SEO problem: Pictures are not indexed by Google

vFranky · March 10th, 2010, 11:14 AM

Hello,

I have over 1000 pictures in my PhotoPost gallery. Over 700 pages are indexed by Google (site:domainname.com) but only three pictures!

Why? The solution is simple: While the url translation in the newest PhotoPost version seems to work fine, an watermarked image (medium size) in my PhotoPlog gallery is always adressed like this -->

Code:

Content visible to verified customers only.

I think, Google don't love such urls, because they contain no information about the image and all "images" have a very similar name.

What can I do to get my images indexed?
Any idea?

Thank you in advance.

Regards,
Frank

vFranky · March 10th, 2010, 11:21 AM

Sorry, it seems I have found the answer by myself --> Enable on-the-fly image protection (This option uses the watermark.php script to serve images)

Right?

Why would anyone like to use this image protection?

Chuck S · March 10th, 2010, 12:12 PM

Well that is an option because alot of users want to actually hide there images so people can not rip them off.

vFranky · March 10th, 2010, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuck S

Well that is an option because alot of users want to actually hide there images so people can not rip them off.

"Hide" from the search engines? Because you can easily save such images with right mouse "save as".

Chuck S · March 10th, 2010, 01:13 PM

Not really there is an option for that as well disable right click.

vFranky · March 11th, 2010, 02:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuck S

Not really there is an option for that as well disable right click.

Chuck, PhotoPost is a very complex product.

Chuck S · March 11th, 2010, 08:31 AM

Yeah well it has everything but the kitchen sink. We do include our customers suggestions so there is that whole image protection system where you can use watermark.php to serve images you can disable right click you can move the data directory below the webroot etc. Now obviously as you found out not everything is going to work well with google persay altough I dont work for google so I cant say why. The page if you use SEO feature should have unique titles meta data etc so I dont see why how the displayed image is shown would make that much of a difference but anyway.

Halfhidden · March 11th, 2010, 03:02 PM

My next version of Photopost is going to have the kitchen sink

Chuck this is a relevant question for this thread so instead of opening a new one I thought I would ask here if that's ok.
My pictures are being indexed by Google by I have noticed that the url's are wrong. If you follow Google's link for your picture you end up in a different place within the gallery. However, If the picture is within Vbulletin the url is correct.
Is Photopost creating dynamic urls? and if so how can I improve this for Google please.
Thanks.... I'm still enjoying the honeymoon syndrome of this truly awesome software

Chuck S · March 11th, 2010, 03:20 PM

You would have to give an example of what you actually mean here as our links to pictures should not be incorrect

Halfhidden · March 11th, 2010, 03:58 PM

Yep, that's fully understandable.
Here's a url of the search results for Google. I was searching for Lescudjack Penzance and one of our gallery pictures came up in the search:
lescudjack penzance - Google Search

The picture you need to click on from the results is Lescudjack_197038.jpg
100 x 65 - 3k - jpg
picturepenzance.co.uk. It's a small picture but the link does not take you to the correct category. When you click on the picture it takes you to our gallery but to the following category: Home » Member » Chill » St Just and Pendeen
The actual category for the picture should be: Home » Schools » Lescudjack School » Lescudjack School 1970s. Page 6 actually contains the same picture as Google.
I've seen this once before when dynamic ulr's were to blame.
Any ideas?
This seems to be the case will all Google indexed pictures

Chuck S · March 11th, 2010, 04:06 PM

How is the result wrong?

Google Images

Halfhidden · March 11th, 2010, 04:09 PM

Well I had expected the result to be in the relevant category rather than in a members category that has nothing what so ever to do with the picture.
Because we have about 19,000 pictures the person who found the image on Google would still have to search our site to find that image.

Chuck S · March 11th, 2010, 04:13 PM

well knowing what google is doing would help but I would suspect google might be indexing maybe featured photo block or something showing on your showphoto page and associating it with the image url the photo is on.

Chuck S · March 11th, 2010, 04:17 PM

Maybe in the pp-inc.php file in the get_thumbtmpl function add the code in bold maybe that helps

Code:

Content visible to verified customers only.

Halfhidden · March 11th, 2010, 04:19 PM

Uhm, ok I can understand that. I know that neither of us have any control, let alone information over Google so all I was trying to establish was that if there was something that I could do about this that all well and fine.
Clearly you are happy that this is not a problem or misconfiguration of Photopost so I'm happy to live with this and let Google do it's magic, even if I don't fully understand the desired results.
Thanks again Chuck!
Have a good evening

Halfhidden · March 11th, 2010, 04:20 PM

Thanks Chuck... I'll give that a go as well

Chuck S · March 11th, 2010, 04:20 PM

Well you can try what I posted. I am no google magician as I dont know what they do or how they do it.

Halfhidden · March 11th, 2010, 04:24 PM

Nor me Chuck, nor me! but if we did $$$$

Thanks

Chuck S · March 11th, 2010, 04:28 PM

No problem if they do the image because there is an active link to a photo the nofollow rel should fix it

taylorpiano · June 21st, 2012, 09:55 AM

On that note

... why when I do a Google Image search from other places I have uploaded my photos, all those same images I have uploaded to our website don't come up. Google image search has found numerous images of mine on other websites including Facebook. So it would be nice to find out if someone else has also posted that same image or other member's images again to our vast database of photos to our contest website.

I'm also thinking if the photo side of our website isn't indexed by Google, then that effects our Google ranking?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuck S

Well that is an option because alot of users want to actually hide there images so people can not rip them off.