Referral Link Not Found - Google Analytics

jachang · April 17, 2010

I am using Google analytics, and when I look at the Traffic Sources report, then referring sites, it says images.google.com with 11 visits noted. Then I click that, and get "referral path" = /imgres
I click that and I get the option to view the referring link. When I try to view it, it says, "Google error 404 Not found. Requested URL was not found on this server."

I'm concerned because I see that the source is images.google.com. You may have seen my other posts whining that my website has hundreds of photos, but NONE of them can be found using Google Image Search.

Any idea of what this all means?

Thanks,

richpepp · April 18, 2010

Hi again Jean
I was hoping that you wouldn't have to put up with my guesses again but as it looks as though no-one else is going to answer so I'll see what I can do.

If you go to google images and click on one of your images then you will see a copy of one of your webpages. If you take a look at the URL in the address bar it will look something like this: "http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.jeanachang.com/an....."

The whole of the URL is the referral URL but the but after the question mark is actually 'dynamic' and the bit before is the permanent part which is all that Google is storing I believe. ie. When you ask for webpage http://images.google.com/imgres Google actually also expects the question mark and the reference to the image that it has stored. As analytics hasn't stored that information, when you go to images.google.com/imgres Google says that the page doesn't exist as it hasn't been asked for a specific image.

This doesn't really bother you as the important part is that the referral came from images.google.com. The 404 stuff isn't a problem at all. If you got a referral from a different site (that isn't a search engine) then you should get a full referral link that points to the page that pointed to you.

Does that all make sense?

Again if anyone knows if that is wrong then please correct me

Rich

jachang · April 18, 2010

richpepp wrote:

Hi again Jean
I was hoping that you wouldn't have to put up with my guesses again but as it looks as though no-one else is going to answer so I'll see what I can do.

If you go to google images and click on one of your images then you will see a copy of one of your webpages. If you take a look at the URL in the address bar it will look something like this: "http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.jeanachang.com/an....."

The whole of the URL is the referral URL but the but after the question mark is actually 'dynamic' and the bit before is the permanent part which is all that Google is storing I believe. ie. When you ask for webpage http://images.google.com/imgres Google actually also expects the question mark and the reference to the image that it has stored. As analytics hasn't stored that information, when you go to images.google.com/imgres Google says that the page doesn't exist as it hasn't been asked for a specific image.

This doesn't really bother you as the important part is that the referral came from images.google.com. The 404 stuff isn't a problem at all. If you got a referral from a different site (that isn't a search engine) then you should get a full referral link that points to the page that pointed to you.

Does that all make sense?

Again if anyone knows if that is wrong then please correct me

Rich

Hi Rich,

Thank you for answering! I can always count on you for help, it seems.<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/iloveyou.gif" border="0" alt="" >

>>If you go to google images and click on one of your images...<<
But that's the problem--I don't see any of my images on Google images. I have searched through hundreds of pages, and they just are not there. I wish I could find out which images these people are finding, because I sure haven't found any.

Yes, if I get a referral link, I can trace it back. It's the Google Images that have been my nemisis. The only images of mine that I can find on Google are a couple from Flickr. Nothing at all from SM. It's really frustrating. <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/ne_nau.gif" border="0" alt="" >

Thank you so much for your help!!

Jean

richpepp · April 19, 2010

jachang wrote:

I don't see any of my images on Google images. I have searched through hundreds of pages, and they just are not there.

It looks as though there are only four there at the moment but it appears to be going back up as it was only two last week.

I wish I could find out which images these people are finding, because I sure haven't found any.

In Analytics on the page that you were looking at to get the /imgref stuff, change the pull down box from 'Referral path' to 'Landing Page' and you will see the images that they got to.

The only images of mine that I can find on Google are a couple from Flickr. Nothing at all from SM. It's really frustrating.

This stuff is horrible but the good news is that Google IS indexing your site and the number of pages that says it has indexed for you is going up all the time. For some reason though it doesn't want to put your images into the Image search rather than just the web search. It doesn't look as though there is anything technically wrong with your site, rather you need to continue doing what you are doing which is to work on making your site more interesting to visitors. ie. the keywords which you have done, the gallery blurb which you have done but could expand a bit maybe and the blog which you have just started. Google needs words and links in and out to get clues as to whether your stuff is any good or not. So....

