Originally Posted by Lemur Lover What are the latest thoughts on whether adding ALT= words to a file name one uploads to (in particular) SmugMug having any effect on GIS picking them up and featuring the related image in a relatively prominent position?

You do not need to do this. Googlebot sees a different version of your galleries than you see when you're browsing. Googlebot already gets the alt= words from your captions.

Originally Posted by Andy You do not need to do this. Googlebot sees a different version of your galleries than you see when you're browsing. Googlebot already gets the alt= words from your captions.

Thanks for your response Andy!

Excellent, that's one less thing I have to spend time on then

While on the subject of captions then: For prints we sell at our gallery and those that I share on 500px, I always use a caption that hopefully adds a little something extra to a viewer's enjoyment. For example, the picture I'm attaching to this is captioned "Minor Collision".

However, as I didn't want to add too many words in the caption field on my website and felt it more important to offer a description to the viewer of the subject they were looking at, I leave off my choice of title. So the caption for this shot on my website (which is the same format I use for all the others) is: African Lion cubs (females, two weeks old), Born at Khao Kheow Open Zoo, Chonburi, Thailand, Ref # KKC 124

For the purpose of enhancing my "findability" what, would you suggest?

Ashley I think that's fine.

Originally Posted by Andy Ashley I think that's fine.

Thanks for your timely response Andy!

One more question on that: In your opinion, would adding a short title (e.g. "Minor Collision") to the words I already use in my captions add or detract from the "findability" factor in GIS?

Clarification Request: The question was raised a couple of times on the first page of this thread as to whether NOT displaying keywords to viewers under photos would make them invisible to search engines. And I believe your answer, Andy, was no, and you showed the code to add into CSS, something I'd actually already done a while ago.

However, what I'm not clear on is if you were referring to SmugMug's own search engine or all search engines (including GIS) on the net?

One last thing for now: While a good number of my images can be found by doing a search on Ashley Vincent Photography, Nature Impressions Ashley Vincent, and other similar combinations, in GIS, with the exception of one photo (which ironically is a picture taken from a gallery that, while "listed", is not readily displayed on my site for viewers to see!), all the other photos link back to 500px (where I've previously posted them up) or to sites like Scoop.it, Facebook, Tumbler, Wordpress, Cruzin, pxleyes, StumbleUpon, etc., where apparent admirers have chosen to add my images to ... if only I could get a dollar for each one of those and the every time they've been relinked to other sites and pages, the struggle to make money at this pro photography game would be a whole lot easier

Anyhow, seeing as you feel the captions I already have (and have had for many months now) in place seem to be sufficient, and the keywords I use are pretty much written the same, yet none of my actual SmugMug loaded photos come up in GIS (other than the one mentioned above that I don't really want showing up!), is there any real point in me trying to think of more creative words I could possibly add to each photo on my website, be it in the captions or keywords, in the hope some of those pictures might eventually appear on the first (or even first few) pages of Google Image Search?

Thanks for your time Andy, and wishing you and your family a wonderful weekend

Originally Posted by Lemur Lover Thanks for your timely response Andy! One more question on that: In your opinion, would adding a short title (e.g. "Minor Collision") to the words I already use in my captions add or detract from the "findability" factor in GIS?

I wouldn't worry to much about it. I'd concentrate on making the caption interesting for your visitors.

Clarification Request: The question was raised a couple of times on the first page of this thread as to whether NOT displaying keywords to viewers under photos would make them invisible to search engines. And I believe your answer, Andy, was no, and you showed the code to add into CSS, something I'd actually already done a while ago. However, what I'm not clear on is if you were referring to SmugMug's own search engine or all search engines (including GIS) on the net?

Take a look here. While you can hide keywords, it may not be advisable SEO-wise.

Anyhow, seeing as you feel the captions I already have (and have had for many months now) in place seem to be sufficient, and the keywords I use are pretty much written the same, yet none of my actual SmugMug loaded photos come up in GIS (other than the one mentioned above that I don't really want showing up!), is there any real point in me trying to think of more creative words I could possibly add to each photo on my website, be it in the captions or keywords, in the hope some of those pictures might eventually appear on the first (or even first few) pages of Google Image Search?

