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

Originally Posted by Baldy

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!

Originally Posted by 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

[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!

-J

[jberd126]

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

-J

[onethumb]

Originally Posted by jberd126

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.

Originally Posted by onethumb

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.

Originally Posted by onethumb

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.
-J

[4thinker]

Originally Posted by onethumb

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]

Originally Posted by 4thinker

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]

Originally Posted by 4thinker

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]

Originally Posted by onethumb

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]

Originally Posted by Baldy

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

I tried changing my username on Friday. It's now Sunday evening and you can view my pictures at both http://oldusername.smugmug.com and 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]

Originally Posted by Baldy

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]

Originally Posted by 4thinker

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]

Originally Posted by 4thinker

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

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]

Originally Posted by 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."