, galleries, photos and keywords are removed from smugmug's site-wide search. This can take a few minutes.
.
.
(some text snipped)
.

Q: Does this foil Google?
A: Yes. Your name, bio, gallery names, etc., should not appear in Google's search unless you place them on non-smugmug pages.

And we say this (http://www.smugmug.com/help/private-albums):


Galleries: Privacy and security

Privacy: Your visitors cannot see a private gallery unless you have given them its Internet address (URL). It will not appear in smugmug's search, nor in search engines like Google, nor by searching keywords or browsing subjects.

And this (http://www.smugmug.com/help/keywords-tags):

Gotcha: Keywords have no effect on private or password-protected albums, even if you enter them.

If I read your post right, you'd like us to say more, or say it differently. Thanks again for the feedback.

[pmaland]

Currently we say this (http://www.smugmug.com/help/site-security):

And we say this (http://www.smugmug.com/help/private-albums):

And this (http://www.smugmug.com/help/keywords-tags):
Gotcha: Keywords have no effect on private or password-protected albums, even if you enter them.


So I have a question. Here is a photo I found via the keyword search:

http://www.smugmug.com/keyword/maternity/10/54079260

If I click the "See photo in gallery" link, it prompts for a password. This doesn't seem in line with the Gotcha quoted above. Can you explain?

- Phil

[zanthrus]

So I have a question. Here is a photo I found via the keyword search:

http://www.smugmug.com/keyword/maternity/10/54079260

If I click the "See photo in gallery" link, it prompts for a password. This doesn't seem in line with the Gotcha quoted above. Can you explain?

- Phil
You can even go one further. From that picture you can go to their homepage, (http://friedzone.smugmug.com/) and if you add "keyword/" to that URL you can navigate ALL their pictures by keyword.

The following quotes are taken from the page describing site wide passwords:

2. Your name, galleries, photos and keywords are removed from smugmug's site-wide search. This can take a few minutes.

Q: Does this foil Google?
A: Yes. Your name, bio, gallery names, etc., should not appear in Google's search unless you place them on non-smugmug pages.
Both these statements are clearly incorrect. There needs to be some mention that using keywords will make your pictures accessible to everyone.

[Andy]

So I have a question. Here is a photo I found via the keyword search:

http://www.smugmug.com/keyword/maternity/10/54079260

If I click the "See photo in gallery" link, it prompts for a password. This doesn't seem in line with the Gotcha quoted above. Can you explain?

- Phil

Phil, those photos are not in a password protected album.

[gblotter]

You can even go one further. From that picture you can go to their homepage, (http://friedzone.smugmug.com/) and if you add "keyword/" to that URL you can navigate ALL their pictures by keyword.

Zanthrus speaks the truth. By going to http://friedzone.smugmug.com/keyword I can see any photo in that smugmug account even though there is an account password. (to be more specific, I can see any photo with a keyword assigned to it). Keywords are such a huge wide-open backdoor into my account, that I decided to remove my account password altogether (password was inhibiting access for my friends/family, and not really providing privacy protection against undesired eyes).

Don't use keywords if you have concerns about photo privacy.

In my opinion, Smugmug should state it in clear language using those exact words.

[shiffy]

Andy,

I think the problem is that there is no warning on the page about site security that you link to that says something like: "Please Note: Even if you set a site-wide password, your photos may be searchable by Google - and your password protection may be broken - if you use keywords or if they are incorporated into your photos by the software you use to process your photos before uploading them to Smugmug."

As it now stands, it is not clear to someone who reads the page about site security that their site's security will be jeopardized if there is a keyword in one of their photos. There is no warning that keywords override the password security on the site security page and, even on the other pages, there's not a full explanation of how password security and keywords interact, other than a statement that keywords have no effect on password protected albums or private albums. That is fine, but it is not the same thing as telling someone that if they use a keyword in a "public" album (but one protected by a site's password), it will provide a back door around the password protection on the site and open up the site to being found in google and other searches.

It's a serious issue for people concerned with privacy and if it can't be fixed (by fixed, I mean preventing the use of keywords from opening up a backdoor to a password protected site and allowing some sort of code that someone can add to their site to prevent it from being picked up by google and other engines - I know you can add a code on the page customization field, but it conflicts with code that can't be changed) -- I think it's only fair to provide people with an explicit warning on the page about site security (the most likely place for someone who is concerned with this issue to look).

Thanks.

Steve

Thanks Steve.

Currently we say this (http://www.smugmug.com/help/site-security):


And we say this (http://www.smugmug.com/help/private-albums):


And this (http://www.smugmug.com/help/keywords-tags):


If I read your post right, you'd like us to say more, or say it differently. Thanks again for the feedback.

[Andy]

Thanks.

Steve

Thank you, Steve, and the other posters above, too - we're always looking at this. Appreciate the direct, honest feedback.

[dwil]

Another vote for private keywords of some sort with search engine avoidance.

My pictures need to be for family / friends, not Google.
We need to search the pictures, not Google....

[papajay]

Thanks Steve.

Currently we say this (http://www.smugmug.com/help/site-security):


And we say this (http://www.smugmug.com/help/private-albums):


And this (http://www.smugmug.com/help/keywords-tags):


If I read your post right, you'd like us to say more, or say it differently. Thanks again for the feedback.

Hi Andy,
I fell victim to a "time-out" upon hitting the submit button when replying to your response to my earlier diatribe on this topic...apologies if I sounded too much like a whiner. Like Steve posted, I love the Smugmug site.

In my aborted reply I essentially acknowledged that all of what you said is true, and is on the smugmug site. BUT, it tends to be a bit "techy" (I know you probably do not think so, but you are an expert and deal with this stuff on a technical level every day) and the whole issue of privacy vs. search/keyword functionality isn't clearly explained in lay person lingo in one place on the site...you have to look for it, and in order to do that, you have to know what you're looking for.

I suggested the following (or facsimile thereof) be word-smithed, and given a prominent, easy-to-find, home on the Smugmug site:

[CAUTION: Your Smugmug galleries are accessible to anyone connected to the Internet via a web-browser (whether you are logged-in or not) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Your galleries and the words within them (including Title words and keywords) are also accessible to search engines (like Google). Example: You post a picture of your mother as a child, along with her maiden name (which, by the way, you recently provided to your bank for "security purposes" on your savings and checking accounts)....well, you get the picture...so much for "security".

You can avoid all this by making your galleries "Private" instead of "Public", and password-protecting them. The downside in doing so is that you lose the ability to use "keyword" searches to find all of your pictures of "Aunt Mable" (which is a VERY cool capability when you have thousands of pictures in your library). So, caveat emptor...complete and total privacy is achievable, but comes at a "price".]

I know...too wordy....but even a non-techy will understand it, and I'm sure some attorney will want to re-write so no one can understand it anyway.
Respectfully,
PapaJay

[Andy]

Respectfully,
PapaJay

Hi, PapaJay - many thanks for taking the time to make this post. We really appreciate it.

[shaunco]

g1r2e2g's (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=6021&page=2) post from last year (page 2, post #17) is exactly how I feel about the browse feature. Plenty of people want to share their lives with the entire world, I would only like to share mine with friends and direct visitors to <mynickname>.smugmug.com ... and making all the galleries private destroys the usefulness of smugmug.

onethumb - please, please, please fix this!

-Shaun

[Ben]

g1r2e2g's (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=6021&page=2) post from last year (page 2, post #17) is exactly how I feel about the browse feature. Plenty of people want to share their lives with the entire world, I would only like to share mine with friends and direct visitors to <mynickname>.smugmug.com ... and making all the galleries private destroys the usefulness of smugmug.

onethumb - please, please, please fix this!

-Shaun

Hi Shaun,

Just to be clear on exactly what you are asking, are you looking for an account-wide toggle to make all your galleries non-browsable/non-searchable from anywhere on smugmug outside nickname.smugmug.com ?

-Ben

[shaunco]

yes. Visitors to mynickname.smugmug.com should be able to see/search/browse/etc all public galleries, but visitors to google or www.smugmug.com (http://www.smugmug.com) should have no clue I exist. Obviously the google aspect is not under smugmug control, but changing the default meta/robots tag from follow/index/all to no-follow/no-index (or removing the default and allowing me to specify my own) would help with the google aspect.

-Shaun

[g1r2e3g]

Ok so I think I might have a workaround for this security debacle. In my case I have my own domain hosted elsewhere which the bulk of my website is hosted on, except of course the photo gallery. I'm a smugmug power user so the entire account is fully customised so other than the small 'powered by..' link at the bottom of each page most of my non-technical family wouldn't even realise that there are two hosts involved in serving up my entire website, I assume a vast number of power users on smugmug may have a similar setup.

So, im thinking i can...

1. Set a password on my smugmug account. (yes, the account not individual galleries. Note also that all my galleries are set to public.
2. On the link from my own website add the account password into the URL so users going from my website across to my smugmug account do not need to enter a password.

Therefore all keyword functionality etc. still works and I get no unwanted visitors from the smugmug homepage, and also given that my own website has webcrawler detterent metadata then I shouldn't get any unwated visitors from search engines.

I've tried to figure out the URL required to pass in the password but can't seem to get it working. Anyone on the support/development team be able to tell me if this is possible?

Thanks,

Greg

[shaunco]

Thx Greg... I ended up using this for now, but it does cause a bit of inconvenience for my friends and family. It would be nice if SmugMug could properly offer this.

-Shaun

[shiffy]

Greg,

I don't think what you're attempting to do will keep your galleries private. I think if you use keywords, someone will be able to get onto your pages through a keyword search, even though they could not get on through your smugmug home page. I could be wrong, but try it yourself by searching for your keywords when you are not logged on to your site.

And, I think you're pages with keywords on them may be indexed by web search engines such as Google.

If you don't use keywords, you should be fine with an account password (and there probably is no need for the extra level of using your other website).

Steve

Ok so I think I might have a workaround for this security debacle. In my case I have my own domain hosted elsewhere which the bulk of my website is hosted on, except of course the photo gallery. I'm a smugmug power user so the entire account is fully customised so other than the small 'powered by..' link at the bottom of each page most of my non-technical family wouldn't even realise that there are two hosts involved in serving up my entire website, I assume a vast number of power users on smugmug may have a similar setup.

So, im thinking i can...

1. Set a password on my smugmug account. (yes, the account not individual galleries. Note also that all my galleries are set to public.
2. On the link from my own website add the account password into the URL so users going from my website across to my smugmug account do not need to enter a password.

Therefore all keyword functionality etc. still works and I get no unwanted visitors from the smugmug homepage, and also given that my own website has webcrawler detterent metadata then I shouldn't get any unwated visitors from search engines.

I've tried to figure out the URL required to pass in the password but can't seem to get it working. Anyone on the support/development team be able to tell me if this is possible?

Thanks,

Greg

[jberd126]

AS you may have seem from earlier posts on this thread, the privacy-issue has been one of my hot buttons with Smugmug. The lack of movement from Smugmug on this issue for almost a year (at least from I've seen) is probably a good indication that they are not planning/willing to do anything about it. And it's really sad.

I've come up with a mediocre way to at least make it inconvenient for people to browse my site whether they come from Smugmug's global search or Google's result page.

I insert the following code in my Javascript customization page:

if((document.referrer.indexOf("www.smugmug (http://www.smugmug)") >= 0 &&
document.referrer.indexOf("login.mg") < 0) ||
document.referrer.indexOf("google.com") >= 0)
{
location.href = "http://www.smugmug.com";
}


This code simply redirects the user to Smugmug's main page if they are coming from either Smugmug's search page (or any generic Smugmug page other than the login) or from Google.

It's not great and has LOTS of limitations including a bug where the Javascript doesn't run when you click on an album from the search results (but it goes to your album with all your customizations!). OneThumb and the Smugmug team really need to make privacy a priority and fix it. Make the albums "Private" destroys a lot of what makes Smugmug so great. I've been tempted to create a survey thread to see how people like myself and others on this thread feel about this issue. Could that help persuade them???

[Andy]

AS you may have seem from earlier posts on this thread, the privacy-issue has been one of my hot buttons with Smugmug. The lack of movement from Smugmug on this issue for almost a year (at least from I've seen) is probably a good indication that they are not planning/willing to do anything about it. And it's really sad.
Hi jberd,

You've no indication of this whatsoever. The last communications from Onethumb on the subject are that he'd really like to be able to make something like this happen, if it were possible. It's not a dead issue, in any way, shape or form, at all. Is this thread long in the tooth? Yeah. It is. Don's been clear on this, and so I will be, too: we take your input from here on Dgrin, but it's not the only factor that goes into our business decisions. This would be a nice feature to make happen, I'd love to see it. But the truth is, we've heard from a relatively very few folks about this, versus our entire customer base. And, there exists ways today to ensure that your photos are not found by Google. Yes, we know that you want your cake and to eat it, too - and therein lies the hard part.

SmugMug is growing dramatically - and with that comes some complexity, too. I'm certain that this is not a trivial task - and so we ask your continued patience while Onethumb decides how, and if, this can be done.



I've come up with a mediocre way to at least make it inconvenient for people to browse my site whether they come from Smugmug's global search or Google's result page.

I insert the following code in my Javascript customization page:

if((document.referrer.indexOf("www.smugmug (http://www.smugmug)") >= 0 &&
document.referrer.indexOf("login.mg") < 0) ||
document.referrer.indexOf("google.com") >= 0)
{
location.href = "http://www.smugmug.com";
}


This code simply redirects the user to Smugmug's main page if they are coming from either Smugmug's search page (or any generic Smugmug page other than the login) or from Google.

It's not great and has LOTS of limitations including a bug where the Javascript doesn't run when you click on an album from the search results (but it goes to your album with all your customizations!). OneThumb and the Smugmug team really need to make privacy a priority and fix it. Make the albums "Private" destroys a lot of what makes Smugmug so great. I've been tempted to create a survey thread to see how people like myself and others on this thread feel about this issue. Could that help persuade them???

Thanks for the javascript hack - that's wonderful! Of course, you're welcome to make a survey thread, this forum is for you, our customers. Have at it, we'd very much like to see the responses.

[g1r2e3g]

In regards to my post above... does anyone know what exact URL I could use to link from my own site hosted elsewhere into my smugmug gallery without my visitors ahving to type in the account password?

eg... xxx.smugmug.com/login?user=xxx&pass=xxx

[sancyr]

I am beating a dead horse apparently, but privacy only recently became an issue with my photos. So I found this thread when doing a search for privacy problems like the one I detail below.

"The account password protection seems like a pretty good choice. That is, if it actually does keep pictures from showing up in Google as it should. Does it do this? It seems like there are conflicting reports here. What is the point of this option if it doesn't protect from search engines?"

I am also very concerned about the lack of privacy. Right now, I don't mind giving examples, but I have not uploaded any more photos after I learned about the keyword-search loophole in privacy. Here is my example:

My entire smug-mug account is password protected. See here:
http://sara-la.smugmug.com/

However, I can google a specific photo out of my password protected smugmug site above. See this search:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22sara+la%22+%22chris+scarborough%22&btnG=Search

The first hit on the google search points to a keyword search in my password protected smugmug site. This is the result:
http://sara-la.smugmug.com/keyword/sara%20la

In other words, these photos are not private at all unless I strip out all keywords. Seeing as I'm using smugmug to document family photos from 1965 to present, and family spanning the globe, loss of keyword search capability would make smugmug useless to me. In fact, the keyword search was the draw to smugmug to me in first place.

Please help.

Sara

[onethumb]

I am beating a dead horse apparently, but privacy only recently became an issue with my photos. So I found this thread when doing a search for privacy problems like the one I detail below.