Getting content on GIS isn't as easy as getting your content indexed by Google. As far as I know, GIS doesn't add just all the content that it can finds, but concentrates on highly ranked content. So make sure that you get your photos embedded on your blog and other pages that have a good ranking along with links back to your SmugMug gallery. Getting your content and links out on blogs, forums and other high traffic sites should help.
It's difficult to succeed if you just focus on your own site and it's not really getting any exposure elsewhere.

Originally Posted by rainforest1155 I wouldn't worry to much about it. I'd concentrate on making the caption interesting for your visitors. Take a look here. While you can hide keywords, it may not be advisable SEO-wise. Getting content on GIS isn't as easy as getting your content indexed by Google. As far as I know, GIS doesn't add just all the content that it can finds, but concentrates on highly ranked content. So make sure that you get your photos embedded on your blog and other pages that have a good ranking along with links back to your SmugMug gallery. Getting your content and links out on blogs, forums and other high traffic sites should help. It's difficult to succeed if you just focus on your own site and it's not really getting any exposure elsewhere.

Hi Sebastian,

Thanks for your answers to my questions, much appreciated!

Gotcha re interesting info in captions.

Reactivated visibility on my keywords beneath photos.

And understood re getting my photos embedded on my blog (which is something I'm planning on setting up in the very near future!) and other pages that have a good ranking along with links back to my SmugMug gallery.

BTW, while I've got your attention, and hoping this isn't too OT: I understand you're running the daily community, which I may like to post images in, however, I can't seem to find anything written about rules, regulations, instructions (on how to post images up), and same goes for any of the other community galleries. Could you please provide me with a link where I can find all the related info?

Thanks again and wishing you a great weekend

Originally Posted by Lemur Lover BTW, while I've got your attention, and hoping this isn't too OT: I understand you're running the daily community, which I may like to post images in, however, I can't seem to find anything written about rules, regulations, instructions (on how to post images up), and same goes for any of the other community galleries. Could you please provide me with a link where I can find all the related info?

Ashley, our help pages are chock full of info - just typing "communities" into the search box on http://help.smugmug.com will get you this:
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93262

And did you click here?

Originally Posted by Andy Ashley, our help pages are chock full of info - just typing "communities" into the search box on http://help.smugmug.com will get you this: http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93262 And did you click here?

Thank Andy!

Though I did search for communities, all I came up with were the groups but, call me blind if you will, I couldn't see any written info on how it all works, certainly never noticed the info + chat page before; good job you had your magnifying glass handy

That said, I've now searched for that window you provided in your screen grab and I can't find it; I can find other pages and galleries related to the DailyPhotos community, but not the one you show here with the Daily Photos info page + chat. Can you give me a direct link to that page please?

Also, when looking in the Wildlife community, again there's no written info on what's allowed, not allowed, or how to actually post anything up. Still I'm confused by this

Originally Posted by Lemur Lover Thank Andy! Though I did search for communities, all I came up with were the groups but, call me blind if you will, I couldn't see any written info on how it all works, certainly never noticed the info + chat page before; good job you had your magnifying glass handy That said, I've now searched for that window you provided in your screen grab and I can't find it; I can find other pages and galleries related to the DailyPhotos community, but not the one you show here with the Daily Photos info page + chat. Can you give me a direct link to that page please? Also, when looking in the Wildlife community, again there's no written info on what's allowed, not allowed, or how to actually post anything up. Still I'm confused by this

http://www.smugmug.com/community/DailyPhotos/

Just join the community and link a gallery. Then enjoy. You're overthinking things, Ashley

Originally Posted by Andy http://www.smugmug.com/community/DailyPhotos/ Just join the community and link a gallery. Then enjoy. You're overthinking things, Ashley

Thanks as always Andy!