Don't worry too much about whether your site is good technically

Keep your blog going (as Denise said). Try to tell us a bit about what is going on either in the photography or the birds. Put your picture a little higher on the page if possible. Google say that they check blogs more often than regular sites.

Put a bit more text in the gallery descriptions if you can. Think about words that people might search for and get them on the page.

Link in from your Flickr pages if you are getting visitors there

Add relevant links out from your gallery pages if there is something interesting to link to.

and that's it. If you look at the images in image search for Andy's site they are nearly all either from his blog or from galleries with a lot of text on the page (usually in the comments).

good luck

Rich

jachang · April 19, 2010

Hi Rich,

It looks as though there are only four there at the moment but it appears to be going back up as it was only two last week.

Yes, that's true, but a week ago there were TEN! Also, those are all images that come up based on my website name, not on image content. In other words, if you searched on one of the keywords or titles to those images, none would come up.

In Analytics on the page that you were looking at to get the /imgref stuff, change the pull down box from 'Referral path' to 'Landing Page' and you will see the images that they got to.

Nope, darn it. I tried that, and when I click on the landing page for those /imgref things, I still get the 404 errors.

Keep your blog going (as Denise said). Try to tell us a bit about what is going on either in the photography or the birds. Put your picture a little higher on the page if possible. Google say that they check blogs more often than regular sites.

Yes, I'm going to try and keep that up a little better. When you say put my picture higher on the page, do you mean the picture of me or the picture of the bird? I don't know how I can get it any higher without it going into the header.

Link in from your Flickr pages if you are getting visitors there

I didn't know how to do this, except to include my website address under the image on Flickr. Is there a way to make a direct link if they click on an image there?

If you look at the images in image search for Andy's site they are nearly all either from his blog or from galleries with a lot of text on the page (usually in the comments).

Actually, I did check out his galleries, and many of them only have a few words in the description. For example: "Andy > Galleries > Moab - Arches - Oct 2008 Dgrin's Shootout in 2008" or "Andy > Galleries > Street Photography Street Photography by Moon River Photography, Andy Williams". I don't think those are any more descriptive than mine. I'll keep working on it, though, and try to add even more.

I guess the thing that I keep noticing the most is that if you do an image search on an object--say, the name of a bird or a place--whatever, lots of images come up, but they're never from SmugMug. They're from Picasa, Flickr, etc., never SM. I know there are tons of those same images on SM sites, but they don't show up in the image search. If they do, they must be way down at the end of the pages, because I look through several pages and don't find any. There must be something different going on with Flickr and Picasa and others if the images are found there but not on SmugMug. It's a real mystery to me.

Rich, as always, I really appreciate your detailed responses. I hope things start looking up for my site (and for others with this same problem) soon.

Thanks,

Jean

richpepp · April 20, 2010

jachang wrote:

Yes, that's true, but a week ago there were TEN!

Yes, but a week ago google did one of their updates (quarterly I think) and a lot of images dropped out including a lot of ours but they are coming back slowly now and we are now showing more than before but it takes time.

Also, those are all images that come up based on my website name, not on image content

Yes, but what I've found (but may be wrong) is that image search only returns searches for keywords from among the images that it already has stored for you that you can find with the site: search. So if I search for 'Eastern Khatlon' I only find a subset of the photos that it has indexed for me, not all of my photos with those keywords. Therefore finding out how many images it has indexed for you is useful.

If you want keyword search to find images then you need to get more images indexed and Google says you do that by making your pages more interesting to Google.

when I click on the landing page for those /imgref things, I still get the 404 errors

If you've switched to Landing Page there aren't any more /imgres links so I'm not sure what you are clicking on. If you are copying and pasting them into your address bar it won't work as you need to add your address. So for example one of our landing pages is '/Nepal/2008/Nepal-08-Livelihoods-and-Water/5421233_dWwij' but we need to add 'photos.miseast.org' in front to make it work.