"The account password protection seems like a pretty good choice. That is, if it actually does keep pictures from showing up in Google as it should. Does it do this? It seems like there are conflicting reports here. What is the point of this option if it doesn't protect from search engines?"

I am also very concerned about the lack of privacy. Right now, I don't mind giving examples, but I have not uploaded any more photos after I learned about the keyword-search loophole in privacy. Here is my example:

My entire smug-mug account is password protected. See here:
http://sara-la.smugmug.com/

However, I can google a specific photo out of my password protected smugmug site above. See this search:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22sara+la%22+%22chris+scarborough%22&btnG=Search

The first hit on the google search points to a keyword search in my password protected smugmug site. This is the result:
http://sara-la.smugmug.com/keyword/sara%20la

In other words, these photos are not private at all unless I strip out all keywords. Seeing as I'm using smugmug to document family photos from 1965 to present, and family spanning the globe, loss of keyword search capability would make smugmug useless to me. In fact, the keyword search was the draw to smugmug to me in first place.

Please help.

Sara

The Good News is: This is a bug.

The Bad News is: This is a bug.

Once we fix the bug, those keywords will cease to exist. They should not work inside of Passworded or Private galleries.

I know this is an emotional issue, and one I give a lot of thought, but what everyone is asking me to do (and everyone seems to have a slightly different idea of what they want) is nearly impossible.

I can't allow you to search for keywords inside of passworded galleries because that defeats the purpose of those passworded galleries. The resulting image set would look like a bunch of locks, with no idea what each photo is.

Not to mention the technical difficulty involved in doing some sort of a search if they had already entered a matching password for some of the photos - that's nearly impossible from a technical point of view.

I'm trying to come up with some way to make this work but so far it's proven impossible. I'm truly sorry I can't please everyone - but Private means Private and Passworded means Passworded. We can't allow searching within those galleries because that defeats the very purpose.

Don

[Scala]

I can't allow you to search for keywords inside of passworded galleries because that defeats the purpose of those passworded galleries. The resulting image set would look like a bunch of locks, with no idea what each photo is.

Not to mention the technical difficulty involved in doing some sort of a search if they had already entered a matching password for some of the photos - that's nearly impossible from a technical point of view.


How about implementing separate views for keywords on a per-gallery basis? A URL like something.smugmug.com/gallery/2354235/keyword would list the keywords of a private gallery and a passworded gallery as well if the user enters the password.

Then you could also provide a separate option to opt out of the public smugmug listings on a per-gallery basis. Public would then mean publicly visible at the user's subdomain only. I mean, when browsing smugmug, who really wants to see some stranger's snapshots of grandpa Irving at the family barbecue? :)

I'd love to offer keyworded proofs for clients privately but currently this is not possible. Also my keyword "cloud" is full kart racing specific keywords which I'd like to limit to inside a gallery or category perhaps.

[flyingdutchie]

So, in the current state of Smugmug...

...what do you exactly need to do (or not do) if you want this for a gallery:

1-. Your account does not have a password:

2-. Your gallery must not be searchable by any search engine.
3-. Direct links to photos in that gallery should not render. E.g. http://www.smugmug.com/photos/12343546-L.jpg should render nothing or some dummy-picture if '12343546' is inside a protected/private gallery.
4-. Direct link to gallery (e.g. http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/1234567) must not show anything or a password-screen.
5-. Do keywords/captions/gallery-description in the gallery provide a back-door to search engines?

[papajay]

...a Smugmug gallery owner (1) password protects his/her entire site; (2) and provides the password to friends and family so they can view the galleries; and (3) removes the password lock just long enough to do whatever keyword search he/she needs to perform on an ad hoc basis; then (4) resets the site-wide password immediately after completing the keyword search??

Does the "exposure" to Google searches last only as long as the site is unprotected by the password, or does the keyword search itself cause Google to crawl and cache the keyword contents for subsequent ("unauthorized") searches, even after the site is locked-up again with a password?

Since I am not a geek, I'm certain this is not a geek-approved solution (it's more of a workaround than a solution), and it's certainly not "elegant"...but will it "work"?... would it give me, and others like me (who want the functionality of keywords, but do not want anyone other than invited friends and family to view my galleries) some measure of privacy/security and functionality beyond what is currently offered?
Still hoping for a long-term "fix", but somewhat desperate for a short-term substitute. Papajay.

[joffun]

The Good News is: This is a bug.

The Bad News is: This is a bug.

Once we fix the bug, those keywords will cease to exist. They should not work inside of Passworded or Private galleries.

I know this is an emotional issue, and one I give a lot of thought, but what everyone is asking me to do (and everyone seems to have a slightly different idea of what they want) is nearly impossible.

I can't allow you to search for keywords inside of passworded galleries because that defeats the purpose of those passworded galleries. The resulting image set would look like a bunch of locks, with no idea what each photo is.

Not to mention the technical difficulty involved in doing some sort of a search if they had already entered a matching password for some of the photos - that's nearly impossible from a technical point of view.

I'm trying to come up with some way to make this work but so far it's proven impossible. I'm truly sorry I can't please everyone - but Private means Private and Passworded means Passworded. We can't allow searching within those galleries because that defeats the very purpose.

Don

Don, following on from my other thread about this issue, as you know I have the same concerns on this matter. You have referred to keywords (or searching) in passworded or private galleries, but don't seem to mention keywords in a password protected site. Obviously these are two completely different things & the fact that you have only mentioned the gallery & not the account level password issue is the main reason that I spent hours re-keywording all my photos & galleries.

I am pleased to see that I am not alone in wanting to see a change, but I also see that this is unlikely to happen.

[gblotter]

Does the "exposure" to Google searches last only as long as the site is unprotected by the password, or does the keyword search itself cause Google to crawl and cache the keyword contents for subsequent ("unauthorized") searches, even after the site is locked-up again with a password?


It is the presence of the smugmug keyword index that provides Google a crawling path into a passworded Smugmug account. If you are using keywords, then you are exposed to Google crawling (whether you have set a smugmug password or not). Smugmug's keyword index is not shielded by setting a password. Then once Google has discovered the direct URL's to your photos, they become accessible to the world by Google searches (regardless of whether you have set a smugmug password). This is the "backdoor" that has been mentioned before.

[mdweisen]

Without knowing the inner workings of the site, we can all only guess. To me, for example, it would seem like you would just want to set up a parallel set of keywords called 'private keywords' that are explicitly only set up to work within a single user's site. You could provide simple functions to copy the keywords back and forth between private/public sets, or just switch them automatically based on whether 'private' is on for that gallery.

[papajay]

If you are using keywords, then you are exposed to Google crawling (whether you have set a smugmug password or not). Smugmug's keyword index is not shielded by setting a password. Then once Google has discovered the direct URL's to your photos, they become accessible to the world by Google searches (regardless of whether you have set a smugmug password). This is the "backdoor" that has been mentioned before.

ARGHHH!!!! Now I really want to cry! It's an even worse situation than I first thought...a virtual 2x4 across the bridge of the nose.

Thanks for the explanation, though, gblotter. At least I now understand how totally compromised anything I thought was "protected" isn't. The "neatest" functionality of Smugmug that first caught my attention was the ability to use keywords to readily search my photos...how utterly disappointing it is to now know that I don't dare use it. Papajay

[tnierduffy]

This is EXACTLY what I had asked smugmug support about just the other day....
I want to be able to have my photos private and not searchable/viewable by the general public BUT I LOVE THE KEYWORDS feature. So, being able to make my pictures private but not having the keywords for those "invited" to see my pictures stinks.
Just wanted to pass along thoughts that WE NEED THIS PLEASE :clap
I've set up a front end site that links to my smugmug at this point but it's not the ideal scenario.
Thanks -- Tamara


Don, thank you for looking at this. This issue is the one reason I am considering leaving Smugmug. I can't have my family's photos searchable by Google or any other sites on the web. I've never liked the fact that I have no control over that. The new keywords feature is cool, except that it was turned on without me knowing about it and it got my Smugmug site indexed by Google using my last name.

Now all anyone needs to do to see my family's private photos is to Google me. I'm not happy about that at all. I'd love to see a global setting that allows me to control whether Google and other search engines can index my galleries.

In the mean time, is there a way for me to change Smugmug usernames without having my old URL point to my new one?

[jberd126]

Can someone recommend an alternate to Smugmug that is feature-rich AND has better privacy support? I don't mind paying for the service (as I do now with Smugmug). I like Smugmug but to me they seem to be all over the map when it comes to selection of features to implement and bugs to fix...

-J

This is EXACTLY what I had asked smugmug support about just the other day....
I want to be able to have my photos private and not searchable/viewable by the general public BUT I LOVE THE KEYWORDS feature. So, being able to make my pictures private but not having the keywords for those "invited" to see my pictures stinks.
Just wanted to pass along thoughts that WE NEED THIS PLEASE :clap
I've set up a front end site that links to my smugmug at this point but it's not the ideal scenario.
Thanks -- Tamara

[Andy]

Can someone recommend an alternate to Smugmug that is feature-rich AND has better privacy support? I don't mind paying for the service (as I do now with Smugmug). I like Smugmug but to me they seem to be all over the map when it comes to selection of features to implement and bugs to fix...

-J

Look we know it's important to you. But the difficulties have been explained. And the genuine desire to satisfy everyone as best as possible is there. I'm not sure what you mean by "all over the map" but I'll go with "they're not making this one happen yet..." - unless you could clarify? It would really help us.

Many thanks...

[jberd126]

Hello Andy,

I like these discussions :wink

You've no indication of this whatsoever. The last communications from Onethumb on the subject are that he'd really like to be able to make something like this happen, if it were possible.

Possibility is relative. Can it happen? Absolutely. Can it happen in the meaningfull time frame with the current resources? Not sure. But it should.

It's not a dead issue, in any way, shape or form, at all. Is this thread long in the tooth? Yeah. It is. Don's been clear on this, and so I will be, too: we take your input from here on Dgrin, but it's not the only factor that goes into our business decisions. This would be a nice feature to make happen, I'd love to see it. But the truth is, we've heard from a relatively very few folks about this, versus our entire customer base.

That comment I have a very hard time believeing. Because you want not have 'heard' from a large enough number of customers about an issue does not mean that they don't exist. It's a statistic based on how many users you have using the service in a certain manner that expect certain security , know and understand the issues, and take the time to bring them up.

For example, take all your standard and power user accounts that are not in any communities and do not have share groups or friends/families (i.e. they do not cross-link) and multiply it by a fraction. This fraction would be the percentage of users that would expect more privacy than is actually available without locking down their site/galleries and making Smugmug much less appealing. I'm sure you would come up with a fairly large number. Has this ever been polled from your user base?

-J

[Andy]

Has this ever been polled from your user base?

-J

We surveyed our entire customer base in the nov/december 05 timeframe. This issue was waaaaaaaaaaaaay down the list in terms of # of people who brought it up. Like, orders of magnitude smaller. It does not mean that it's not important to you, and others, but our customers told us in no uncertain terms they want more themes, more display options, better image compression, more and easier organization tools, more print options (products), and a few pro-related features. Very, very few told us about searching keywords in private galleries.

[mpmcleod]

We surveyed our entire customer base in the nov/december 05 timeframe. This issue was waaaaaaaaaaaaay down the list in terms of # of people who brought it up. Like, orders of magnitude smaller. It does not mean that it's not important to you, and others, but our customers told us in no uncertain terms they want more themes, more display options, better image compression, more and easier organization tools, more print options (products), and a few pro-related features. Very, very few told us about searching keywords in private galleries.

What about features like date searching in private galleries? That would be a wonderful feature to have. I am sure I don't understand how the security is implemented as SM but features should not be tied to security. Security should only be who/what is allowed to interface with that system and view those galleries/ images.

It appears however that choosing to make a gallery "private"(*) means we lose really useful features. Could we fix this problem?

(To remind everyone, "private" only means that it doesn't show up on your main page. This provides no security and anyone can still get to all of your pictures at will.)

Thanks,

[Antonio Correia]

This
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=303819#post303819
is somehow related to the matter discussed here.

[Andy]

This
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=303819#post303819
is somehow related to the matter discussed here.
No, not really. Thanks Antonio.

[Antonio Correia]

Sorry ... :huh

[asinghz]

Can someone tell me if this issue has been resolved or not? or in other words, can someone tell me for sure, that if I have a password protected gallery or password protect site, then the pictures are really private and CANNOT be found by any search engine, etc? Thanks Amarpreet

[gblotter]

Can someone tell me if this issue has been resolved or not? or in other words, can someone tell me for sure, that if I have a password protected gallery or password protect site, then the pictures are really private and CANNOT be found by any search engine, etc?With recent changes made to smugmug, keywords are now disabled for password-protected accounts, password-protected galleries, and private galleries. Therefore the keyword index does not exist for search engine crawling. Backdoor access is closed.

[mcgil]

Very, very few told us about searching keywords in private galleries.

Morning :)

I just feel like replying on this old thread ... Me too I was SO! excited to finally have a photo archive with tags and keyword search ... what a disappointment when those features disappeared once I added a password to my galleries :cry

Is there hope to see them added at some point ?

Thanks,

McGil

[etimmie]

We surveyed our entire customer base in the nov/december 05 timeframe. This issue was waaaaaaaaaaaaay down the list in terms of # of people who brought it up. Like, orders of magnitude smaller.
*sigh*:cry alas... another moot:deadhorse "ME TOO". Having just signed up, loving it:lust, buying it for a friend, and then only to realize the fatal flaw:huh, and reconsidering:doh suggesting it to other friends.

Alas #2... I guess I will just have to wait for the next "survey", and make sure I'm counted.:wave :-D

Ok, sorry about this newbie finding the "more emoticons" button.

!T! Timmie!

[Antonio Correia]

Morning :)

I just feel like replying on this old thread ... Me too I was SO! excited to finally have a photo archive with tags and keyword search ... what a disappointment when those features disappeared once I added a password to my galleries :cry

Is there hope to see them added at some point ?

Thanks,

McGil
Well, ME TOO.
I would like the password protected galleries, to have them available separatelly... I'm sorry for that. :dunno

[smhs.images]

I just wanted to throw my two cents in. I read over most of this thread and I am having a hard time understanding why everyone here is so opposed to sharegroups? I understand certain circumstances (ie parents accounts; not knowing how to set it up) but it is working great for me. I got my Smugmug account so I could have an online portfolio and possibly generate sales. It was only after having it for awhile that I considered using the space to incorporate all our friend and family photos. Obviously in my situation the idea of these galleries showing up at all password protected or not would ruin the professional look. I wouldn't slip my wedding photos into my portfolio would I?
So I set up a sharegroup. Initially when I emailed EVERYONE the link. I would get responses saying they bookmarked the link and couldn't see the photos a week later. So I sent out a second email explaining "SAVE THIS EMAIL" and why... for my privacy and theirs. Now when I add new galleries I just send a bulk email out to everyone telling them what has been added and I list the link again for good measure. Works like a charm. And it is like having two seperate websites IMHO. Now it is true that you loose keywords but I am willing to sacrifice that for some privacy and seperation from my business. One last thing, I think if you play around with categories and subcatogories (professional users only?) you will find a way to present your photos in a way where people won't need keywords. Just one girl's opinion :wink

[dmc]

.... Now it is true that you loose keywords but I am willing to sacrifice that for some privacy and seperation from my business. One last thing, I think if you play around with categories and subcatogories (professional users only?) you will find a way to present your photos in a way where people won't need keywords. Just one girl's opinion :wink

I have over 200 galleries utilizing 8 different categories, a couple of which have sub-categories, most of my 8000 pics are keyworded... all of this is easily accessable via nickname.smugmug.com. I would loose all of these features if I made my galleries private, and created sharegroups. sharegroups can only have galleries in it, (I guess I could simulate categories by having multiple sharegroups... what a mess)... and the keywords don't work... a very awesome feature not replaced by mere categorization. (I can retrieve all the pictures of my dog from accross all my galleries, heck I can pull up all pictures of my dog... at the beach... at sunset... instantly :thumb )
http://dmcpics.smugmug.com/keyword/dogs-beach-sunset

Why should I loose all the cool features of smugmug because they can't exclude me from their public search tools? :dunno

my broken record here... (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=365605#post365605)

[pat.kane]

Keyword handling (and dgrin!) was a big reason why I selected smugmug. I'd love to see the capability extended to private galleries and am patiently waiting for it to happen.

