Google Image Search seems to pick up images nicely now

richpepp · September 6, 2013

This is really just for info. I created a site about 3 weeks ago and unveiled it just at the end of August. There aren't many images there (about 30) but we already have 14 of them showing up in under 2 weeks if I do a site:www.petermclarenfineart.com in google image search :clap. In the past I always worked on an estimate of months before anything showed so I am very happy indeed.

This doesn't mean that it will appear for the correct keywords or that it will appear before other peoples images of course but it does mean that google image search is picking up our images and indexing them.

For reference all I have done is turn off RCP and worked at getting some incoming links.

Now to work out what keywords they index for...

Edit: Even more interesting, the images that are there are all from the two pages that we worked on getting links to - ie. the home page and a cyclists page. There are no images from any other pages at the moment
Edit2: Seems to be picking up on the keywords in the captions 'eg. cyclist rainbow oil painting'. Seems like that bit is working well as well
Edit3: And 2 days later all the cyclist pictures disappear from image search again even though all the links are still out there. Not really a worry as I always expected it to take longer than this but interesting all the same

mrneutron · September 6, 2013

It can take weeks for Google to index your site. The best thing you can do is set your keywords, then drive traffic to your site.

See our help pages for SEO.

http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/84519-how-can-i-maximize-my-search-engine-relevance-
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93327-will-search-engines-find-my-smugmug-site-
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93337-how-can-customers-find-my-smugmug-site-market-yourself

richpepp · September 7, 2013

It can take weeks for Google to index your site. The best thing you can do is set your keywords, then drive traffic to your site.

Thanks for that mrneutron but I think you missed the point of my post. The point was that Google actually is indexing images and much faster than I had ever expected and we did it by driving trafffic to the site. When I set up my first site with smugmug years ago I think it was months before I started seeing images appearing. The recent site I only setup about a month ago and it was only unveiled with the custom domain 2 weeks ago. I am now seeing images using the custom domain in GIS 2 weeks later - it's fantastic

The second more important point was that it was done by using info. that you linked to. It is clear that having inbound links is important as at the moment the only images showing are those that we have inbound links for.

The other important point is captions. The photos can be found by using words from the captions. I don't know if keywords would have worked as well but I'm going to try that next.

However.... I confess that I deliberately used a theme with the 'journal' gallery style because that fully exposes all of the images at a decent size with the captions alongside. I'm not sure if the imaging would have happened at the same speed if I had to wait for Google to then spider down through the links to the other images although I'm sure it would have happened in the end.

So, this isn't a post complaining or asking for action. It is just there for info. for those who care about getting their images found. It gives an idea of the time involved and explains the actions we took to get found but doesn't prove that any one action was more important than another although I believe that they are all necessary. Finally it's encouragement for those who despair at being found in image search - it does actually work

Ok, I'm off to work out how to get links up somewhere for the other galleries...

edit: and if that sounded a bit rude then I apoligise. My intention was to congratulate smugmug and especially the heros for all of their replies rather than complain.

richpepp · September 24, 2013

And just for further info., for those that find this sort of thing interesting, it is clear after 6 weeks that both Google web search and Google image search are indexing the new site on the new smugmug. Google web search is much further ahead although it isn't complete. Google image search is up to 18 images (there aren't many on the site) but most interestingly we have only really been promoting two galleries on the web (one in my signature and one on another site) and all of the images from those two galleries are now in image search along with images from the home page and one other gallery but it is increasing daily.

Furthermore it looks as though Google Image Search is indexing both the captions that are visible but also the keywords which are hidden as I can search for both and find images.

Ok. I hope that is of some use to people who worry over web search. It is clear that it is functioning and google can find your images. However I would add that Google does need some text to go on e.g. if I search by keyword I also see other images from near the image with the keyword. Links are clearly important as that is what Google indexed first. Also I deliberatly used the Journal style as it exposes the captions for each photo in the gallery. I might try a test using a non journal style to see what happens.

Rich

mbonocore · September 25, 2013

richpepp wrote: »

And just for further info., for those that find this sort of thing interesting, it is clear after 6 weeks that both Google web search and Google image search are indexing the new site on the new smugmug. Google web search is much further ahead although it isn't complete. Google image search is up to 18 images (there aren't many on the site) but most interestingly we have only really been promoting two galleries on the web (one in my signature and one on another site) and all of the images from those two galleries are now in image search along with images from the home page and one other gallery but it is increasing daily.

Furthermore it looks as though Google Image Search is indexing both the captions that are visible but also the keywords which are hidden as I can search for both and find images.

Ok. I hope that is of some use to people who worry over web search. It is clear that it is functioning and google can find your images. However I would add that Google does need some text to go on e.g. if I search by keyword I also see other images from near the image with the keyword. Links are clearly important as that is what Google indexed first. Also I deliberatly used the Journal style as it exposes the captions for each photo in the gallery. I might try a test using a non journal style to see what happens.

Rich

Great info Rich! Thanks!

Google Image Search seems to pick up images nicely now

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