Google search takes viewers to keyword virtual gallery, but I have keywords hidden

boyersmileboyersmile Registered Users Posts: 41 Big grins
edited June 23, 2010 in SmugMug Support
I've been paying a little more attention to my site lately, so I've been running into a few problems. I've noticed that my stats through statcounter show hits coming to a virtual keyword gallery, specifically, keyword/mlb. Here is a screenshot from my statcounter visitor path:
55629772-L.jpg
As it turns out mlb are my initials. I have my camera set to make the filename mlb_01234.

Anyway, I notice that people will do a google search for "Miles Boyer". Google gives this link as a result: http://boyersmile.smugmug.com/keyword/mlb

This shows a virtual keyword gallery with all pictures taken with my camera that creates this filename. In other words, all my pictures have automatically been given the keyword "mlb". That shouldn't be a big deal, because I don't have a keyword search listed anywhere on my site. Users normally wouldn't be able to see these keyword galleries. Unfortunately google can see them, and it leads those searches to a jumbled up gallery with all those keywords. As I look through my stats, I can see that it takes a while for people to finally make it back to my homepage by clicking on my banner. I would much rather them see that right off the bat rather than after seeing an unorganized keyword gallery.

The strange thing is, I had a hard time recreating what other viewers were seeing. I tried several times this morning to do a google search for "miles boyer". I repeatedly ended up with a link to http://boyersmile.smugmug.com. (homepage- not keyword gallery). When I deleted all my cookies, I did the same search and found the same link that other viewers were seeing (taking them to the keyword gallery). If I visit my homepage at boyersmile.smugmug.com, and later do the same search for "miles boyer", I get the correct link straight to my homepage. I didn't realize that google would alter my search results depending on my cookies.

I realize that we might not have much control over what google does, but I assumed that since I don't make a keyword search available on my site, viewers wouldn't be able to see these virtual keyword galleries. Since smugmug automatically adds the "mlb" keyword I may have to find a way to work around this. I'm guessing that smugmug doesn't pay attention to the typical "DSC_01234" filenames, but it does pick up on other atypical filenames.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions for me. Is this a bug, or just the way it works. I guess I could find some kind of workaround to disable these automatically generated keyword galleries. I'm open to ideas. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Miles

Comments

  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited February 8, 2006
    boyersmile wrote:

    Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions for me. Is this a bug, or just the way it works. I guess I could find some kind of workaround to disable these automatically generated keyword galleries. I'm open to ideas. Any help would be appreciated.

    Thanks,
    Miles

    It's not a bug. Google gets everywhere. You can remove all your keywords, or remove the mlb prefix from your file names.

    http://www.smugmug.com/help/keywords-tags
  • boyersmileboyersmile Registered Users Posts: 41 Big grins
    edited February 8, 2006
    Well- I did go ahead and remove the "mlb" keywords from all my photos. I guess I'll have to do this every day since I post at least one new photo each day. I may temporarily repost one picture with this tag with instructions to go to my homepage until google crawls over my site again.

    I'm still curious why google chose this keyword over any of the others that I have entered. I don't think it was my most popular keyword, but it certainly was the newest. I wonder if it will continue to pick up on other keywords, or take people straight to my homepage.

    The only other thing that I can think of is that the phrase "miles boyer" was never found on my site prior to me registering my domain name a few weeks ago. Prior to that, I had remained somewhat anonymous. I only listed "boyersmile" on my site. Maybe google still sees this as a new page, so it isn't indexing it correctly. Or maybe I don't know anything at all.ne_nau.gif

    I'm still open to any other suggestions or workarounds.

    Thanks,
    Miles Boyer
  • smugmug seo guysmugmug seo guy Registered Users Posts: 10 Big grins
    edited June 23, 2010
    Google finds content through links, so there only needs to be one link to your keyword page for Google to find it. That link may be hidden in code, or linked from http://www.smugmug.com/keyword/. Hard to know why Google ranked you for this keyword, but like Andy says - the best approach is to create filenames using words that describe the image (perhaps using words you want to rank for). I also HIGHLY recommend using free Google Analytics for stats, plus Google Webmaster Tools (photographers always forget this one). With these you can easily see where you are ranked (for any term, even the ones you don't think up to go look for) and how many visitors are coming in through those keyword searches to your site. If nobody is visiting based on those keywords, then it is no problem that you rank for them.

    [edited] Doh - just saw this post was from 2006! No need for me to respond... sorry about that.
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