[smhs.images]

I have over 200 galleries utilizing 8 different categories, a couple of which have sub-categories, most of my 8000 pics are keyworded... all of this is easily accessable via nickname.smugmug.com. I would loose all of these features if I made my galleries private, and created sharegroups. sharegroups can only have galleries in it, (I guess I could simulate categories by having multiple sharegroups... what a mess)... and the keywords don't work... a very awesome feature not replaced by mere categorization. (I can retrieve all the pictures of my dog from accross all my galleries, heck I can pull up all pictures of my dog... at the beach... at sunset... instantly :thumb )
http://dmcpics.smugmug.com/keyword/dogs-beach-sunset

Why should I loose all the cool features of smugmug because they can't exclude me from their public search tools? :dunno

my broken record here... (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=365605#post365605)

yes I do see your point. And people do get confused navagating with sharegroups because if they leave to go back to the home page they can't get back to the private galleries. For now I will just have to deal with it I guess.

[TheDuck]

Note, please, that we cannot tell Google or other search engines what to do. If you can view a page, Google can view a page, and thus, index it for all to see.

We can give it hints, but how well/quickly/accurately it follows those hints is up to Google - they're not going to pay attention to small fry like us if there's some sort of problem.

So this feature, should it happen, is definitely not foolproof. Google may very well index your stuff even if we tell it not to every way we know.

Just wanted to be clear here.

Don

Actually, Don, Google provides very clear instructions on how to exlude their webbots from indexing your site. They say changes will appear ~6-8 weeks later, around the time they typically revisit a site, but that for "emergencies" you can contact them and have things removed quicker. The wayback machine also allows opting out, but it looks like Smugmug must do this for us, we can't do it on our customization pages so far as I can tell.

Be seeing you,
The Duck

(From Google) - Remove your entire website


If you wish to exclude your entire website from Google's index, you can place a file at the root of your server called robots.txt. This is the standard protocol that most web crawlers observe for excluding a web server or directory from an index. More information on robots.txt is available here: http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html. Please note that Googlebot does not interpret a 401/403 response ("Unauthorized"/"Forbidden") to a robots.txt fetch as a request not to crawl any pages on the site.
To remove your site from search engines and prevent all robots from crawling it in the future, place the following robots.txt file in your server root:
User-agent: *
Disallow: / To remove your site from Google only and prevent just Googlebot from crawling your site in the future, place the following robots.txt file in your server root:
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: / Each port must have its own robots.txt file. In particular, if you serve content via both http and https, you'll need a separate robots.txt file for each of these protocols. For example, to allow Googlebot to index all http pages but no https pages, you'd use the robots.txt files below.
For your http protocol (http://yourserver.com/robots.txt): (http://yourserver.com/robots.txt%29:)
User-agent: *
Allow: / For the https protocol (https://yourserver.com/robots.txt): (https://yourserver.com/robots.txt%29:)
User-agent: *
Disallow: /

[papajay]

Actually, Don, Google provides very clear instructions on how to exlude their webbots from indexing your site. They say changes will appear ~6-8 weeks later, around the time they typically revisit a site, but that for "emergencies" you can contact them and have things removed quicker. The wayback machine also allows opting out, but it looks like Smugmug must do this for us, we can't do it on our customization pages so far as I can tell.

Be seeing you,
The Duck

(From Google) - Remove your entire website


If you wish to exclude your entire website from Google's index, you can place a file at the root of your server called robots.txt. This is the standard protocol that most web crawlers observe for excluding a web server or directory from an index. More information on robots.txt is available here: http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html. Please note that Googlebot does not interpret a 401/403 response ("Unauthorized"/"Forbidden") to a robots.txt fetch as a request not to crawl any pages on the site.
To remove your site from search engines and prevent all robots from crawling it in the future, place the following robots.txt file in your server root:
User-agent: *
Disallow: / To remove your site from Google only and prevent just Googlebot from crawling your site in the future, place the following robots.txt file in your server root:
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: / Each port must have its own robots.txt file. In particular, if you serve content via both http and https, you'll need a separate robots.txt file for each of these protocols. For example, to allow Googlebot to index all http pages but no https pages, you'd use the robots.txt files below.
For your http protocol (http://yourserver.com/robots.txt): (http://yourserver.com/robots.txt%29:)
User-agent: *
Allow: / For the https protocol (https://yourserver.com/robots.txt): (https://yourserver.com/robots.txt%29:)
User-agent: *
Disallow: /

From a lay person's viewpoint, this is the first bit of very encouraging "news" on this thread-bare topic. I'm glad I'm not the one charged with the responsibility to "make it happen", this appears (to a non-techie, at least) to be something a bright techie should be able to "figure out". If puting a bit of code in a power or pro account could be written so the Smugmug subscriber could add it, or a tick-box option could be ticked (especially for Standard account holder) which would prompt Smugmug to send whatever is needed to the good folks at Google, it would be a major feather in Smugmug's cap. It sure would put a lot of misplaced emotion to rest.

[Andy]

From a lay person's viewpoint, this is the first bit of very encouraging "news" on this thread-bare topic. I'm glad I'm not the one charged with the responsibility to "make it happen", this appear (to a non-techie, at least) to be something a bright techie should be able to "figure out". If putting a bit of code in a power or pro account could be written so the Smugmug subscriber could add it, or a tick-box option could be ticked (especially for Standard account holder) which would prompt Smugmug to send whatever is needed to the good folks at Google, it would be a major feather in Smugmug's cap. It sure would put a lot of misplaced emotion to rest.
Papa, please don't be encouraged by that. It's nothing so simple. Sorry I don't have a better answer for you!

[papajay]

Papa, please don't be encouraged by that. It's nothing so simple. Sorry I don't have a better answer for you!


Pooof!...Up, then Crashed to the floor again!

[Andy]

Pooof!...Up, then Crashed to the floor again!
There's a lot of emotion about this. Believe me, it's discussed plenty at SmugMug. Carry on, enjoy photography :)

When we have something to add about this, we surely will, I promise.

[Rando]

From a lay person's viewpoint, this is the first bit of very encouraging "news" on this thread-bare topic. I'm glad I'm not the one charged with the responsibility to "make it happen", this appears (to a non-techie, at least) to be something a bright techie should be able to "figure out". If puting a bit of code in a power or pro account could be written so the Smugmug subscriber could add it, or a tick-box option could be ticked (especially for Standard account holder) which would prompt Smugmug to send whatever is needed to the good folks at Google, it would be a major feather in Smugmug's cap. It sure would put a lot of misplaced emotion to rest.

This can be handled by a simple meta tag to DISALLOW robots but the way smugmug forces a meta tag that ALLOWS robots, there is a conflict.
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35303

[papajay]

This can be handled by a simple meta tag to DISALLOW robots but the way smugmug forces a meta tag that ALLOWS robots, there is a conflict.
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35303

Thanks Rando...but I'm afraid it's all a bit over my head at this point...I don't want to "break" anything. I need a Smugmug-Power-User-specific instruction tutorial with a definitive "Here's how to keep Google from crawling your site (and still be able to run your own keyword searches on your site)..., 1) Put this line in your CSS, 2) put this line in your style sheet...etc".

...and as Andy points out, despite there being a lot of discussion about it within the Smugmug brain trust, it doesn't yet sound as if anything is imminently forthcoming to "solve" the dilemma.

Perhaps what you linked to would do it, but I'm not techie enough to know how (or if) I can post something to a "root server" (SmugMug's, right?...so it doesn't seem to me that I have, nor should I have, access to that) that controls my pages. Without a "turn here, go straight here, left here", road map, I'm lost. But thank you for trying to help. There seems to be a lot (and a growing number) of us that want this.

[Andy]

Thanks Rando...but I'm afraid it's all a bit over my head at this point...I don't want to "break" anything. I need a Smugmug-Power-User-specific instruction tutorial with a definitive "Here's how to keep Google from crawling your site (and still be able to run your own keyword searches on your site)..., 1) Put this line in your CSS, 2) put this line in your style sheet...etc".
Hi Papajay, I need to be clear, NO such thing exists right now. Set your galleries, or your site, to private, and that will do it.

...and as Andy points out, despite there being a lot of discussion about it within the Smugmug brain trust, it doesn't yet sound as if anything is imminently forthcoming to "solve" the dilemma.
There's no dilemma, the site/functionality is working as the site was built. We are reading your posts, we are discussing it, but you cannot put a round peg in a square hole...

[papajay]

Hi Papajay, I need to be clear, NO such thing exists right now. Set your galleries, or your site, to private, and that will do it.]

I know no such thing exists right now, which is why I said it.

[There's no dilemma, the site/functionality is working as the site was built. We are reading your posts, we are discussing it, but you cannot put a round peg in a square hole...

...and never suggested the site isn't working as designed and built...which, pardon me. There is a "dilemma", however, Andy...it's the dilemma of wanting to have cake and eat it too, perhaps, but that's the nature of dilemmas. I'm glad you are discussing it, and no one realisticly expects you to put a round peg in a square hole (unless the round peg is small enough :D ). And just so I am clear...the dilemma is....only being given the option of privitizing my galleries and having to give up one of the coolest SmugMug features (keyword searching ) in the process.

[Andy]

...and never suggested the site isn't working as designed and built...which, pardon me. There is a "dilemma", however, Andy...it's the dilemma of wanting to have cake and eat it too, perhaps, but that's the nature of dilemmas. I'm glad you are discussing it, and no one realisticly expects you to put a round peg in a square hole (unless the round peg is small enough :D ). And just so I am clear...the dilemma is....only being given the option of privitizing my galleries and having to give up one of the coolest SmugMug features (keyword searching ) in the process.
Good - I just wanted to make sure that you knew you couldn't customize differently, now :thumb

Cheers Papa

[akbdeck]

Hi Papajay, I need to be clear, NO such thing exists right now. Set your galleries, or your site, to private, and that will do it.
There's no dilemma, the site/functionality is working as the site was built. We are reading your posts, we are discussing it, but you cannot put a round peg in a square hole...

I'm also not happy about my Smugmug site being list by seach engines. I don't want to make the site private. Are you going to correct the issue for public sites/pages or is making your site private the only option we have?

If making the site private is the only option then look for me to cancel my service ASAP. I would rather take the photos off line than change everything to private.

I wish your company would have been up front about this issue as I would never have joined if I knew my site was going to be listed by every web crawler.

[Andy]

I wish your company would have been up front about this issue as I would never have joined if I knew my site was going to be listed by every web crawler.
Hi, I'm sorry you feel we are being sneaky about it.... we are very upfront, we talk about security and privacy prominently in our help pages and gallery settings pages.

All the input here is being processed. And we thank you for telling us how important this is to you you!

Thanks for posting, and welcome to Dgrin!

[jchin]

I'm also not happy about my Smugmug site being list by seach engines. I don't want to make the site private. Are you going to correct the issue for public sites/pages or is making your site private the only option we have?

If making the site private is the only option then look for me to cancel my service ASAP. I would rather take the photos off line than change everything to private.

I wish your company would have been up front about this issue as I would never have joined if I knew my site was going to be listed by every web crawler.

What about adding the following in your HTML header configuration:

&lt; meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" >

Of course, you can always notify Google and Yahoo to exclude your particular URL.

[Andy]

What about adding the following in your HTML header configuration:

&lt; meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" >
It does not work, sorry.

[Baldy]

And just so I am clear...the dilemma is....only being given the option of privitizing my galleries and having to give up one of the coolest SmugMug features (keyword searching ) in the process.Hey papajay,

A patent troll who successfully sued Kodak, Shutterfly, Webshots and EZ Prints has been vexing us for awhile with US patents 6321231 and 6332146.

The language of the patents is very unclear but their claims appear to cover finding/searching for private images. We have yet another call with a law firm this week to attempt to understand these patents. I hope it's not the case that they have to go to trial to understand what the intent of the patent office was when they issued them.

It seems so strange that someone who never built a photo sharing site could prevent those of us who did from introducing features, at least in the U.S.

Reading through some of this thread, I'm probably missing something very simple and am 2 years late to the party, but why couldn't we solve 90% of this by just providing an option for each subscriber to check a box in their control panels that says something like:

"Tell search engines not to index my pages"

[papajay]

Hey papajay,

A patent troll who successfully sued Kodak, Shutterfly, Webshots and EZ Prints has been vexing us for awhile with US patents 6321231 and 6332146....

...Reading through some of this thread, I'm probably missing something very simple and am 2 years late to the party, but why couldn't we solve 90% of this by just providing an option for each subscriber to check a box in their control panels that says something like:

"Tell search engines not to index my pages"

Baldy:

Thank you so much for the most encouraging post on this topic (and it's not the only thread that touches on the subject matter) since day one!

The first time through, I "mis-read" the opening sentence in your post as, "A PATIENT TROLL..." instead of a "patent troll". I thought for a moment you were going to tell me a fairy tale about a troll who eventually got what he wanted through a combination of persistence and patience.

For another moment, I didn't even mind being compared to a "troll" if my patience was to finally be rewarded with a fix (I even felt a bit guilty because I know I haven't always been so patient with SmugMug on this topic). Reality set in when I realized it was patents you were talking about, not patience.

Nevertheless, if you can, in fact, provide me with a control page option to stop search engines from indexing my pages, but allow me to still perform keyword searches when logged into my own site, I will indeed be one very happy SmugMug customer!!!. :barb

Please, do this post haste, if at all possible. And I am certain I won't be the only SmugMug subscriber to kneel at your feet in gratitude. :bow

[papajay]

Nevertheless, if you can, in fact, provide me with a control page option to stop search engines from indexing my pages, but allow me to still perform keyword searches when logged into my own site, I will indeed be one very happy SmugMug customer!!!. :barb

Please, do this post haste, if at all possible. And I am certain I won't be the only SmugMug subscriber to kneel at your feet in gratitude. :bow

Additionaly providing a "global" keyword replace capability (across my site all at once instead of having to use the bulk edit function one gallery at a time) would be truly AWESOME!

[RogersDA]

I hope it's not the case that they have to go to trial to understand what the intent of the patent office was when they issued them.
Mmmmm...patent trials seldom revolve around the intent of the USPTO. Rather, trials typically are about claim limitation interpretation in view of ordinary skill standards, the prior art, and the patent's written description and prosecution history.

However, no matter what, the best defense to a patent is to have the information to make what the patent owner believes is the correct interpretation invalid under 35 USC 102/103.

[Andy]

Please, do this post haste, if at all possible.

Papa, remember, Baldy didn't say anything about if/when we'd do this. I'm just sayin' ...

[papajay]

Papa, remember, Baldy didn't say anything about if/when we'd do this. I'm just sayin' ...

..hearin' ya loud and clear, Andy. Not everything, or everyone's "pet peeve", can be Priority #1.

But I have to believe that, "If Baldy wants it done, by golly, there's a good chance it'll get done!" (I know SmugMug isn't the military, but if it were...a five-star general usually gets what he wants).:D

[jfriend]

Mmmmm...patent trials seldom revolve around the intent of the USPTO. Rather, trials typically are about claim limitation interpretation in view of ordinary skill standards, the prior art, and the patent's written description and prosecution history.