And what can I tell ya', over-thinking for me goes hand in hand with my other lifelong challenge of seeming to always use 10 words where one would adequately do for most l

Probably be back with more questions tomorrow, but for now I'll give it a rest and wish you once again a great weekend

Lemur,
If you assign keywords to your images, you might want to add the "Top Keywords" widget to the bottom of your home page. I did this about 6 months ago and was able to increase traffic from Google, etc. To read more about adding the "Top Keywords" widget to the bottom of your web site, check out:
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/por...omepage-pretty

BUT, you should be aware and careful of the recent Google "Penguin" algo update, which penalizes websites for over-optmization. See what Google says about this update here:
http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/201...h-quality.html

If you want to find out more about this update, go to a reputable site like SearchEngineLand.com:
http://searchengineland.com/library/...penguin-update

Originally Posted by chipj Lemur, If you assign keywords to your images, you might want to add the "Top Keywords" widget to the bottom of your home page. I did this about 6 months ago and was able to increase traffic from Google, etc. To read more about adding the "Top Keywords" widget to the bottom of your web site, check out: http://help.smugmug.com/customer/por...omepage-pretty BUT, you should be aware and careful of the recent Google "Penguin" algo update, which penalizes websites for over-optmization. See what Google says about this update here: http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/201...h-quality.html If you want to find out more about this update, go to a reputable site like SearchEngineLand.com: http://searchengineland.com/library/...penguin-update

Hi Chip,

Thanks for your input and for the links, which had been interesting and useful to read, although I don't feel any closer to coming up with a near perfect formula for any of this, and chances are there isn't one to be found

What follows isn't now in direct response to you Chip, but happy to receive answers, thoughts and opinions from you and/or anyone else.

With respect to Homepage Meta Descriptions: On the SmugMug help page it says, “Fill in your Homepage Meta Description and Google will pick up the first 140 characters to display a description of your home page in their search results”, yet when one goes to Account Settings > SmugMugIsland Settings it's written under the Homepage Meta Descriptions field, “255 characters max” - what would be the point of going for the maximum of 255 characters if Google only picks up the first 140 characters?

Something else that adds to my confusion is that when doing a automated word-count in a MS Word doc, the relevant numbers coming up on a selected paragraph shows the count for characters with spaces as well as characters without spaces. So regardless of whether it's 140 or 255 characters, I'm still at a loss for not knowing whether this limit (or maximum) is including spaces or not, which is it?

BTW, the same applies to Homepage Meta Keywords: Written under the text field it also states a 255 character max.

For those inclined to shed some light on the above questions but are otherwise too busy, please don't feel the need to read anything else I write below, as it's more musings and a means of gently venting my frustrations over trying to figure out the most effective keywords to use with my photos than anything else

In reference to keywords related to photos, I've noticed that searches are very word specific, as in, if you feel the word “cat” is a very good word to have, you really need to use the plural “cats” in addition to “cat”, as using both of these will generally find your images in far more search results.

Thing is, with the limit of words one can use – or at least the number that will actually be picked up on and prove in any way effective – it's real difficult to pick the ones that would serve us best in both the singular as well as the plural.

I must admit that the more I look into and think about keywords the more questions come up and the more I feel I'm at a loss to understanding how people do searches that will give me some sort of edge; the most obvious words that relate to a specific image will obviously produce the greatest number of search results - take “Lion” for example – but of course this then greatly reduces the odds of people searching for Lions coming up with one's own image. Granted there are more than a few other words one can add that relate to Lions, and words to describe what's going on in the photo surely help too (e.g. laying down, profile portrait, feasting, roaring, playing cards, shooting pool, etc.), but generally speaking, with the thousands of Lion photographers out there also using keywords, logic suggests that most of those have also been used thousands of times before.

Get creative methinks! And I do, which is why I'm just about to add words I use in my caption titles (like “astonished”, “perplexed”, “youthful”, “darkness”, “enlightenment”, “collision”, “tentative”, “regrets”, to name but a few) for printed images we sell at our galley to the keywords for photos on our website, as this may help us to pick up the extra odd visitor or two who does a search on words like that, though chances are weren't expecting to see an image of, say, a Lion come up. And the more creative one tries to be the further away one probably gets from what any “normal” person would think to type into a search engine while looking for Lion photos.