When you say put my picture higher on the page, do you mean the picture of me or the picture of the bird? I don't know how I can get it any higher without it going into the header.

The most recent watercolour is good as it is as high up the page as you can manage. However you haven't used Denise's instructions to link the photo to smumug rather than just embedding it straight in blogspot. Other than that, great.

I didn't know how to do this, except to include my website address under the image on Flickr. Is there a way to make a direct link if they click on an image there?

I don't think that you can make a direct link and I haven't seen your photos there but the same rules apply for putting a link under the photo. Describe the picture nicely and link directly to a relevant gallery on your smugmug pages rather than your home page and use a nice link e.g. more of my watercolour paintings of flowers

Actually, I did check out his galleries, and many of them only have a few words in the description.

Yep, true. I don't fully understand except to say that description is only one of an awful lot of factors and most of Andy's galleries also have a lot of comments on the gallery at the bottom of the page. Descriptions, links, comments, everything helps.

I guess the thing that I keep noticing the most is that if you do an image search on an object--say, the name of a bird or a place--whatever, lots of images come up, but they're never from SmugMug. They're from Picasa, Flickr, etc., never SM.

Flickr had a pagerank of 9, your site has 2. For common keywords where there isn't any other differentiating factor then the Flickr will win. You can make that differentiating factor with your descriptions, links and keywords. So, for example, Flickr has lots of images of Khatlon but we make the first page of image search and they don't, probably because of relevance but who knows. The point is that it isn't an automatic win for them.

I hope things start looking up for my site (and for others with this same problem) soon.

Me too. None of this is obvious but neither is there any magic button to press unfortunately. Google continually stress that the key to appearing in the rankings is to be relevant and the way to do that is to describe and have relevant links in and relevant links out. So the better your descriptions and better the links the happier they will be with you. Google doesn't seem to have picked up on your blog yet but keep at it (maybe add it to webmaster tools if that is possible, I don't know if it is).

Have you added any links out yet? Moonriver may not have any but they also have a pagerank of 5 so they have a head start on you. Pagerank isn't everything but it helps. As a minimum link to your blog but linking to sites relevant to the birds might be good as well.

Good luck

Rich

ps. usual disclaimer - this is just what I have seen, read and experienced. It may all be a big misunderstanding and there may actually be a magic button

jachang · April 20, 2010

Hi Rich,

First of all, let me tell you that I appreciate all your help more than I can say. I know it takes time to write all the helpful advice you've given, and I truly am grateful to you for that. I'll try and not keep up any further on debating my findability, as I am sure you're probably tired of hearing it, but I do thank you from the bottom of my heart.

If you want keyword search to find images then you need to get more images indexed and Google says you do that by making your pages more interesting to Google.

Well, I have only a few images on Flickr, and they are the same images I have on SM, just a whole lot less of them. I think I have 73 on Flickr and over 300 on SM. So these same images are more interesting if they're on Flickr rather than SmugMug? Doesn't seem to make sense.

Yes, but what I've found (but may be wrong) is that image search only returns searches for keywords from among the images that it already has stored for you that you can find with the site: search. So if I search for 'Eastern Khatlon' I only find a subset of the photos that it has indexed for me, not all of my photos with those keywords. Therefore finding out how many images it has indexed for you is useful.

Yes, but they are still using the site name, not the descriptive keywords. For instance, if I take one of the four photos I find by going to my site search, then entering any or all of the keywords for that particular photo, it is not found. Even if I narrow the search to only searching my domain, it is not found. It is only discovered by my domain name, not by any of the info in the gallery or keywords. Type in a Google search: site:www.jeanachang.com and click image search. Okay, four photos come up. Now, click the first one--my drawing of my daughter. That brings you to my home page. BUT... now do an image search on any of the keywords for that particular image "Liane" "graphite" "pencil" "portrait", and you get a ton of images--none of them mine. Then go to advanced search, and limit the search just to my domain. Nothing. There are no images with any of those words. Maybe that's because the only image it's showing is just that teeny thumbnail? At any rate, the image search does me no good, because if someone wanted to search on "graphite pencil portrait", none of mine are going to come up unless they already know my website. Well...I take that back. If they do a web search, tons of pages come up, just nothing on image search. Someone on Digital Grin referred to this site a while back, so I tried it. Here is the link http://websitegrader.com/site/www.jeanachang.com but I don't know if you can see it or if you have to sign in as me. At any rate, they said they only found 27 images for me on an image search. They say I have 374 pages indexed, though. I'm not sure how valid their data is, though. They said they found a blog for me, but they put my SM url for the link to it. How else can I see how many images are indexed?