However, no matter what, the best defense to a patent is to have the information to make what the patent owner believes is the correct interpretation invalid under 35 USC 102/103.

Actually, the best defense is to show that you don't infringe. Proving invalidity is much, much harder than showing non-infringement - particularly in some courts that just assume the patent office never makes mistakes.

[Baldy]

Nevertheless, if you can, in fact, provide me with a control page option to stop search engines from indexing my pages, but allow me to still perform keyword searches when logged into my own site, I will indeed be one very happy SmugMug customer!!!. :barb So let me make sure I understand:

Currently, when we make a gallery private, it makes it unavailable to SmugMug search and it keeps ethical search engines from indexing it.

If we were to provide a switch to accomplish the second half of that sentence, that's useful even if we don't do the first half?

[richpepp]

If I understand correctly (but I may not as there are a lot of posts in this thread to read) if I password protect my account instead of just a gallery I can keep keyword functionality, prevent anyone without the password seeing my photos and well as 'asking' google & co. not to search it.

If that is the case how about giving us two accounts instead of just one? We could use one for the stuff we are happy for the world to see and keep the other for the sensitive stuff that is really for our own consumption. I confess I was a little shocked the first time I looked through the Google analytics reports and discovered people got to our photos by searching for the keyword 'children'.

Still loving it here though :lust

Richard

[papajay]

So let me make sure I understand:

Currently, when we make a gallery private, it makes it unavailable to SmugMug search and it keeps ethical search engines from indexing it.

If we were to provide a switch to accomplish the second half of that sentence, that's useful even if we don't do the first half?

Hi Baldy...I haven't had my coffee yet this morning, so had trouble decifering which "sentence" your were referring to (yours or mine).

Let me clarify...speaking entirely for MYSELF:

a.) I want to be able to perform keyword searching of my own site. But at the same time, I don't want to allow anyone else performing SmugMug searches (which search Smugmug sites for words in captions, gallery descriptions, or keyword fields), SmugMug keyword-only searches, or search-engine searches (GOOGLE or othewise) to find my photos or galleries in their search results.

b.) While it may seem counterintuitive, I'm comfortable enough with "public" versus "private" galleries because 1) I do not have to set a password on my galleries, 2) then communicate that password to my friends and relatives, and 3) "inconvenience"* my friends and relatives by requiring them to enter the password in order view my galleries.

*If SmugMug's policies or capabilities allowed me (alone) to conduct keyword searches of my own private galleries, I might have to re-think whether or not to make my site private and simply provide a password to all my friends and relatives.

Again...the above describes MY preferences. I know SmugMug subscriber "dmc", for example, is also a strong "keyword (but with privacy)" proponent, and has provided many detailed posts on the topic.

And I know there are many (pros especially) that actually want their customers, friends, relatives and the general public to access their sites via google searches etc. That's fine...afterall, it's how they make their living.

But I want a fair degree of "prvacy" for my family (peace of mind, really, for me, my wife, my daughter-in-law and son, etc. to know that pictures I take and post of my granddaughter are not being searched/viewed/chanced-upon by some of the low-lifes that troll the internet)...and yet I want to be able to share those same pictures readily and easily with people I love and trust.

I hope that clarifies my "preferences" well enough. I know I'm not alone. I'm truly hopeful that SmugMug will not only understand, but will soon find a way to satisfy this niche of it's user community.

[dmc]

just an observation...

This thread is 15 pages long...
It is over 2 years old...
Baldy just asked for input from us (in this thread 2-25-2007) on what exactly we would like...
http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=493235&postcount=147


Baldy asked for input from us on what we would like.... over 2 years ago (in this thread 2-5-2005) as well
http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=57007&postcount=2

I really try to stay out of this subject and being redundant, but cmon, you just messing with us now??

Here is my summary of what should be included in the account settings.. from 2 feature request threads ago...
http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=365605&postcount=19
(http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=365605#post365605)

[Baldy]

I must not have worded my question clearly.

My question is:

If we provide a switch that lets you tell the search engines not to index your site even if your galleries are public

but

we still let people find you through SmugMug's search, is it worth doing? In terms of importance, does it solve 80% of the problem or 20%?

If I'm understanding papajay's and dmc's responses, it's maybe 20%, solving a token amount of the problem.

[Rando]

I must not have worded my question clearly.

My question is:

If we provide a switch that lets you tell the search engines not to index your site even if your galleries are public

but

we still let people find you through SmugMug's search, is it worth doing? In terms of importance, does it solve 80% of the problem or 20%?

If I'm understanding papajay's and dmc's responses, it's maybe 20%, solving a token amount of the problem.

That would be a good first step. That would at least take care of search engines that play nice with meta tags and robots.txt

Ideally, a separate server that would just outright ban all search engines (behaving and misbehaving) would be good.

[papajay]

just an observation...

This thread is 15 pages long...
It is over 2 years old...



Another observation...
I just reset the "search-posts" criteria to look back over the last 45 days of Support posts...there is only ONE other thread that has more cummulative "reads" (the Zenfolio vs. Smugmug thread at 14,000+) than this one (at 10,000+).

Yet it's been reported more than once by the support team that this topic was "WAY DOWN" the list in terms of subscriber interest as expressed in SmugMug "survey" results. Perhaps it's a case of asking the wrong question, or asking it incorrectly??

The silent majority may not be posting, but they're clearly "reading"...but I think there's more interest in an outcome than simply reading about it in an unresolved dialogue.

[Andy]

Another observation...
I just reset the "search-posts" criteria to look back over the last 45 days of Support posts...there is only ONE other thread that has more cummulative "reads" (the Zenfolio vs. Smugmug thread at 14,000+) than this one (at 10,000+).

Yet it's been reported more than once by the support team that this topic was "WAY DOWN" the list in terms of subscriber interest as expressed in SmugMug "survey" results. Perhaps it's a case of asking the wrong question, or asking it incorrectly??

The silent majority may not be posting, but they're clearly "reading"...but I think there's more interest in an outcome than simply reading about it in an unresolved dialogue.Thank you for posting again and pointing this out.

[TheDuck]

If we provide a switch that lets you tell the search engines not to index your site even if your galleries are public

but

we still let people find you through SmugMug's search, is it worth doing?

Depends on your goals for SM, Baldy. If you want SM to replace Google as the go-to-site for pervs looking for pics of kids in the bath, in swimsuits, and perhaps even looking for the home address for kids, then allowing strangers to use SM's search while blocking Google's search will hit the mark.

Please be careful of doing something quick-and-easy rather than careful-and-right. Providing false security won't be helpful.

I'm glad to see your high-level attention addressing this issue....but I note DMC's observation that high-level attention has been around long ago.

Be seeing you,
The Duck

[papajay]

I must not have worded my question clearly.

My question is:

If we provide a switch that lets you tell the search engines not to index your site even if your galleries are public

but

we still let people find you through SmugMug's search, is it worth doing? In terms of importance, does it solve 80% of the problem or 20%?

If I'm understanding papajay's and dmc's responses, it's maybe 20%, solving a token amount of the problem.

Baldy, it's tough to put a number on it, I know...but, for what it's worth, I think your statement above is reasonable.

My initial gut reaction, though, is YES, that a 20% solution is better than 0% (as long as there's a continuing priority placed on the remaining 80%). TheDuck's admonition that the 20% solution might actually encourage Perv-Shift from Google to Smugmug as an unintended consequence is worth noting (even though I don't feel qualified to take a stand one way or the other...so I would leave that to to you and others to debate).

If this is becomming as exhausting to you, Baldy (Andy, etc) as it is to dmc, me, and others to keep "discussing", it's probably a good thing because the discussion will stop sooner or later. My hope is that it will stop as the result of a satisfactory solution rather than as the result of seeing a competitive photo-sharing site address it first. I like SmugMug a lot, for a lot of reasons, but loyalty has it's limits (not a threat...just a business reality...I dread the thought of relocating my growing photo library, but would do it if I felt there was a clearly better option than Smugmug out there...today, there just isn't.).

[Rando]

....I like SmugMug a lot, for a lot of reasons, but loyalty has it's limits (not a threat...just a business reality...I dread the thought of relocating my growing photo library, but would do it if I felt there was a clearly better option than Smugmug out there...today, there just isn't.).
I'm getting to the point where it's looking better to just get my own hosting at a place like http://www.dreamhost.com and setup my own personal photosharing site (among other things) http://wiki.dreamhost.com/index.php/One_Click_Installs, and customize to my heart's content.

[Baldy]

Depends on your goals for SM, Baldy. If you want SM to replace Google as the go-to-site for pervs looking for pics of kids in the bath, in swimsuits, and perhaps even looking for the home address for kids, then allowing strangers to use SM's search while blocking Google's search will hit the mark.

Please be careful of doing something quick-and-easy rather than careful-and-right. Providing false security won't be helpful.

I'm glad to see your high-level attention addressing this issue....but I note DMC's observation that high-level attention has been around long ago.

Be seeing you,
The DuckSo I think I'm hearing that providing the switch to turn off Google indexing is not very interesting / minimally helpful / possibly harmful if not coupled with the other changes.

The reason I stepped into this debate again was in hopes that we could move the ball forward with something simple enough to get done reasonably quickly, but if that's a no-go we're back to the much bigger project that's encumbered by the patent trolls.

We had another conference call with the law firm this afternoon about the patents and got somewhat closer to understanding the claims, but unfortunately I have no idea when we'll know enough to implement more privacy features, or, if some sort of license has to be taken to implement them, when we could have that in place.

If someone has feedback on these patents, I'd love it if you could email or call me.

A good question is, if the patents weren't in the picture, would this project displace the current projects you know about such as larger image sizes (the Zenfolio and XL image size threads), and the requests we have for slideshow improvements, better shopping cart, more printed products, etc.?

I wouldn't blame you for thinking the answer is probably no after this thread has been going for two years. My inclination is to think probably yes, if I can identify a meaningful chunk that's doable in a reasonable amount of time.

I have to focus on the patents now but I give my word that I'll circle back once I know something more about these patents. Devbobo called with a brilliant idea today but it quickly suffered death by patent.

I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for you.

[Rando]

So I think I'm hearing that providing the switch to turn off Google indexing is not very interesting / minimally helpful / possibly harmful if not coupled with the other changes.

Enabling that switch wether by meta tags, robots.txt, .htaccess, etc, etc would at least leave the decision up to the individual user to weigh. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.

[pat.kane]

The reason I stepped into this debate again was in hopes that we could move the ball forward with something simple enough to get done reasonably quickly, but if that's a no-go we're back to the much bigger project that's encumbered by the patent trolls.

The number of people conducting a Google search as compared to a smugmug search is probably at a million to one ratio. Cutting Google out of the picture will be a big improvement for a lot of people. I know that I would welcome it for my family's site.

[Baldy]

The number of people conducting a Google search as compared to a smugmug search is probably at a million to one ratio. Cutting Google out of the picture will be a big improvement for a lot of people. I know that I would welcome it for my family's site.Seems that way to me.

[jfriend]

So I think I'm hearing that providing the switch to turn off Google indexing is not very interesting / minimally helpful / possibly harmful if not coupled with the other changes.

The reason I stepped into this debate again was in hopes that we could move the ball forward with something simple enough to get done reasonably quickly, but if that's a no-go we're back to the much bigger project that's encumbered by the patent trolls.

We had another conference call with the law firm this afternoon about the patents and got somewhat closer to understanding the claims, but unfortunately I have no idea when we'll know enough to implement more privacy features, or, if some sort of license has to be taken to implement them, when we could have that in place.

If someone has feedback on these patents, I'd love it if you could email or call me.

A good question is, if the patents weren't in the picture, would this project displace the current projects you know about such as larger image sizes (the Zenfolio and XL image size threads), and the requests we have for slideshow improvements, better shopping cart, more printed products, etc.?

I wouldn't blame you for thinking the answer is probably no after this thread has been going for two years. My inclination is to think probably yes, if I can identify a meaningful chunk that's doable in a reasonable amount of time.

I have to focus on the patents now but I give my word that I'll circle back once I know something more about these patents. Devbobo called with a brilliant idea today but it quickly suffered death by patent.

I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for you.
I for one would happily take this in pieces. If the first piece that can be delivered is to change the metadata and robots info so well-behaved search engines will not index me, I'll take that first while you work on other options for the longer term.

If the second piece that can be delivered is to let me opt-out of the Smugmug browse interface, I'll happily take that. I really don't want my Family galleries advertised to all everytime I upload some new photos in the Smugmug Family area.

As for the third and fourth steps, I'll take the first two and wait until you get to the other steps. I don't understand why eliminating our public galleries from global Smugmug searches should have anything to do with the patent, but I haven't studied it. By your description, I thought the patent had to do with finding things in private galleries. These would still be public galleries (e.g. accessible to all from my homepage), just not indexed by Google or Smugmug global searches.

[Baldy]

I for one would happily take this in pieces. If the first piece that can be delivered is to change the metadata and robots info so well-behaved search engines will not index me, I'll take that first while you work on other options for the longer term.

If the second piece that can be delivered is to let me opt-out of the Smugmug browse interface, I'll happily take that. I really don't want my Family galleries advertised to all everytime I upload some new photos in the Smugmug Family area.

As for the third and fourth steps, I'll take the first two and wait until you get to the other steps. I don't understand why eliminating our public galleries from global Smugmug searches should have anything to do with the patent, but I haven't studied it. By your description, I thought the patent had to do with finding things in private galleries. These would still be public galleries (e.g. accessible to all from my homepage), just not indexed by Google or Smugmug global searches.You have a way of bringing the the simplest clarity to most things... :bow

If the ability to opt-out of SmugMug search and browse—and indexing from the search engines—eliminated most people's desire password-protect their sites and kept us from having to face the patent trolls, that would be big.

One question is what to do about how people find you on SmugMug. Maybe 10 of 100 people can remember their family member's nickname and form an URL where they have to substitute the nickname they can't remember for the www, which they don't understand how to do.

It seems like an assault on papajay's first principle to take away the option that 90% of people use—searching for a name and then clicking on one of the results.

Could opting out mean opting out of gallery, photo and keywords but not site owner's name? Otherwise the new way to find you will be to email our help desk, who won't know how to respond because we won't know if you want to be found.

[dmc]

...One question is what to do about how people find you on SmugMug. Maybe 10 of 100 people can remember their family member's nickname and form an URL where they have to substitute the nickname they can't remember for the www, which they don't understand how to do.

It seems like an assault on papajay's first principle to take away the option that 90% of people use—searching for a name and then clicking on one of the results.

Could opting out mean opting out of gallery, photo and keywords but not site owner's name?

I only expect visitors to my site to come from a link that I had sent to them... I'm not interested in anyone being able to "find" me....

[Rando]

I only expect visitors to my site to come from a link that I had sent to them... I'm not interested in anyone being able to "find" me....
Ditto.
That's what bookmarks are for (to save links). If a family member needs to know what my site is, they'll email or call me for the link. No one I know even knows what an RSS feed is so I send emails out when I've made an update (with a link).

[Rando]

It seems like an assault on papajay's first principle to take away the option that 90% of people use—searching for a name and then clicking on one of the results.

Make it an option for users to decide for themselves. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.


Could opting out mean opting out of gallery, photo and keywords but not site owner's name? Otherwise the new way to find you will be to email our help desk, who won't know how to respond because we won't know if you want to be found.
If my mom needed to know what my url was she'd email me first before she'd email your help desk.

[jfriend]

You have a way of bringing the the simplest clarity to most things... :bow

If the ability to opt-out of SmugMug search and browse—and indexing from the search engines—eliminated most people's desire password-protect their sites and kept us from having to face the patent trolls, that would be big.