I happened across SmugMug's Most Active Keywords of All-Time - http://www.smugmug.com/keyword/all yesterday morning and, while I wasn't really expecting to find “Lion”, I was very surprised by the top keywords I found there, words like “events” which has been used on 764,364 photos, or “July” (734,805 photos), “photography” (1,864,579!), and “2012” (2,796,967 … and to think we're only half way through the year!!!).

I know one can choose between “most recent” and “most popular” and I can see the logic in someone wanting to check out the most recent events for in the hope of finding a images of, say, a Rolling Stones concert or a presidential inauguration, but you'd have to be a very patient and determined person indeed to be willing enough to trawl through countless images and pages featuring young Eddie's fourth birthday party, Nancy's cookout, and the like, all the while optimistic you'd eventually come across what you're looking for.

And as for searching the year “2012”, knowing that 2,796,967 people have already used that for a specific search simply blows my mind!

Another point of frustration is seeing so many images come up in a search on a particular keyword that bares little or absolutely no relation to the actual word, let's use Lion once again as an example. Of the first 50 photos that come up (at time of writing I see there are 259,360 “Lion” images to be found in the Photos gallery), these are the primary subjects I see:

African Lions – 12 photos

Mountain Lions – 7 photos

Sea Lion – 2 photos

Lion Fish – 1 photo

Statues of Lions – 2 photos

Lion Toys – 3 photos

[now this is where we really start to stray]

Landscape at “Lions” Park (no actual Lions to be seen) – 1 photo

Lady in a red dress holding a red umbrella … complete with the “Lion” Dancer (whatever that is?!?! and again no discernible Lion in the frame) – 1 photo

Reflection in a shop window, no Lion in the image, though commentary mentions something about the possibility a Bear having injured a Deer rather than a Mountain “Lion” as apparently thought by the photographer and mentioned on a previous photo, i.e. that part of the commentary actually had absolutely nothing to do with the current photo! - 1 photo

Dragonfly captured at “Lions” Park – 1 photo

A Giraffe (!), with thanks in the commentary related to a previous photo uploaded of a “Lion” - 1 photo

Nice picture of a girl with commentary saying the day this was taken, one of the things the family did was visit Lazy “Lion” Used Books, and from all the other things they did that day sounds like they had a wonderful time, though apparently they didn't get to see an actual Lion and I certainly didn't find one in the featured picture – 1 photo

To cut this short, as I'm pretty sure anyone still reading this will have gotten the point already, the others out of the first 50 photos on this page that show no evidence of a Lion show instead: a Dog, a couple of Deer, close-up of some ice-cream, three more landscapes, a child's face painted with whiskers, a speeding train, two flower shots, a Peacock, a woman running excitedly toward a statue of a Lion (though unfortunately the statue was kept out of the frame, really would have liked to see that at least!) as she tried to take a picture of it, then there's a photo of some (in case the photographer happens across this thread and is interested to know the species name!) Dusky Leaf-Monkeys (AKA Spectacled also Dusky Langur) with commentary mentioning a previously uploaded image of a Lion, and lastly, an Austin Healy car.

Having written all this, please don't misunderstand me: To be fair, it's clear that all those photos that I don't feel should be gathered up in the first 50 Lion shots are there by way of the word “Lion” being used in captions, not keywords, and I'm sure with the amount of words I've used in some of my gallery descriptions (though not so far in my captions), some of my galleries might pop up on other people's monitors who are searching for something entirely different, so I'm really not complaining about anyone or even the search structure in general, I'm merely choosing to write as a way of conveying my thoughts on how immensely challenging it is to come up with effective keywords for specific photos with a view to getting them noticed, a feeling that I'm sure others will be able to relate to!

Perhaps I would have been better saving all this for a blog, but I haven't yet set myself up with one, and this subject of keywords does appear to come up over here so I thought why not?

Still interested in receiving answers to the questions I posed at the beginning of all this, and happy to hear the thoughts and experiences of others regarding all this if you wish to share.

Thanks for your time

Originally Posted by Lemur Lover With respect to Homepage Meta Descriptions: On the SmugMug help page it says, “Fill in your Homepage Meta Description and Google will pick up the first 140 characters to display a description of your home page in their search results”, yet when one goes to Account Settings > SmugMugIsland Settings it's written under the Homepage Meta Descriptions field, “255 characters max” - what would be the point of going for the maximum of 255 characters if Google only picks up the first 140 characters?