If you've switched to Landing Page there aren't any more /imgres links so I'm not sure what you are clicking on. If you are copying and pasting them into your address bar it won't work as you need to add your address. So for example one of our landing pages is '/Nepal/2008/Nepal-08-Livelihoods-and-Water/5421233_dWwij' but we need to add 'photos.miseast.org' in front to make it work.

Yes, I did that. Twelve of the google image searches land on my home page, so they must be searching by my name or site name, not the name of an image.

The most recent watercolour is good as it is as high up the page as you can manage. However you haven't used Denise's instructions to link the photo to smumug rather than just embedding it straight in blogspot. Other than that, great.

Well, it's actually colored pencil

, but no matter. I didn't use Denise's instructions because I just threw it onto the blog quickly last night just to get SOMETHING there. I'm going to fix it, though.

I don't think that you can make a direct link and I haven't seen your photos there but the same rules apply for putting a link under the photo. Describe the picture nicely and link directly to a relevant gallery on your smugmug pages rather than your home page and use a nice link e.g. more of my watercolour paintings of flowers

Okay, I'll try and pretty up my Flickr stuff, but it still seems pretty pitiful that we have to rely on a free service to get our images noticed when our paid service doesn't even show up. :cry

Flickr had a pagerank of 9, your site has 2. For common keywords where there isn't any other differentiating factor then the Flickr will win. You can make that differentiating factor with your descriptions, links and keywords. So, for example, Flickr has lots of images of Khatlon but we make the first page of image search and they don't, probably because of relevance but who knows. The point is that it isn't an automatic win for them.

But aren't we talking apples and oranges here? Flickr's page rank is 9, and SmugMug's page rank is 7. But MY site at Flickr has a page rank of zero, and on SM it's a 2, so for my images at least, you'd think the ones on SM would show up before the ones on Flickr.

Have you added any links out yet? Moonriver may not have any but they also have a pagerank of 5 so they have a head start on you. Pagerank isn't everything but it helps. As a minimum link to your blog but linking to sites relevant to the birds might be good as well.

Interesting you should ask! I just got the e-mail (below) this morning. I don't know whether it's the answer to my prayers or a total nightmare. On first glance it sounds nice to exchange links, but I see the e-mail starts by saying "My name is Tammy Smith", but it's signed by Megan Stuart. I looked at the site, and I can see where it could be relevant, since it's about bees, but how do I know if these people are legit? Also, how do I add a link to their site on my site? Where do I put it and how do I do it? This is the e-mail:

Hi,
My name is Tammy Smith and I'm an online marketing consultant. I've just
visited your website jeanachang.com and I was wondering if you'd be
interested in exchanging links with my client's websites. I can offer
you links back from my similar websites.
Your link will be placed here:

http://mypestcontrolblog.com/

If you are interested please add the following information to your
website and kindly let me know when it´s ready and I will do the same
for you.

My Information is:
Title: Bee Removal
Please link the title to this URL: http://www.beeremovalspecialist.com/

Please let me know when my link is ready and send me the information of
your site (title and URL and short description) to add your site too.
By doing that we will both gain visibility in our mutual referencing on
search engines such as google, yahoo etc?.
I hope you have a nice day and thank you for your time,

Megan Stuart
Webmaster

PD: I really wouldn't like this email to be considered as spam, since
I'll try not to contact you again with the same request, but in case
you feel annoyed by this kind of requests and want to make sure neither
me or anyone from my team contacts you again with a similar petition,
you can just write to stop@stopemails.info or register at
http://www.stopemails.info/ That way we'll add you to our email
filters. Thanks for the attention (and sorry if I disturbed you).