One question is what to do about how people find you on SmugMug. Maybe 10 of 100 people can remember their family member's nickname and form an URL where they have to substitute the nickname they can't remember for the www, which they don't understand how to do.

It seems like an assault on papajay's first principle to take away the option that 90% of people use—searching for a name and then clicking on one of the results.

Could opting out mean opting out of gallery, photo and keywords but not site owner's name? Otherwise the new way to find you will be to email our help desk, who won't know how to respond because we won't know if you want to be found.

I think I agree here with dmc. For the people that I want to find my site, the first thing they will do is email me and ask me. The second thing is they might search their own email if they are savvy enough to know how to do that (an email from me is how they mostl likely would have originally known about my site).

If they can't do either one of those things, then I probably don't want to help them find my site. They should know me well enough that I've either given them the URL or they know how to ask me for the URL. BTW, this happens to me all the time. Family members can't remember where my site is so they email me to ask me. Even my mom forgets sometime or doesn't want to take the time to find a specific gallery. It never occurs to her to use search.

I'm not trying to sell stuff to people I don't know so I'm really not interested in helping strangers to find my site. I understand that there are other customers who want strangers to find their site. I'm not asking to shut down what they have for that now. I'm just asking to be able to opt-out of browse, global Smugmug search and well-behaved search engines.

I honestly can't imagine that viewers would email smugmug to ask you where my site is. If they do, I'm don't think you should give it to them anyway.

As to your question about user name search, I don't have a strong opinion on whether searching at Smugmug for my name should point to my gallery. It's not something I want, but it's also not something that bothers me tremendously (so it's just a mild negative for me). It appears from elsewhere in this thread that some people don't want that at all.

[Baldy]

I honestly can't imagine that viewers would email smugmug to ask you where my site is. If they do, I'm don't think you should give it to them anyway.It happens all day every day. And they frequently add, "don't make me ask my son; he already thinks I'm a computer idiot."

I'm not saying we won't do it or it's the wrong thing to do, but we're going to see a lot of exploding heads on the help desk over this.

[jfriend]

It happens all day every day. And they frequently add, "don't make me ask my son; he already thinks I'm a computer idiot."

I'm not saying we won't do it or it's the wrong thing to do, but we're going to see a lot of exploding heads on the help desk over this.

If it's a significant cost driver for you, then you should make a "Find the site you are looking for" link very prominent on your home page and then take them to a page where you make it a lot more obvious that they can search for either a user name or gallery title. Right now, a user has to guess that a generic "search" edit box would solve their problem when quite frankly it looks like a "help" search box the way the screen is laid out.

I guess, they are more likely to find the "contact Smugmug" line in the footer of the homepage than they are to realize they could use search. That you could probably improve a lot.

Regardless, I think your customers should be able to opt-in or opt-out of this. It doesn't bother me personally, but apparently it does bother some.

I'm probably over stepping my bounds here and drifting off-topic, but I've long thought the home page http://www.smugmug.com/ needed some work. You've gone for a simple, clean look, but at a sacrifice to other things it needs to do. The challenge is that it needs to serve a whole bunch of purposes. Among those things it needs to do are:

Promote the service to new and prospective new users
Help people find someone's site on Smugmug
Help viewers get self-help on using Smugmug
Help viewers get email help from Smugmug
Serve as a portal to browse public galleries on Smugmug
Lead people to all the other parts of Smugmug (dgrin, blogs, wikis, etc...)
Communicate legal stuffRight now, it's only optimized for one of these (item #1) and it's pretty bad at promoting or inviting any of the others because they are really only listed as one word items in either the header or footer, with no space in the main part of the page dedicated to them.

I often wonder if you'd be much better off with a home page that served these needs more equally. Imagine a page that, when you arrive on it, it says to you (not in these words, but communicates these more clearly):

"Welcome to Smugmug. What would you like to do today?

Learn more about the Smugmug service including features, price, different service levels and how to sign up for free trial.
Find a particular person's site on Smugmug
Search for galleries on a particular topic
Get some help on using Smugmug (help topics, search the help)
Browse interesting galleries by topic
Browse the most popular photos on Smugmug
Talk with others about Smugmug (dgrin, wikis, apis)
Contact someone at Smugmug to help (orders, subscribers, etc...)If you look at flickr's home page, it makes it a lot more obvious how one would find a photo, explore tags or browse while still promoting sign-ups.

Fotki's home page is ugly, but makes it's really easy to know how to search for photos or members along with a lot of other things.

The Webshots home page likewise exposes a lot more of the items above in the page.

[papajay]

You have a way of bringing the the simplest clarity to most things... :bow


It seems like an assault on papajay's first principle to take away the option that 90% of people use—searching for a name and then clicking on one of the results.

.

Baldy..While I appreciate rising to the ranks (however temporary) of a "priniciple-setter" :rolleyes , I must have given a wrong impression somewhere along the line.

I agree with dmc in this regard. I will send a link to people I want to see my SmugMug site. I do not, under any circumstances I can think of, want people to "find" me on SmugMug via search or inquiry.

I see there has been a lot more discussion in this thread over the past few hours which I will have to digest. Maybe we're getting somewhere.

[Baldy]

This topic was the talk of SmugMug at lunch today. Not exposing stuff to browse and search is doable with reasonable effort, but an unfortunate catch 22 is not exposing keywords is a major engineering job. It's just the way our keyword architecture is. :cry

It's often a big adjustment for people we hire from dgrin to work the help desk and see how people actually use the system. It would only take an hour on the help desk to see how people lose the share email, can't remember their own nickname, have no idea how they ever got to their family's site but want to go back. En masse they go to the home page, search for a name (they have no problem spotting the search box), and click. It becomes the way they find their family's site forever.

Here are the top 8 search terms on Google:

myspace
myspace.com
ebay
yahoo
mapquest
www.myspace.com (http://www.myspace.com)
yahoo.com
my space

Most people wouldn't imagine you would go to Google to get to Yahoo, until they work at Google. Then they Yahoo users go to Google many times a day, enter Yahoo as a search term, click on the first result. For years.

I'm not saying we won't provide the option to remove searching for your name, but we'll need to figure how to tell thousands of people we've taken that away and can no longer tell them how to see their grandkids.

[Rando]

I'm not saying we won't provide the option to remove searching for your name, but we'll need to figure how to tell thousands of people we've taken that away and can no longer tell them how to see their grandkids.
Let users opt-in to the new feature, it doesn't have to be all or nothing.

[Pindy]

Please let me add my voice to this. I have also been vocal about security and privacy on a few other dgrin threads but they, too, have resulted in no particular solution or declaration of intent to modify SM to date.

Quoting a 2005 poll does not cancel the growing concern over increased privacy coupled with the desire for features to not be disabled. Flickr, at least, enables keywords once you are logged in and removes them on protected photos and sets when you're not, so it's not as though we're asking you to blaze a trail. I appreciate making this happen is complicated based on how SM is set up, but it is not impossible to do. I don't understand this claim that the existence of password protection and private galleries defeats the purpose of (or obviates the need for) searching. Nonsense. Searching should still be available to those who have permission to view the content in question—full stop. What we need is a set of permissions that are easy enough to manage.

[papajay]

In the FYI, or FWIW ("For What It's Worth") category concerning this two year old thread...

It appears likely to me that 50% of the original 10 non-smugmug-employee posters to this thread are no longer Smugmug subscribers (purely based on the lack of any recent Dgrin posts from them).

Yahootintin (who started the thread in the first place last posted on Dgrin in Oct. 2005).

4Thinker, Victor, Byam all appeared to fall off in 2005 also.

JBerd126 dropped off the Dgrin landscape in 2006.

jfriend, gblotter, glr2e3g...still here...still posting.,,(and jfriend is still an active poster on this thread).

I'm certain subscriber retention is important to SmugMug management. I don't know how these results...the 50% number... compare with overall SmugMug retention numbers (perhaps they are still subscribers, but just don't post on Dgrin any longer). My guess is a 50% number would be concerning, if accurate.

Point is....it's a hot-button topic for some (myself included), and the topic won't likely "go away" until there's a "solution" that meets subscriber needs. I, for one, hope it's a SmugMug solution, rather than "switch host" solution., just in case you're wondering.

[Andy]

It appears likely to me that 50% of the original 10 non-smugmug-employee posters to this thread are no longer Smugmug subscribers (purely based on the lack of any recent Dgrin posts from them).


Hi Papa, thanks as always, for posting.

But to clarify: There are 41 non-SmugMug employees posting in this thread.

37 of them have current SmugMug accounts.
2 no longer have them.
2 I cannot determine, based on Dgrin name.

This does NOT mean we aren't taking all this seriously and listening to you.

I just needed to clarify things.

[mkress65]

Hi Papa, thanks as always, for posting.

But to clarify: There are 41 non-SmugMug employees posting in this thread.

37 of them have current SmugMug accounts.
2 no longer have them.
2 I cannot determine, based on Dgrin name.

This does NOT mean we aren't taking all this seriously and listening to you.

I just needed to clarify things.

True enough Andy. But how many have opened accounts elsewhere and have stopped adding photos to their SmugMug site? I know of at least one.... of course, maybe there is only one. :dunno

[Andy]

True enough Andy. But how many have opened accounts elsewhere and have stopped adding photos to their SmugMug site? I know of at least one.... of course, maybe there is only one. :dunno
Could be true - and again, we are listening :deal

[papajay]

[quote=Andy]Hi Papa, thanks as always, for posting.

But this is just untrue. quote]

You are in a much better position to validate account holders' status than me.

I made no attempt to "lie" with numbers simply to make a point. I specifically referred to the FIRST 10 POSTERS who were not (or are not now SmugMug employees/support heroes, etc, from what I could tell). I specifically said, "it appears...", and I specifically noted when they last posted on Dgrin as my reason for assuming they may no longer be subscribers. And I specifically said, "if true" (since, once again, I do not have access to the information you do).

The "this is just untrue" may be accurate from your perspective, Andy, but taken out of context, the statement suggests I told a whopper without any justification (which, by the way, "is just untrue".) I simply performed what I considered to be a reasonable thumb-sketch analysis that frankly, I would have hoped SmugMug would have performed a year or so ago since this topic seems to have a life of its own...and I continue to wonder why.

[Andy]

[quote=Andy]Hi Papa, thanks as always, for posting.

But this is just untrue. quote]

You are in a much better position to validate account holders' status than me.

I made no attempt to "lie" with numbers simply to make a point. I specifically referred to the FIRST 10 POSTERS who were not (or are not now SmugMug employees/support heroes, etc, from what I could tell). I specifically said, "it appears...", and I specifically noted when they last posted on Dgrin as my reason for assuming they may no longer be subscribers. And I specifically said, "if true" (since, once again, I do not have access to the information you do).

The "this is just untrue" may be accurate from your perspective, Andy, but taken out of context, the statement suggests I told a whopper without any justification (which, by the way, "is just untrue".) I simply performed what I considered to be a reasonable thumb-sketch analysis that frankly, I would have hoped SmugMug would have performed a year or so ago since this topic seems to have a life of its own...and I continue to wonder why.
No no :) I don't think you told a whopper at all. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. It's all good papajay, and I do mean that. Keep brining the topic to the fore, it's how stuff gets done. I have always said that and will continue to do so - we have a history of listening, and acting on - to what our customers tell us. And we'll continue to do so.

I hope we can get to a resolution on this issue at some point soon.

[papajay]

[quote=papajay]
No no :) It's all good papajay, and I do mean that. Keep brining the topic to the fore, it's how stuff gets done. ...

I know I'm not driving the bus on this...just as I'm sure there are some who would prefer to see this old f..t fade into the sunset. I am, in fact, getting older and would have just given up had it not been for the renewed interest Baldy showed.

Words like indexing, meta-tags, robot.whatever , etc. just make my head spin. I approach the topic purely as a concerned/interested user of technology beyond my grasp to fully understand.

I don't think there's anything new I can contribute to the discussion (dna would probably agree). So I think I'll sit back now and watch it unfold, and hopefully not unravel.

I hope we can get to a resolution on this issue at some point soon.

As do I.

[Andy]

I know I'm not driving the bus on this...just as I'm sure there are some who would prefer to see this old f..t fade into the sunset.

Don't you stop posting, Papa! We wouldn't be the company we are today without passionate customers who aren't shy about telling us what-for. We thrive on it, it's like gold to us.

[shiffy]

Hi,

Don't know where I fit in Papajay's or Andy's accounting of the past posters on this thread, but I'm still a smugmug account holder and would love it if Smugmug gave the option to opt out of indexing and smugmug searching. I'd also love it more if it could be done so that people who wanted to keep their accounts private could use features such as keywords, but I'd be happy with one step at a time too. I've generally been very happy with Smugmug, but this is an important issue to me and it's the only issue that leads me to look at other services every now and then. So far, the only other sites I've found that are better about privacy (e.g., Phanfare), do not match smugmug in terms of the other things I want. So, for now I do without keywords and keep my smugmug site password protected, but I'd really like to be able to use keywords in the future.

Steve

[Andy]

Hi,

Don't know where I fit in Papajay's or Andy's accounting of the past posters on this thread, but I'm still a smugmug account holder and would love it if Smugmug gave the option to opt out of indexing and smugmug searching. I'd also love it more if it could be done so that people who wanted to keep their accounts private could use features such as keywords, but I'd be happy with one step at a time too. I've generally been very happy with Smugmug, but this is an important issue to me and it's the only issue that leads me to look at other services every now and then. So far, the only other sites I've found that are better about privacy (e.g., Phanfare), do not match smugmug in terms of the other things I want. So, for now I do without keywords and keep my smugmug site password protected, but I'd really like to be able to use keywords in the future.

Steve:wave Hi Steve, thanks for posting again. It's important that we hear from you guys on this!

[Pindy]

We wouldn't be the company we are today without passionate customers who aren't shy about telling us what-for. We thrive on it, it's like gold to us.

This seems to be selective, Andy. Perhaps my relationship with the company is not venerable enough? Am I coming off as impertinent?

Sorry to be showing a little attention-seeking behaviour, but it's not as though I'm simply throwing in a bunch of unconstructive "me too" comments; I'm trying to actively suggest solutions in this thread (and others like it—you've been there, too) for the betterment of SmugMug but I've yet to elicit a response of any kind from the staff. I'm trying to be helpful in this discussion—apologies if that doesn't come across.

I'm very vocal in evangelizing SmugMug and I participate here because I would rather see it meet my needs than to jump ship.

[Andy]

This seems to be selective, Andy. Perhaps my relationship with the company is not venerable enough? Am I coming off as impertinent?

No, not in the least. We're sorry we don't answer every single post- it's sometimes hard to spend so much time doing so - but we are reading and devouring all of this. Please know that your voice matters!

Sorry to be showing a little attention-seeking behaviour, but it's not as though I'm simply throwing in a bunch of unconstructive "me too" comments; I'm trying to actively suggest solutions in this thread (and others like it—you've been there, too) for the betterment of SmugMug but I've yet to elicit a response of any kind from the staff. I'm trying to be helpful in this discussion—apologies if that doesn't come across.

I'm very vocal in evangelizing SmugMug and I participate here because I would rather see it meet my needs than to jump ship.Thanks for this. It's very important - and keep on us. I'm adding your other recent post here, so I can reply, too:

Please let me add my voice to this. I have also been vocal about security and privacy on a few other dgrin threads but they, too, have resulted in no particular solution or declaration of intent to modify SM to date.
Read the recent posts by Baldy, that's what we've got to say as of now. We don't have any declaration of intent to give yet, I'm sorry.