OVERthinking again!
Just come up with something short and sweet. Here's mine. You can see anyone's by simply using your browser and View>Source

Originally Posted by Andy OVERthinking again! Just come up with something short and sweet. Here's mine. You can see anyone's by simply using your browser and View>Source

Hey Andy,

Me, over-think a subject? Nah, you've got me all wrong buddy

Yeah, what can I say, nearly 50 years of being the same way makes it something of a challenge to change

Still interested in having an answer on this part I wrote above if you happen to know:

Something else that adds to my confusion is that when doing a automated word-count in a MS Word doc, the relevant numbers coming up on a selected paragraph shows the count for characters with spaces as well as characters without spaces. So regardless of whether it's 140 or 255 characters, I'm still at a loss for not knowing whether this limit (or maximum) is including spaces or not, which is it?

Wishing you a great week ahead Andy

Originally Posted by Lemur Lover Hey Andy, Me, over-think a subject? Nah, you've got me all wrong buddy Yeah, what can I say, nearly 50 years of being the same way makes it something of a challenge to change Still interested in having an answer on this part I wrote above if you happen to know: Something else that adds to my confusion is that when doing a automated word-count in a MS Word doc, the relevant numbers coming up on a selected paragraph shows the count for characters with spaces as well as characters without spaces. So regardless of whether it's 140 or 255 characters, I'm still at a loss for not knowing whether this limit (or maximum) is including spaces or not, which is it? Wishing you a great week ahead Andy

Includes spaces. You could easily see this for yourself. Just enter your info, save it, then view source in your browser. Try it.

Originally Posted by Andy Includes spaces. You could easily see this for yourself. Just enter your info, save it, then view source in your browser. Try it.

Doh! OK, got it, thanks as always Andy, all the best

Originally Posted by Andy OVERthinking again! Just come up with something short and sweet. Here's mine. You can see anyone's by simply using your browser and View>Source

One other item that should be mentioned is that the meta description tag is no longer considered by Google when it comes to page or keyword ranking. It's most important role is to describe what your site is about and get people to click on your listing in the search engine results page. The 140 characters should include a brief description of your site, as well as a "call to action" that will give people a reason to click on your listing, rather than the ones above or below.

Originally Posted by Andy OVERthinking again! Just come up with something short and sweet. Here's mine. You can see anyone's by simply using your browser and View>Source

Good to see someone else is overthinking things.

I noticed you (at Moon River Photography) have only five words not separated by commas in your "meta homepage keywords." Why so few words and why not separated by commas? Do we need different phrases separated by commas or will all of the words one could search for be separated by commas be just as good? Do we need to put in variations of keywords, such as, the singular version and plural version?

Originally Posted by Pure Energy I noticed you (at Moon River Photography) have only five words not separated by commas in your "meta homepage keywords." Why so few words and why not separated by commas? Do we need different phrases separated by commas or will all of the words one could search for be separated by commas be just as good? Do we need to put in variations of keywords, such as, the singular version and plural version?

Use comma separation as mentioned in the tool.
I'll let Andy know that he seems to be missing the commas on his site.

Less may be more - keep in mind that you can always tweak your keywords later on.

FYI, but Google hasn't used meta keywords (for ranking pages) in a long time although it continues to be brought up in SEO discussions. Need some proof? Here's what Google said about meta keywords in 2009:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogsp...-meta-tag.html

This was written back in 2009, but they probably stopped using meta keywords as far back as early to mid-00's. Yahoo was using them for a longer period of time, but they rarely (if ever) use them today.

Just trying to clean-up an old misconception. You're much better off (from an SEO perspective) by spending your time assigning keywords to your images.

Originally Posted by Pure Energy Good to see someone else is overthinking things. I noticed you (at Moon River Photography) have only five words not separated by commas in your "meta homepage keywords." Why so few words and why not separated by commas? Do we need different phrases separated by commas or will all of the words one could search for be separated by commas be just as good? Do we need to put in variations of keywords, such as, the singular version and plural version?