Anyone using Zenfolio or Photoshelter?

<p>I have a website at sacredartichoke.com that I am reworking to turn into a site where people can order directly from the site and have prints shipped from White House Custom Color (my preferred favorite at this point, but I'm not locked in to them), Mpix, or similar. <br /><br />At the moment, I have looked at Photoshelter and Zenfolio. Photoshelter is what I'm leaning towards, but I wonder if any of you have any thoughts or experience with this sort of thing.</p>

<p>I have been with Zenfolio for years now and I find them reliable and powerful. I love being able to set my prices and profits and all that stuff. The main reason I went with Zenfolio was because they will cut you a check when you want or apply money in your "account" with them to the hosting. They cost about $10 per month for the level of service I have, and I am quite happy with it. I also love their Flash slide show tool, which you can see I have used at my sites - www.sbkart.com and www.fairylandforests.com - I have my sites hosted with ixwebhosting.com, because no system lets you build exactly what I want. I used their system for my main site for the first few months, but I am a Web designer from way back, and I decided I wanted more control over how my site worked and looks. I have NO experience with Photoshelter. Presumably you want to use your own domain with a Web site building tool, no matter who you go with. You will have to pay WAY more than Zenfolio charges, if you do, because Photoshelter only gives you the ability to host your own domain name if you get their second level of service, which costs $360 per year ($30 per month). That is expensive. Zenfolio lets you have unlimited images up to 25 megabytes each (mine are usually about 3 or 4 megabytes). I am using more space than the basic account at Photoshelter provides, so I would be at that $30 per month level. I don't pay anywhere near that. I also like all the special products you can sell through Zenfolio too. Just check out my Fairyland Forests site and see all the products you can order under "Merchandise", when you go to the prints section. http://www.fairylandforests.com</p>

<p>I've been with Photoshelter for a number of years and have nothing but good things to say. One of the things I like most is the nearly seamless design integration with my own web site domain. If you go to my web site subject or location galleries and see the word 'Archive' in the banner, you'll be on the PhotoShelter part of my site. The same if you use the search bar. Any other part of the site is my own domain. There's definitely an advantage to having your own domain in conjunction, as opposed to having all incoming traffic, (and SEO) going straight in through a .photoshelter or .zenfolio domain.</p>

<p>I too have been using Photoshelter for years and have nothing but praise for their product and customer support. For me one of the great advantages is that it automatically uses all of the IPTC and EXIF meta data that I have added to the image file to put on my portfolio website - so no need to duplicate or cut & paste. I use the order system to notify me so that I can produce my own prints and canvases and work with the customers, but there is also a selection if you want to outsource production.</p>

<p>I am very content with Zenfolio. It's easy to use and customize and I receive a lot of compliments on my site (ricmarderimagery.com). I set up private folders for my clients within minutes, and they can view and download whatever they need quickly.<br /> <br /> Lots of print options including newly added books.<br /> <br /> Highly recommended. Here's a code to save $5 if you like... YM2-K2M-7FR<br>

<br /> Good luck with whatever you choose.</p>

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<p>I am very interested in starting a Zenfolio account based on the recommendations here. I already have my own domains and hosting accounts elsewhere. If you could suggest an SEO-appropriate way to maintain all SEO benefits to my domain, I would appreciate any help.</p>

<p>I guess my question is, should I point a sub-domain from my domain (which is hosted at an external hosting provider) to re-direct to "custom.zenfolio.com" using a CNAME record, or use an 'A' record, and point to Zenfolio's IP address (64.62.158.18) as directed in their "How to set-up a custom domain" instructions? Again, my goal is to retain all SEO benefits to my domain, not Zenfolio's. Thanks!</p>

<p>This photographer wrote an article regarding SEO vis-a-vis, Zenfolio. Doesn't sound good.</p>

<p>http://blog.chipjonesphotography.com/commentary/zenfolio-seo/#.Uli8rmR4Yto</p>

<p>It always seemed to me that Photoshelter was always a couple of notches above Zenfolio or SmugMug. Am I right on that?</p>

<p>If you use Zenfolio you are obligated to also use Paypal for your payment processing.</p>

<p>Hey John,</p>

<p>PayPal a good thing or bad?</p>

<p>I have been using Zenfolio for years and it works perfectly. I really love the integration with Lightroom which makes it very easy for me to upload and track orders and what I have local or up in Zenfolio. Cheap, integrates well with my website.</p>

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<p>I will be following this thread closely! I have been thinking about using zenfolio- currently using smugmug pro, but definitely not set in stone. </p>

<p>Ralph, you are asking for something that is impossible. SEO depends on the page URL. You will have many many pages at Zenfolio. Their addresses will not be duplicated if you switch to another system. Thus, you CAN NOT retain "SEO benefits" that exist in a site at a particular service provider's system, whether that be Zenfolio, Photoshelter, Smug Mug, Red Ball, or some other system. Only an extremely expensive custom solution can give you such control, but custom solutions change over time too, thereby causing loss of SEO benefits anyway. Links get stale. Pages get stale. A good example of how sites deteriorate is to just look at some of the older Web sites. Some have been kept up to date, and some have been neglected. Those that are neglected get traffic, but the traffic often does not stick, while the little traffic that the maintained Web sites get is much stickier. There are trade-offs in everything.</p>