Quoting a 2005 poll does not cancel the growing concern over increased privacy coupled with the desire for features to not be disabled. Flickr, at least, enables keywords once you are logged in and removes them on protected photos and sets when you're not, so it's not as though we're asking you to blaze a trail. I appreciate making this happen is complicated based on how SM is set up, but it is not impossible to do.
No, but it's a bit more difficult to change the implementation after our site has matured so. And I believe that's one of the factors in our SmugSorcerers' thinking (Onethumb, in this case). But it's certainly not the only one.
I don't understand this claim that the existence of password protection and private galleries defeats the purpose of (or obviates the need for) searching. Nonsense. Searching should still be available to those who have permission to view the content in question—full stop. What we need is a set of permissions that are easy enough to manage.Thanks for the great feedback and again, I've made sure that folks have seen it.

[Pindy]

Thanks Andy, I didn't mean to get cranky—I'm here to help! And I understand the foundations have been built upon and unraveling your site is probably not very appealing. Thanks for listening.

[papajay]

Don't you stop posting, Papa! We wouldn't be the company we are today without passionate customers who aren't shy about telling us what-for. We thrive on it, it's like gold to us.

OK, Andy...you asked for it!...just so happens I am really ticked this morning! I use Statcounter to monitor hits to my SmugMug pages...not because I want hits....but to see who is "hitting" and to draw inferences as to why (did I invite them?...fine, of course; did they stumble in?...mostly OK, I don't mind that too much; did they "search" in with provacative keyword searches?...not at all happy about that one).

You will recall that I'm a "grandpa" of no particular distinction except to my own grandkids...and that my site is "for the g-rated enjoyment of my family and friends...nothing more, nothing less".

I usually see 5, 10, 15 unique users per day on my site...tolerable. But yesterday I had 242!!!! A little detective work identified the real "culprit"...it was SmugMug! The SmugMug Browse feature captured two of my Family galleries in it's grimie little paws and invited anyone who visited SmugMug's home page to visit my galleries! And I am not at all happy about it!

"Turn your galleries to private rather than public" someone will say...as though it's a real solution. Yeah, yeah, yeah...heard that before. (and if I post a complaint in another thread that my keywords aren't working, some simpleton will offer "Turn your galleries to public rather than private"...as though that's a real solution).

It's only because of the revived interest in this thread in the past couple of days, and the brief re-appearance of Baldy to the discussion, that I have any hope this will actually do some good.

It may be as others have said..."a huge undertaking"...it may be as "other others" have said..."impossible". (Both assertions cannot be right). If it's the former, then the answer to me is simple..."Just Do It!". If it's the latter..."Tell me (Officially, from the top, once and for all), so I can find another place to store/share my photos).

[Baldy]

Hi,

Don't know where I fit in Papajay's or Andy's accounting of the past posters on this thread, but I'm still a smugmug account holder and would love it if Smugmug gave the option to opt out of indexing and smugmug searching. I'd also love it more if it could be done so that people who wanted to keep their accounts private could use features such as keywords, but I'd be happy with one step at a time too.If I'm not mistaken, there is pretty good alignment between what's least difficult to do and what has the most impact.

In order of difficulty, least to most:

1. Opting out of Google search.
2. Opting out of SmugMug browse and search.
3. Opting out of public keywords.
4. Searching & keywords in private & passworded galleries.

3 is difficult from a programming point of view, 4 is difficult because of patent trolls. I have heard Yahoo has fought the patent trolls but I have no idea what the resolution is or if there is one yet.

We love to have subscribers who we can please but we don't want to make life miserable for subscribers we can't. If #3 and #4 are important to you, much as we dislike saying it, the honest answer is we probably won't be able to accomodate you in a time frame you'd find reasonable.

I hope this helps.

Thanks,
Baldy

[TheDuck]

OK, Andy...you asked for it!...The SmugMug Browse feature captured two of my Family galleries in it's grimie little paws and invited anyone who visited SmugMug's home page to visit my galleries! And I am not at all happy about it!

I've never looked at the SmugMug Browse from the homepage. I did just now. Today's "Most Active Keywords" include: bath, beach, dancing, girl, party, playing, school and sisters. Nice to know how internet strangers are using SM's keyword functions to find our family galleries, isn't it?

Regarding posted comments the last few days: being able to stop search bots from indexing sites is a decent first step. It's like locking the front door of your house. Stopping the search bots while keeping the SM search feature active is like leaving the back door unlocked while the front door is locked. Yes, it'll probably reduce burglar traffic...but no sane person would sleep comfortably at night with such house "security". So yes, I'll agree that SM should let us lock the front door....but I hope not to see any help page update trumpeting a great security breakthrough, and I'd hope that SM doesn't put this topic to sleep for another 2 years.

Regarding SM's help desk helping people find "their friends": boy, every stockbroker and other salesman in town would love to have SM serve as secretaries. Did you ever consider that perhaps "grandma" is actually "Fred" trying to find his ex-wife and their children despite a court order for him to keep away? Helping strangers find your customers is not, I would think, in the best interest of your customers or your company.

Regarding comments that "most Smuggers are happy": I remind you that I was "happy" since joining in 2004. You've improved SM since then....yet I'm now very unhappy. I'm unhappy because I've learned things that were not made clear to me when I signed up, nor made clear as I and my friends and family used SM for 2.5 years. Some of the information may have been buried in the help pages. While I commend you for having lots of information available....I confess that RTFM is not first on the list of things I do when buying a product or using a service. Manuals and fine print make lawyers happy, but they don't help customers nearly so much as companies may want to believe. That's why we buy and use simple and elegant interfaces, not complicated UI's regardless of the detailed explanations made available. Please stop equating a lack of complaints from unaware customers as a happy customer base.

Be seeing you,
The Duck

[Andy]

I've never looked at the SmugMug Browse from the homepage. I did just now. [U]Today's "Most Active Keywords" include:
Those are kewyords on today's uploaded photos, not searches made by the public.


boy, every stockbroker and other salesman in town would love to have SM serve as secretaries. Did you ever consider that perhaps "grandma" is actually "Fred" trying to find his ex-wife and their children despite a court order for him to keep away? Helping strangers find your customers is not, I would think, in the best interest of your customers or your company.
Duck, we don't give out personal info. Period.

Please stop equating a lack of complaints from unaware customers as a happy customer base.
We aren't. Thanks for posting, Duck!

[TheDuck]

Those are kewyords on today's uploaded photos, not searches made by the public.

Hmmm....but the list then provides a detailed map to the public for how to best find photos. Still troubling if I've uploaded keywords for my family to find such words without being aware of the words being publicly accessible.


Duck, we don't give out personal info. Period.

According to Baldy, thousands of people contact your help desk to find us...and you point them to our galleries. "I'm not saying we won't provide the option to remove searching for your name, but we'll need to figure how to tell thousands of people we've taken that away and can no longer tell them how to see their grandkids." Pointing "grandma Fred" to his ex-wife's galleries can show him where the kids now live, go to school, etc etc.

Further, you and DMC have discussed DMC's discomfort with SM having made our names searchable - he's tried to change that, but you acknowledged not knowing if it would have any impact.

Sounds like the "period" is more of a "comma" with some unwanted exceptions.

Be seeing you,
Duck

[Andy]

According to Baldy, thousands of people contact your help desk to find us...and you point them to our galleries. "I'm not saying we won't provide the option to remove searching for your name, but we'll need to figure how to tell thousands of people we've taken that away and can no longer tell them how to see their grandkids." Pointing "grandma Fred" to his ex-wife's galleries can show him where the kids now live, go to school, etc etc.

Duck, if John Q Public has a public site, and public photos, we'll certainly show his admirers how to find his publicly available site. We do not give out private information or private sites or private galleries.


Further, you and DMC have discussed DMC's discomfort with SM having made our names searchable - he's tried to change that, but you acknowledged not knowing if it would have any impact.

Sounds like the "period" is more of a "comma" with some unwanted exceptions.

Be seeing you,
Duck
Duck, I learn more about our system every day. Hardly surprising, is it?
Search indexing and database un-indexing etc takes time.

[dmc]

...
Further, you and DMC have discussed DMC's discomfort with SM having made our names searchable - he's tried to change that, but you acknowledged not knowing if it would have any impact.
hey.. I just tried smugmug search on my last name (after changing it (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=493966&highlight=lastname#post493966) on my account settings a week ago) and it has finally stopped bringing up my site! woohoo.

[Andy]

hey.. I just tried smugmug search on my last name (after changing it (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=493966&highlight=lastname#post493966) on my account settings a week ago) and it has finally stopped bringing up my site! woohoo.
:thumb

[Baldy]

According to Baldy, thousands of people contact your help desk to find us...and you point them to our galleries. "I'm not saying we won't provide the option to remove searching for your name, but we'll need to figure how to tell thousands of people we've taken that away and can no longer tell them how to see their grandkids." Pointing "grandma Fred" to his ex-wife's galleries can show him where the kids now live, go to school, etc etc.Hey Duck,

The customer is always right but I definitely don't want to be misquoted as saying that.

What I said was thousands of people use SmugMug search every day to find their families. You also quoted me as saying the help desk cannot tell them how to find their grandkids once search is disabled, which is correct. Is there something we disagree on?

I have a lot of respect for your concerns and that's the reason I'm spending time in this thread trying to get a clear understanding of your needs—and marshalling engineering resources.

I think we have a working plan that should please most people except for the complexities these options are going to add to the user interface. Sorry in advance to papajay...

I know this is a very emotional issue and I certainly understand why. It must be really frustrating to see the time it's taking us to get clear on these issues... It's an adjustment for me at least, because we're under so much pressure from most customers to get them more traffic, make them easy to find, get their Google relevance up.

This is not too different from the position Google finds itself in. Google is an enormously popular company because it helps people find and be found, much to the understandable consternation of some people with privacy desires.

In any case, we're working on opt in/opt out for the key things; it's going to require a database architecture change and new hardware along with the UI changes, so I can't promise quick fixes.

Thanks,
Baldy

[Pindy]

Baldy, thanks for you attention to this matter.

[Mike Lane]

I think we have a working plan that should please most people except for the complexities these options are going to add to the user interface. Sorry in advance to papajay...

Maybe it could be as easy as this:

Choose a privacy level for your site:

Low (recommended for most users)
Medium
High
Complete and total lockdown OMGWFTLOLZBBQ!!!1!!1!!!!eleventy!!!
Okay that last one was just for giggles.

[papajay]

... I'm spending time in this thread trying to get a clear understanding of your needs—and marshalling engineering resources.

I read this ("marshalling engineering resources") as a VERY positive statement!

... I think we have a working plan that should please most people except for the complexities these options are going to add to the user interface. Sorry in advance to papajay....

Even an old curmudgeon like me can appreciate and learn to live with a bit of "complexity" if it addresses a need (real or even just "preceived", as in this case)...no apology necessary, Baldy.

... we're working on opt in/opt out for the key things;
...As above, this is a huge step forward!

... it's going to require a database architecture change and new hardware along with the UI changes, so I can't promise quick fixes.

Good things take time, Baldy. Reasonable people (and believe it or not, I include myself in that group) know that it's true, even if we huff and puff about a perceived lack of progress.

Until now, it's been a perceived lack of a public commitment to actually implement a change that had me most frustrated. The excerpts from your post above I think demonstrate that you are, in fact, committed now to making whatever changes are necessary to address the concerns expressed by a growing number of us. And I, for one, appreciate that you did it in such a public forum.

Once you've got a plan in place, it would be equally appreciated to have some idea as to the time-frame we're talking about...hopefully expressed in months, not years.

I'll shut up now, and let you get to work.:clap

[Andy]

Once you've got a plan in place, it would be equally appreciated to have some idea as to the time-frame we're talking about...hopefully expressed in months, not years.

I'll shut up now, and let you get to work.:clap
We won't give time frames, Papa. You can draw your inferences from Baldy's postings. Know that it's something we're working on. But we do not give dates, sorry.

[papajay]

We won't give time frames, Papa. You can draw your inferences from Baldy's postings. Know that it's something we're working on. But we do not give dates, sorry.

One of the worst childhood memories I have is a fear of the darkness.

[Andy]

One of the worst childhood memories I have is a fear of the darkness.

It is ok. You are protected by 20 Superheroes! (http://cmac.smugmug.com/gallery/2504559#131481399).

[TheDuck]

The customer is always right
I appreciate the sentiment, and Marshall Field III taught the world to “give the lady what she wants’, but I acknowledge that customers are right significantly less often than “always”!

but I definitely don't want to be misquoted.
Nor do I want to misquote. Perhaps I used the wrong sentence when trying to quote what you said. I was thinking of, but didn’t properly use, your 2/27 11:58am reply to jfriend. Jfriend said, “I honestly can't imagine that viewers would email smugmug to ask you where my site is. If they do, I'm don't think you should give it to them anyway.”, and you replied “It happens all day every day. And they frequently add, "don't make me ask my son; he already thinks I'm a computer idiot."

So, I apologize if I used your 7:24pm quote out of context. My point, and concern, remains that strangers emailing SM should not be provided personalized help finding sites via the helpdesk based on a complete stranger saying please don’t make me ask the account holder. Andy has a good point though, that for public galleries, SM is not technically providing personal information. It comes down, perhaps, to expectations of privacy – we often use “personal” and “private” interchangeably, and the two words are rarely synonymous. I consider the price I paid for my house, and my mortgage information, personal and private – my state legislators, many of whom are in real estate and finance fields, disagree and make home sales and mortgage data information legally public and non-private. I don’t like it, but at least I know it.

I sense that SM wants transparency so that we too understand when “personal” may mean “public” rather than “private”, and perhaps SM has even thought this distinction has already been provided to-date more clearly than many of us feel. As this sometimes heated discussion shows, there remains room for improved clarity as well as improved technical solutions.


I have a lot of respect for your concerns and that's the reason I'm spending time in this thread trying to get a clear understanding of your needs—and marshalling engineering resources.
I recognize and appreciate your concern and efforts, and I respect you for the openness you’ve injected on behalf of SM. Please excuse the occasional testiness I’ve conveyed; you deserve better. If my own small efforts have contributed to this 2-year concern finally moving forward then I certainly don’t want to taint your receptiveness to our concerns by being a poor messenger.

I think we have a working plan that should please most people except for the complexities these options are going to add to the user interface.

The K.I.S.S. principal should rarely be applied to security issues. You can probably minimize complexities by making them an optional alternative to a simple default. During account sign-up, explain that you offer the opportunity to fine-tune the ability for friends, family and strangers to find and view photos to meet different needs and expectations of customers, and that the default is to make photos easily available to everyone, including through Google and SM search engines.

I know this is a very emotional issue and I certainly understand why. It must be really frustrating to see the time it's taking us to get clear on these issues... It's an adjustment for me at least, because we're under so much pressure from most customers to get them more traffic, make them easy to find, get their Google relevance up.
Your support for pros appears unmatched, and I can understand their emphasis on site traffic. If your customer targets are pros, then it makes sense to help them and their photos to be found, to focus security on preventing copyright abuse, and to help them differentiate the look of their sites with extensive customization. “Private” is an economic issue to professionals. You’ll probably hear from professionals frequently and will get good feedback of what’s working or not at SM. They’ll measure you effectively by how many sales are generated at SM, and they’ll quantify the results of site tweaking. They’ll focus on potential customers finding their photos and buying prints with superb image quality and speedy delivery.

If your customer targets are enthusiasts, then you’ll be serving hobbyists. “Private” photos means photos of vulnerable loved ones, rather than “for sale – I want you to have this photo but I want you to pay for it”. “Personal” to an enthusiast is not the economic value of a unique personal vision expressed through photography, but is a record of everyday life. We feel uncomfortable if strangers stand on the public sidewalk watching us in our homes through open windows, even if we did not draw the drapes to transform our personal space to private space. Enthusiasts are less likely to be concerned with customization minutia that is significant to pros. Enthusiasts are also less likely to have time and interest to learn HTML, CSS, JAVA etc, nor are they likely to bother signing up to Digital Grin to provide feedback about something they don’t use. Enthusiasts will focus on ease of getting photos into SM, ease for sending links of photos and galleries to family and friends, ease for family and friends to view photos, and comfort that no-one is watching through the windows.