Okay, that's it. I'm sorry this is so long! Thanks again for your help.

richpepp · April 20, 2010

Hi Jean

It's always great to hear as I'm still working this stuff out as well. I'll see if there is anything I can add.

jachang wrote:

So these same images are more interesting if they're on Flickr rather than SmugMug? Doesn't seem to make sense

Nope, it doesn't make any sense

Yes, but they are still using the site name, not the descriptive keywords.

As you spotted, the images that are being picked up at the moment are the thumbnails from your home page rather than the deeper galleries which is probably why the keywords don't work yet. This is another reason for linking to specific galleries rather than your home page.

BUT... now do an image search on any of the keywords for that particular image "Liane" "graphite" "pencil" "portrait", and you get a ton of images--none of them mine.

Yep, probably because that image that it has comes from your home page and there aren't keywords next to it. Do the exact same search in standard web search though and you are right at the top

. ie. Google knows the image is there and knows all of the keywords around it, it just doesn't rate it highly enough to stick it in the image index as well (yet!)

Yes, I did that. Twelve of the google image searches land on my home page, so they must be searching by my name or site name, not the name of an image.

It's probably just me

But aren't we talking apples and oranges here? Flickr's page rank is 9, and SmugMug's page rank is 7. But MY site at Flickr has a page rank of zero, and on SM it's a 2, so for my images at least, you'd think the ones on SM would show up before the ones on Flickr.

Not actually correct. Your site at Flickr doesn't have a rank of zero, rather it isn't rated which is different (I'm guessing as I don't know your site there but it seems true of most Flickr sites). This simply means that your individual galleries within Flickr don't have their own personal rating. Smugmug has a PR of 7 but you are using a custom domain so I imagine that Google doesn't see you as smugmug (which is the point of having a custom domain). Therefore you are starting with a PR of 2.

Interesting you should ask! I just got the e-mail (below) this morning. I don't know whether it's the answer to my prayers or a total nightmare.

Personally I would steer clear. It might be legit but given the blog has only been running for 5 days and was created by a Peruvian SEO company that probably knows nothing about bees I probably wouldn't in this case. Just start with linking in from Flickr and your blog and linking out to relevant sites. If possible add your blog to your webmaster tools as that may persuade Google to look at it faster.

I found one of your Flickr photos of a ruby throated humingbird and saw the link you put there which was to your homepage. Can I suggest that you change it to something like more of my photos of ruby throated hummingbirds. You get the idea, you are linking from a page about hummingbirds TO a page about hummingbirds using a link that says hummingbirds.

Okay, that's it. I'm sorry this is so long

No worries, really. I feel for you that this just isn't working yet

. I keep hoping that someone who knows a little more about this might pipe up

Rich

ps. I'm actually quite enjoying nosing round all the photos so thanks

jachang · April 20, 2010

Hi Rich,

Do the exact same search in standard web search though and you are right at the top . ie. Google knows the image is there and knows all of the keywords around it, it just doesn't rate it highly enough to stick it in the image index as well (yet!)

Yes, I sure have no complaints with web search. Just about everything on my site comes up on the first page.

Personally I would steer clear. It might be legit but given the blog has only been running for 5 days and was created by a Peruvian SEO company that probably knows nothing about bees I probably wouldn't in this case.

Now, how in the world were you able to find that out? That's the kind of info I was looking for, but didn't know where to start.

I found one of your Flickr photos of a ruby throated humingbird and saw the link you put there which was to your homepage. Can I suggest that you change it to something like more of my photos of ruby throated hummingbirds. You get the idea, you are linking from a page about hummingbirds TO a page about hummingbirds using a link that says hummingbirds.

Ah! Great idea! I have a lot of housekeeping I have to do all over my site. At least I do have links to my site all over my blog. I just have to get the blog more interesting. Strange, though, that it's only been up since Sunday, and I'm getting a lot of traffic from it.

ps. I'm actually quite enjoying nosing round all the photos so thanks

Gee, thanks! I'm glad someone out there is enjoying my site.

Well, thanks again. I'm off to fix my Flickr pages.

Referral Link Not Found - Google Analytics

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