Thanks, Baldy, for the meticulousness of your efforts. I hope that Smugmug and your customers benefit from the voices and efforts of those on this thread.

Best regards,
The Duck

[bham]

Enthusiasts will focus on ease of getting photos into SM, ease for sending links of photos and galleries to family and friends, ease for family and friends to view photos, and comfort that no-one is watching through the windows.
The Duck

I think anytime you put something, anything on the internet, even if you are not drawing attention to it (keywording), it is similar to putting something in your front yard. It is there for anybody that travels past, whether purposely, randomly, or accidentally.

For example I can put www.smugmug.com/photos/xxxxxxx-M.jpg (http://www.smugmug.com/photos/xxxxxxx-M.jpg) replacing the xxxxxxxx with numbers I can get to any photo, evetually that isn't in a password protected gallery. I just did this and on the fourth time changing the numbers around I got a picture of mine. I am usually good about putting passwords on any nonpublic gallery, but I guess I need to check things on my site.

[TheDuck]

I think anytime you put something, anything on the internet, even if you are not drawing attention to it (keywording), it is similar to putting something in your front yard. It is there for anybody that travels past, whether purposely, randomly, or accidentally.

My hope and belief is that this is old-school internet, not the direction for the future.

When I was a kid, we had a telephone party-line. Even though Al Gore didn't invent it, it was the original internet. Limited bandwith shared by all, and anything said was heard by anyone listening....and BOY did some folks listen! Business phones were virtually never a party-line because privacy was not only important, but it was obviously important. Over time, residential party lines were phased out and made private.

The still-young traditions and expectations of internet use are evolving with technological changes and with user expectation changes. One day, I'm convinced, we or our children will look back and say "what do you mean anyone in the world could find your emails or your photos??" I hope Smugmug is part of this evolution and is not buried by it.

Be seeing you,
The Duck

[Baldy]

Lots of good posts here. We're busy working on this but to give a few quickie responses to various:

Good idea wrt low, med, high privacy. We played with it for awhile in hopes of making the choices simpler but it turns out when you add up the various privacy options it's hard to map them that way in practice. So after some messing around, we decided we could make them clear by describing them.

Wrt being willing to step up and accomodate the guy with 2 terrabytes of photos, that was actually quite a bit cheaper than this because it was just hardware, no engineering. This is both hardware (we bought two new Sun database servers to handle the performance repercussions), engineering, help desk, etc.

Papajay, we think months not years because we're actively working on it, But... (There's always a but... :cry) It's very hard to say what the performance ramifications are on the live site and it's hard to simulate in testing. 5 keywords/photo x 135 million photos on the ~1,000 busiest Internet site = Hmmmm.... :scratch We may have some false starts.

Duck, it sounds like we're very much on the same page, so no worries. Our view of the future is quite different than yours but it doesn't matter because we're doing this, so everyone has choice.

My personal view is the sites that are exploding are about being found: MySpace, Flickr, Google, the blogosphere... The Internet was conceived as a public network and it's much more adaptable to being found than to being private. And the migration over the last 20 years is stunning: people used to refuse to buy things on the Internet, to do email, etc., and now by the billions they embrace it.

We're not doing this because it makes business sense or makes us appeal to the masses, but because it feels like the right thing to do for the peace of mind for our customers who care about privacy for their family sites. We can well respect the need for privacy when you have a 13-year old daughter, no matter where the Internet goes in the future.

[Pindy]

We're not doing this because it makes business sense or makes us appeal to the masses, but because it feels like the right thing to do for the peace of mind for our customers who care about privacy for their family sites. We can well respect the need for privacy when you have a 13-year old daughter, no matter where the Internet goes in the future.

I for one and happy that you came to that conclusion. This is what separates SM from some other sites that feel like they're being run by a bunch of post-adolescents without a care in the world. The desire to "explode" is obviously important and I hope you can have your cake and eat it, too.

[dmc]

Lots of good posts here. We're busy working on this but to give a few quickie responses to various:

Good idea wrt low, med, high privacy. We played with it for awhile in hopes of making the choices simpler but it turns out when you add up the various privacy options it's hard to map them that way in practice. So after some messing around, we decided we could make them clear by describing them.

Please don't do low, med, high etc.... you will have to constantly translate what each does, etc. Have options, but be explicit...

Like this:
Allow Google to index your Account? [N] (Y/N)
Allow Smugmug's Public Search tool to access your pics? [N] (Y/N)
Allow Smugmug's Public MapThis show your pics [N] (Y/N)

I have it all here:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=365605#post365605

My opinion regarding a photo sharing site (not photographer's selling site) is that the site be totally private by default... then as users want to share, they open it up explicitly with the above example options.... If there was a "Family Share Smugmug", the keywords, MapThis, Popular photo's, Search, Browse, would only relate to your site only, nothing to do with anybody elses pictures. People only find my site by my invitation. If a password is required (to keep lookyloos out), fine, but I don't want to loose all the cool Smugmug features.

thanks for listening! :D

[Rando]

Lots of good ...[snip]...future.
Thanks for the update, I was afraid that if this thread were to fall past page 2 it wouldn't resurface for another 2 years..

[papajay]

Papajay, we think months not years because we're actively working on it, But... (There's always a but... :cry) It's very hard to say what the performance ramifications are on the live site and it's hard to simulate in testing. 5 keywords/photo x 135 million photos on the ~1,000 busiest Internet site = Hmmmm.... :scratch We may have some false starts..

Baldy. I'm very glad to see that SmugMug's policy ("we don't give date estimates") is being relaxed a bit in this instance. As I told Andy, being left completely in the dark is no picnic, so thank you for a "real" answer (not slamming you, Andy...you followed protocol...no problem). I appreciate it.

We can well respect the need for privacy when you have a 13-year old daughter, no matter where the Internet goes in the future.

This helps restore/maintain the faith some of us still have that not all corporations are just out to maximize bottom line income regardless of potentially negative consequences to a niche segment of its customer base. Again, thank you for publicly stating a principled viewpoint.

[Baldy]

Please don't do low, med, high etc.... you will have to constantly translate what each does, etc. Have options, but be explicit...

Like this:
Allow Google to index your Account? [N] (Y/N)
Allow Smugmug's Public Search tool to access your pics? [N] (Y/N)
Allow Smugmug's Public MapThis show your pics [N] (Y/N)

I have it all here:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=365605#post365605You've done a great job of making your wishes clear—consistently. Hopefully we can pull this off reasonably quickly without running into some issue.

The current design has two concepts: World searchable and Smug searchable.

You can turn off world searchable (don't let Yahoo and Google find me) for your entire site or on particular galleries. I didn't want to complicate this with a per-gallery option, but we have some customers who want to turn it off for their children's galleries and on for their travel galleries. They know that you could find their children by searching for Paris and then noticing that they also have kids galleries, but they're not worried.

Smug searchable is a pull-down menu with 5 options:

1. Yes (everything will behave as it does now).
2. Local (you are an island, but on your site search and browse work and you get your own keyword cloud. When you're logged in, the keyword cloud, searching, and browsing includes private and passworded galleries; when you're logged out, it doesn't include private and passworded galleries).
3. Local user (same as #2 but they can search for you by name, nickname and bio. This is the don't thwart your grandmother option.)
4. No. (Don't allow searching or keywords on my local site either.)
5. No local user (let them find me as in #3, but don't let them search my photos). I dunno why anyone would want this option.

Currently we plan to leave #1 as the default because it seems to be what a large majority of our customers want. As one told me yesterday, "Why would I care if someone sees a photo of my child? I take them to the mall, I let them go to movies, I let them be seen in my neighborhood... That's where it's dangerous for them to be seen."

[Mike Lane]

"Why would I care if someone sees a photo of my child? I take them to the mall, I let them go to movies, I let them be seen in my neighborhood... That's where it's dangerous for them to be seen.":agree

That's why this thread is so fascinating to me. But hey, chalk yet another one up to SmugMug pWning customer service. :thumb I said it before and I'll say it again. SmugMug has the best customer service of any organization of any kind that I've ever encountered.

[dmc]

...
Smug searchable is a pull-down menu with 5 options:
...
2. Local (you are an island, but on your site search and browse work and you get your own keyword cloud. When you're logged in, the keyword cloud, searching, and browsing includes private and passworded galleries; when you're logged out, it doesn't include private and passworded galleries)...
I think you hit it the nail on the head with this option (#2)! :thumb

As one told me yesterday, "Why would I care if someone sees a photo of my child? I take them to the mall, I let them go to movies, I let them be seen in my neighborhood... That's where it's dangerous for them to be seen." I hate for this thread to get off track on this opinion, but being seen here or there is not the same... if "this person" didn't mind people taking pictures of their kids at the mall, beach, then yes, I would agree that we have a difference of opinion.

But I bet most people, even "this person", would agree that they would not appreciate someone taking pictures of their kids, and to me that is the same as them searching for pictures on the internet. We just want the option to not make it easy for them.

[mkress65]

I think you hit it the nail on the head with this option (#2)! :thumb

I hate for this thread to get off track on this opinion, but being seen here or there is not the same... if "this person" didn't mind people taking pictures of their kids at the mall, beach, then yes, I would agree that we have a difference of opinion.

But I bet most people, even "this person", would agree that they would not appreciate someone taking pictures of their kids, and to me that is the same as them searching for pictures on the internet. We just want the option to not make it easy for them.

DMC -- I agree whole heartedly. Before I installed StatCounter on my site, I was blissfully ignorant and adding photos of my daughter at age 1 - 4 to my website [photos at the beach, at home, in the tub at age 18 months w/ her 3 year old cousin, etc.] I added statcounter and found out that someone in Germany was visiting the same pictures of my daughter at the beach (at age 3 in a bathing suit) and in the tub (at age 18 months) every day. At least once a day. For a week. Until I locked all my pictures down. Did this technically injure my daughter? No. But it sure has a high "ick" factor and I find it hard to believe that there are any parents out there who would either condone or dismiss this behavior. But maybe I'm just over-protective relative to other parents. :dunno

Long way to say that I appreciate Chris and Don and co. implementing this, what was once considered impossible, feature.

[papajay]

I think you hit it the nail on the head with this option (#2)! :thumb
.


:thumb :ivar :barb :bow

[Rando]

Originally Posted by Baldy
"Why would I care if someone sees a photo of my child? I take them to the mall, I let them go to movies, I let them be seen in my neighborhood... That's where it's dangerous for them to be seen."


:agree

That's why this thread is so fascinating to me. But hey, chalk yet another one up to SmugMug pWning customer service. :thumb I said it before and I'll say it again. SmugMug has the best customer service of any organization of any kind that I've ever encountered.

I really don't have the drive to search your site, so if you don't mind please be a pal email me any pics of your wife/daughter(s)/nieces(s) if you don't mind...ones at the mall would be fine but preferably ones at the beach or pool.

/sarcasm

[Mike Lane]

Originally Posted by Baldy
"Why would I care if someone sees a photo of my child? I take them to the mall, I let them go to movies, I let them be seen in my neighborhood... That's where it's dangerous for them to be seen."




I really don't have the drive to search your site, so if you don't mind please be a pal email me any pics of your wife/daughter(s)/nieces(s) if you don't mind...ones at the mall would be fine but preferably ones at the beach or pool.

/sarcasmNo problemo! You want the picture of my son's head coming out of my wife's vagina? I'll be happy to forward it on to you.

[Baldy]

Ugh. We've run into a problem of how to keep popular photos and maps going on your home page if you've opted out of Smug search (you've become an island). Difficult fix. If in opting for option 2 you lost the popular photos feature and maps, how big a blow would this be?

[dmc]

Ugh. We've run into a problem of how to keep popular photos and maps going on your home page if you've opted out of Smug search (you've become an island). Difficult fix. If in opting for option 2 you lost the popular photos feature and maps, how big a blow would this be?

not that bad... as long as keywords work it's a useable phase one for me...

hopefully you will figure out the other stuff eventually...

[Rando]

Ugh. We've run into a problem of how to keep popular photos and maps going on your home page if you've opted out of Smug search (you've become an island). Difficult fix. If in opting for option 2 you lost the popular photos feature and maps, how big a blow would this be?

Having keywords on that island would be a good first step. Hopefully the Dharma guys air drops popular photos and maps in due time. I'll push the button until then.

[Andy]

not that bad... as long as keywords work it's a useable phase one for me...
Yeah that's the general plan.
hopefully you will figure out the other stuff eventually...well, it's possible but we can't make any promises on this bit.

[Allen]

Yeah that's the general plan.well, it's possible but we can't make any promises on this bit.
How about appending a passworded gallery keyword list to the public keyword
list when password is enter? Would require separate isolated lists for each
password. Also with a site password the isolated keywords would be
available.

Coming from someone that has no idea what they're talking about but seems logical.:D

[DaveRW]

Hey all,

Thisis my first contribution to thisthread...I started myown about the popular photos andthen found this thread again. Anyway, as it stands I've been looking around for a photosite forages constantly putting off doing it but this week I finally bit the bullet and decided that SM seemed to be the best product out there. With that in mind and as a new customer (okay so in 12 days when the trial runs out..) I wanted to agree with the consensus here. It is important to me that the site have a passworded, with a young daughter the idea of certain people looking at certain photos definately has an "ick factor" (as someone else stated previously...). Out of the listed options, #2 certainly seems to meet my needs (providing that by logged in it means people logged into a passworded site). As for keywords, and popular photos - I suppose if I had to choose between the two keywords wins but popular photos would be really fantastic (the family is big on rating things [and since this will be hosting all the photos] - it speaks to the group competitiveness). I just added the last part since I really don't want keywords to be fixed and then nothing else done on this project because it's "good enough" for some people.

I have really appreciated seeing this thread/feature request in action, I'm very impressed by you Smugmug folks and the way you've handled this issue. This sort of responsiveness seems very rare these days.

So that's my 2 (or 3 or 4) cents.

[Andy]

.
.
.

So that's my 2 (or 3 or 4) cents.
And, we're glady to have it! :wave welcome to SmugMug and Dgrin :D

[Baldy]

Update: our two honkin' Sun servers to help power this arrived today and are being put in the racks. :D With a little luck, these features could come sooner than I had thought, but you never know until the last bug is fixed and we've actually tried to put it in production.

I think you've persuaded us that more customers probably care about these features than we understood. There are how many families that share photos online? It's a small percentage of the total. There's evidence that a significant percent of those who don't share fear the ick factor you mention.

[pat.kane]

Update: our two honkin' Sun servers to help power this arrived today and are being put in the racks.

Good luck with the install and thanks for the update. I'll be looking forward to this feature.

[Pindy]

Update:
I think you've persuaded us that more customers probably care about these features than we understood.

Now that's not something you read every day. I love you SmugMug, and I want to have your babies. :lust

A few family members will be receiving gift memberships due in part to your lasting decency and vision!


There are how many families that share photos online? It's a small percentage of the total. There's evidence that a significant percent of those who don't share fear the ick factor you mention.

Evidence or not, you can rest secure in the knowledge that you're doing the right thing. Prevention is better than cure. Thank you for taking this seriously.

[papajay]

Ugh. We've run into a problem of how to keep popular photos and maps going on your home page if you've opted out of Smug search (you've become an island). Difficult fix. If in opting for option 2 you lost the popular photos feature and maps, how big a blow would this be?

Personally, I have NO problem losing the popular photos or the maps feature. The island you describe is starting to sound like Paradise!

[richpepp]

Ugh. We've run into a problem of how to keep popular photos and maps going on your home page if you've opted out of Smug search (you've become an island). Difficult fix. If in opting for option 2 you lost the popular photos feature and maps, how big a blow would this be?

Not a blow at all in order to be able to keyword search everything once logged in. This really does rock.

If I understand correctly from original '5 levels of smugsearch' post we would still be able to be 'world searchable' even if we opt for suggestion 2 the smug search island approach? (obviously not for password protected galleries of course)

tx

RichP

[akbdeck]

I don't use keywords at all and my Galleries are showing up in the SmugMug search based on title and description. I have stopped using SmugMug and will be deleting my images soon. They are only there right now to take up space that I paid for before finding out about the LACK OF PRIVACY on SmugMug. This discussion has been going on for months now with no clear solution in sight. Making the site private is not an answer nor is it a solution to the problem. There have been many good ideas sugested to the SmugMug team but no action has been taken and from what I have seen no action will be taken in the near or even distant future.


Please don't do low, med, high etc.... you will have to constantly translate what each does, etc. Have options, but be explicit...

Like this:
Allow Google to index your Account? [N] (Y/N)
Allow Smugmug's Public Search tool to access your pics? [N] (Y/N)
Allow Smugmug's Public MapThis show your pics [N] (Y/N)

I have it all here:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=365605#post365605

My opinion regarding a photo sharing site (not photographer's selling site) is that the site be totally private by default... then as users want to share, they open it up explicitly with the above example options.... If there was a "Family Share Smugmug", the keywords, MapThis, Popular photo's, Search, Browse, would only relate to your site only, nothing to do with anybody elses pictures. People only find my site by my invitation. If a password is required (to keep lookyloos out), fine, but I don't want to loose all the cool Smugmug features.

thanks for listening! :D

[Andy]

I don't use keywords at all and my Galleries are showing up in the SmugMug search based on title and description. I have stopped using SmugMug and will be deleting my images soon. They are only there right now to take up space that I paid for before finding out about the LACK OF PRIVACY on SmugMug. This discussion has been going on for months now with no clear solution in sight. Making the site private is not an answer nor is it a solution to the problem. There have been many good ideas sugested to the SmugMug team but no action has been taken and from what I have seen no action will be taken in the near or even distant future.Hi, ouch - I'm sorry you feel that no action is being taken. In fact, we are in the midst of testing out a whole bunch of new search/browse/privacy parameters that we think are going to satisfy the needs of all who've spoken up here. Including you :D These things do take time, and they will be be released only when and if everything is just perfect - and not a moment sooner. We're sorry that it takes longer than you'd like.

We hope you'll stay.

[Mike Lane]

I don't use keywords at all and my Galleries are showing up in the SmugMug search based on title and description. I have stopped using SmugMug and will be deleting my images soon. They are only there right now to take up space that I paid for before finding out about the LACK OF PRIVACY on SmugMug. This discussion has been going on for months now with no clear solution in sight. Making the site private is not an answer nor is it a solution to the problem. There have been many good ideas sugested to the SmugMug team but no action has been taken and from what I have seen no action will be taken in the near or even distant future.You mean other than actually ordering and installing the hardware required to make this work? It looks to me like they are actively engaged in tackling this issue and will come to a resolution quite soon. These sorts of things take time to implement, code doesn't write itself, Rome wasn't built in a day, etc.

But hey, it's not even my hot button issue. :dunno

[Tedology]

Hello all,

Just found this thread and I have to say that I thank SmugMug for 1) listening to its customers and b) taking some action to protect the privacy and ick-resistance of our families and friends' identities (even if it's just in our precious photos).

Just another way that SmugMug is persuading me to give my credit card info after my trial ends. :thumb

[Baldy]

Update: Bad news first. The new Sun servers are performing but the data storage arrays we bought from them aren't, so we spent the entire week working with Sun trying to understand why. Neither we nor Sun's top geeks yet understand why we see performance bottlenecks with the disks.

If we can't get the Sun arrays to perform, we have to find other arrays that can, get them in the racks and resume testing. That's a weeks not days delay. :cry

Good news: testing is going well so we get to see these features in action on our private test servers. We just can't release them into production until performance bottlenecks are solved.

Also, we hope to take this opportunity to add some badly-needed search enhancements. :wink Film at 11.

[papajay]

Update: Bad news first. The new Sun servers are performing but the data storage arrays we bought from them aren't, so we spent the entire week working with Sun trying to understand why. Neither we nor Sun's top geeks yet understand why we see performance bottlenecks with the disks.

If we can't get the Sun arrays to perform, we have to find other arrays that can, get them in the racks and resume testing. That's a weeks not days delay. :cry

Good news: testing is going well so we get to see these features in action on our private test servers. We just can't release them into production until performance bottlenecks are solved.

Also, we hope to take this opportunity to add some badly-needed search enhancements. :wink Film at 11.

Baldy...A big thank you for the status update :thumb (even the bad news*) :cry

*Bad news is much better than no news, and much appreciated, because there's clearly action underway that will most likely lead to a positive outcome!

[shiffy]

Update: Bad news first. The new Sun servers are performing but the data storage arrays we bought from them aren't, so we spent the entire week working with Sun trying to understand why. Neither we nor Sun's top geeks yet understand why we see performance bottlenecks with the disks.

If we can't get the Sun arrays to perform, we have to find other arrays that can, get them in the racks and resume testing. That's a weeks not days delay. :cry

Good news: testing is going well so we get to see these features in action on our private test servers. We just can't release them into production until performance bottlenecks are solved.

Also, we hope to take this opportunity to add some badly-needed search enhancements. :wink Film at 11.

Thanks Baldy. The changes are much appreciated even if we have to wait for them a bit. Really makes me appreciate smugmug and its commitment to its customers.

I do have a couple of related questions --

1) I've got a significant number of photos to process and upload now. If I add in keywords in the processing and upload them, will those keywords work once the changes are implemented?

2) Also, in the past, I recall that there was a bug that if you entered in keywords with password-protected galleries or sites, instead of the keywords not working, the keywords worked, undercutting the password protection. Is my recollection correct that this was fixed long ago. (I just want to make sure that if I get ready for the changes by uploading photos with keywords now, I don't do anything to undercut the privacy/password-protection features I now have in place).

Thanks again.

Steve

[papajay]

...cut
I do have a couple of related questions --

1) I've got a significant number of photos to process and upload now. If I add in keywords in the processing and upload them, will those keywords work once the changes are implemented?

2) Also, in the past, I recall that there was a bug that if you entered in keywords with password-protected galleries or sites, instead of the keywords not working, the keywords worked, undercutting the password protection. Is my recollection correct that this was fixed long ago.


The answers to Shiffy's questions are of interest to me as well...and since the post has drifted down a few pages, I thought it might have fallen thru the cracks. So I'm just "refreshing it" here.

[Andy]

The answers to Shiffy's questions are of interest to me as well...and since the post has drifted down a few pages, I thought it might have fallen thru the cracks. So I'm just "refreshing it" here.Trust me, nothing's falling through any cracks :D

:deal

[Andy]

I do have a couple of related questions --

1) I've got a significant number of photos to process and upload now. If I add in keywords in the processing and upload them, will those keywords work once the changes are implemented?
Yes indeed.

2) Also, in the past, I recall that there was a bug that if you entered in keywords with password-protected galleries or sites, instead of the keywords not working, the keywords worked, undercutting the password protection. Is my recollection correct that this was fixed long ago. Indeed, the keywords will not undermine your privacy right now.

[shiffy]

Yes indeed. Indeed, the keywords will not undermine your privacy right now.

Great. Thanks again.

[akbdeck]

Update: Bad news first. The new Sun servers are performing but the data storage arrays we bought from them aren't, so we spent the entire week working with Sun trying to understand why. Neither we nor Sun's top geeks yet understand why we see performance bottlenecks with the disks.

If we can't get the Sun arrays to perform, we have to find other arrays that can, get them in the racks and resume testing. That's a weeks not days delay. :cry

Good news: testing is going well so we get to see these features in action on our private test servers. We just can't release them into production until performance bottlenecks are solved.

Also, we hope to take this opportunity to add some badly-needed search enhancements. :wink Film at 11.
It's been three weeks what is the current status and eta for these features to go live to the users?

[Andy]

It's been three weeks what is the current status and eta for these features to go live to the users?
Hi, we don't pre announce dates, I'm sorry. It's all front-burner though :) Thanks for your patience!

[akbdeck]

Hi, we don't pre announce dates, I'm sorry. It's all front-burner though :) Thanks for your patience!

I wont hold my breath as this issue has been on going for over two years now with no visible results.

[papajay]

Hi, we don't pre announce dates, I'm sorry. It's all front-burner though :) Thanks for your patience!

SmugMug has such great customer service overall...but I have to say this non-customer-friendly policy seems out of kilter with the "goodness" of SmugMug's other customer service policies. It's a "non-answer" answer at best.

Just this morning Boeing announced that it's rolling out it's first 787 on July, 8. Hearing this made me chuckle when I read the SmugMug post about not pre-announcing dates. I could be wrong, but I suspect Boeing's new 787 is at least as complex as SmugMug's product.

I don't really think ANYONE has requested a date-specific commitment from SmugMug...a realistic "expectation", "target date", or "ball-park WAG' would suffice, I'm sure.

[Andy]

SmugMug has such great customer service overall...but I have to say this non-customer-friendly policy seems out of kilter with the "goodness" of SmugMug's other customer service policies. It's a "non-answer" answer at best.

Just this morning Boeing announced that it's rolling out it's first 787 on July, 8. Hearing this made me chuckle when I read the SmugMug post about not pre-announcing dates. I could be wrong, but I suspect Boeing's new 787 is at least as complex as SmugMug's product.

I don't really think ANYONE has requested a date-specific commitment from SmugMug...a realistic "expectation", "target date", or "ball-park WAG' would suffice, I'm sure.
Hi Papajay, Ouch - I'm sorry we're falling short for you on this. We won't give a date, it'll be ready when it's ready :) I wish I had a better answer for you on that.

We are working hard at it and being extremely transparent about the entire process, including updating all of you on how the whole thing is shaping up. If that's customer un-friendly, then I don't really know what else to say :)

[papajay]

Hi Papajay, Ouch - I'm sorry we're falling short for you on this. We won't give a date, it'll be ready when it's ready :) I wish I had a better answer for you on that.

We are working hard at it and being extremely transparent about the entire process, including updating all of you on how the whole thing is shaping up. If that's customer un-friendly, then I don't really know what else to say :)



SmugMug is a business, and like most businesses I'm guessing there is a periodic (daily??, weekly??, bi-weekly??, monthly??) meeting of the key personnel to discuss the status of projects, etc. If Chris or Don asked the development team to estimate how long a project will take to complete, I'm sure an answer like "It'll be ready when it's ready" wouldn't set too well, and rightly so...successfully operating a business requires continually refining the operating plan based on the lastest "knowns" and making best-guesses about the "unknowns".

I don't think you are giving customers enough credit for understanding that "things take time", and "Rome wasn't built in a day" (as Mike Lane pointed out in an earlier post). My point is I believe there's less harm in sharing a completion estimate (even if it turns out to be wrong), than appearing to be non-committal, eg does "front burner" mean a week, a month, 6 months, a year?? I just think this ONE policy (not "estimating" time frames) sucks from a customer service perspective, that's all, and I was beginning to think that Don, at least, was inclined to agree.

[Andy]

I just think this ONE policy (not "estimating" time frames) sucks from a customer service perspective, that's all, and I was beginning to think that Don, at least, was inclined to agree.

We don't give dates, I'm sorry...

He's said that time and again :D

I'm sorry that you feel it sucks, Papajay. We are doing our best here, to keep all of you in the loop, letting you know exactly how this thing is playing out. We don't have a date, and won't make an estimate, I'm sorry.

How many companies are as transparent as we, letting you all in on this? We love it, we feel it's incredibly valuable input, and we hold your input dear. In fact, it's critical to our success. We won't give you a date - only to have it be missed, perhaps by something beyond our control - because that would suck even more, IMO.

Again, I'm terribly sorry we aren't measuring up in your eyes here. We'll continue to press on, and hopefully the SmugSorcerers will have something for us soon on this :D

All the best to you, Papajay!

[akbdeck]

He's said that time and again :D

I'm sorry that you feel it sucks, Papajay. We are doing our best here, to keep all of you in the loop, letting you know exactly how this thing is playing out. We don't have a date, and won't make an estimate, I'm sorry.

How many companies are as transparent as we, letting you all in on this? We love it, we feel it's incredibly valuable input, and we hold your input dear. In fact, it's critical to our success. We won't give you a date - only to have it be missed, perhaps by something beyond our control - because that would suck even more, IMO.

Again, I'm terribly sorry we aren't measuring up in your eyes here. We'll continue to press on, and hopefully the SmugSorcerers will have something for us soon on this :D

All the best to you, Papajay!
The point he is trying to make and I'm trying to make is this.

It will be done when it's done, just doesnt tell the customer anything at all.
It makes us fell like you don't care about us and someday, maybe we will do this change.

The correct reply should have been:
we are currently still working the issue. Our testing is going _____ (You fill in the blank). We have or have not gotten the server/storage problem resolved. etc. You can give us information with out quoting a date.

Give us information that tells us something.

The we don't quote dates or it will be ready when it ready tells us zip, zero zilch. It gives us the impression that you don't care enough about this issue to even make a valid response to the question.

[Andy]

Give us information that tells us something. Hi akbdeck, thanks for posting.

I think we've been doing that? I don't really have much to add to Baldy's prior posts in this thread, and that it's absolutely a priority thing for us all at SmugMug. But in the interest of trying to shed more light on things...

There were some unexpected things found during development:
http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=502076&postcount=217


There have been some hardware things to work out:
http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=505469&postcount=224

http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/2007/04/11/sun-honeymoon-update-servers/

We have begun testing it internally and have shared a ton of info about this unreleased feature:
http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=501576&postcount=210

I'm sorry we don't have a better, more detailed answer for you right now. I'm really sorry that you feel we don't care - quite the opposite, and we have a 5 year record of proving that. Thanks to you, and everyone, for your continued patience in this.

[Baldy]

It's the top thing Don is working on and most of us at SmugMug have come to believe that it may be more important to more people than we knew. We'd love to go live with it tonight (it's testing night) but we're not out of the hardware performance hell that has been our home lately.

The good news is we've solved server performance, which Don blogged about yesterday:

http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/2007/04/11/sun-honeymoon-update-servers/

It has come down to storage. The short story is the Sun storage we bought doesn't meet our performance needs. The Rackable storage we bought doesn't meet our reliability needs.

We do have storage in house that seems to be reliable and fast enough, but we need more of it and more testing time before we're ready to pull the trigger and go live.

I was tempted to begin the next sentence with, "If we're lucky..." But the Rackable and Sun disappointments set us back weeks so I can only give an honest answer: it depends on how Dell and HP fare on the tests we're doing now and how quickly they can get us hardware once we choose a vendor. I'd love nothing more than for it to be week(s) but we didn't see these hardware issues coming last time...

[papajay]

It's the top thing Don is working on and most of us at SmugMug have come to believe that it may be more important to more people than we knew. .....

.....I'd love nothing more than for it to be week(s) but we didn't see these hardware issues coming last time...

Thanks, Baldy, once again, for putting some "meat on the bones" regarding the status of this project. With THIS answer, I'm satisfied, finally, that it is indeed getting top-level commitment, and will ultimately be successful.:thumb

Sorry if I sound like a broken record to some folks on the topic of being kept in the loop...your posts, of late, have been helpful because you've kept them basic and honest, and you have not gotten defensive.

I'm confident I will remain a loyal SmugMug customer.