Google+ and Photo.net

[Stock-Photos]

<p>I find I'm visiting photo.net less and less these days. Although a great resource for photography answers and advice, it does not give me the same photo outlet experience I get at Google+, photo communities there etc.<br>

<a href="https://plus.google.com/104688579048759425474/posts">https://plus.google.com/104688579048759425474/posts</a></p>

<p>I'm not making this post to put down photo.net in any way. I'll continue my membership and continue to upload the photos I want to market via image search.</p>

<p>Every few weeks or months I get calls from people looking to by rights to one of my images, which are most often found via image search. Image search loves photo.net (when captions and key-words are accurate.) Last month I sold rights to my "FoxHill Yacht Club" photo, found on photo.net via image search.</p>

<p>I just felt like the CC forum would be a good place to start a discussion on this subject and see if Google+ is drawing anyone else's time & efforts away from photo.net. Also curious if others had ideas on how to make photo.net more engaging for us long-time members. Maybe the people behind the scenes at photo.net are working on changes?</p>

 

[starvy]

<p>I use Google+ exclusively for my business venture and it is a resource that allows for other people to connect with me. I am in the online legal publishing sector and the platform is great. I have had looked at the photography related groups but for a less able photographer like myself who doesn't have the quality of output to put on sale, Google is not for me. I use this site for different reasons. Love the classic camera forums. I take a lot of inspirations from the portraits and love interacting here. Lately, I am finding the facebook film photography and Leica group to be very busy as well. Although I find that some of the French people tend to be a little touchy if you point out that their expensive M240 shot doesn't quite have the same effect me.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>Image search loves photo.net (when captions and key-words are accurate.)</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Enter into Google Image search Faust Bridge new braunfels, tx and see if one of my images shows up.<br>

Oh what the heck, I'll do it for you...</p>

<p>http://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1298&bih=942&q=Faust+Bridge+new+braunfels+tx&oq=Faust+Bridge+new+braunfels+tx&gs_l=img.3...1482.7379.0.7662.29.10.0.19.19.0.131.999.7j3.10.0....0...1ac.1.19.img.odqGE0zlj08</p>

<p>Bupkis! </p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/photo/15120495</p>

<p>I don't know what other keyword or description to label that PN image link, but the only person that found it was an online TX Hill Country real estate agent who called me on the phone to say he found it through New Braunfels wiki gallery where I also uploaded it to and he wanted more of my images to display on his real estate website for free. I just didn't feel like complying. </p>

<p>You must have connections some where, J.</p>

[randrew1]

<p>I had never thought of marketing pictures through images searches. I do occasionally search on some of my images to see who else is using them. I've found some sites that link directly to one of my images on photo.net. I assume this happens frequently. When you post on Photo.net, what would you guess the ratio is between unauthorized use of your images and customers who contact you?</p>

[Doug Obert]

<p>How about I just type in, faust street bridge? <br>

Bingo! there it is and I didn't even need to scroll down looking for it.</p>

 

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>How about I just type in, faust street bridge? <br />Bingo! there it is and I didn't even need to scroll down looking for it.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I guess my point was lost on you, Doug.</p>

<p>Why do all those other "Faust Street Bridge" pics show up without entering "street"?</p>

<p>There's no consistency, rhyme or reason to the purpose of naming, tagging, keywording a ton of images in a gallery that don't show up because someone didn't enter the exact name.</p>

<p>I was exhausted after spending a lot of time and energy entering all those tags and names in my small number of gallery of images. Imagine having to do that on a gallery of over 50 images and then not have any show up because the wording isn't exact in a Google search.</p>

[Doug Obert]

<p>Not sure if I can explain it correctly or not Tim, but I'll try. Tags are good and lots of them are probably better. BUT, that's not how you "search". The words you typed in to your search brought up photos that had any and all of those words in them. If I want to find some pictures of the sun, I type in sun, nothing else. If I type in sun, solar system, universe....I'm going to get a lot of pictures that may or may not even have the "sun" in them. Hope that makes sense.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>BUT, that's not how you "search".</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Not concerned about how "I" search. I'm not the one that's going to be searching for my images.</p>

<p>I'm wanting those that are entering search terms for the Faust Bridge in New Braunfels, TX (<em>because maybe someone told them about it and they used that particular set of words to use to search by</em>) nonetheless I'm wanting my Faust Bridge image to show up with the others, <strong>but it doesn't.</strong></p>

<p>You have to use exact specific word grouping I used to name the PN image regardless of tags or keywords to get it to show up while the other Faust Bridge images didn't require that level of specific word grouping.</p>

<p>Hope I'm making sense to you.</p>

[adrianyaoi]

<p>My first post here:<br />Forum based photographic community like Pnet has a different function compare to social network community like G+<br>

Here, as in any forum based photo community, the posting are thread base, where as in G+ it is a seen as a feed/stream. There is too much going on in a stream for good in depth discussion of any photo related topic. It is easier to visually navigate a forum to look for topic of interest; something that we can't/don't normally do in social network community.<br /><br />But if we look at the over all trend, forum based photo community is like mom and dad brick and mortar photo store, and those social network community as the online store. Forum based photo communities need to progressive and chance with time or be a niche community to be visible and relevant.<br /><br />here are some highlighted different between this place and G+<br /><br />1. thread based posting vs. streaming<br>

2. less feature vs. tons of features<br>

3. less members vs. millions<br>

4. small storage space and small file size vs. unlimited storage of file below 2048 pix long and video of less than 15 min.<br /><br />and many others... </p>

[Doug Obert]

<p>We've kind of hijacked this thread with an off topic (I think) subject. I'd like to help Tim and learn more about tags myself. Perhaps you need to start a new one? Maybe others with more knowledge would chime in. FWIW "Faust Bridge" gets your image closer to the top in google image search. <br /></p>

[EricM]

<blockquote>

<p>"I don't know what other keyword or description to label that PN image link...."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Tim, the file caption name is poor for google search and shouldn't be "Faust Street Bridge-Guadalupe River Bank View-New Braunfels,Texas". To test, if you Google image search "Bridge-Guadalupe" you do indeed show up on the first page of <a href="https://www.google.ca/search?q=Bridge-Guadalupe&safe=off&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=dcTUUbCMGqquiQL-uYHoDQ&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1920&bih=1113">Google results</a>.</p>

<p>For better results, drop hyphen and change the caption name to shorter more specific "Faust Street Bridge New Braunfels Texas". Look at J. Harrington USA file naming for proper examples. I'd also remove irrelevant tags as Google is savy to being tricked and once the bots feel you're trying to add too much, it's easy to get ignored there after. If you can add text, like a conversation in the comment section below, that describes or includes the caption and the file name, that helps huge as well.</p>

<p>I love G+. It's the fastest growing social network and I'm pretty amazed at the direct contact with so many well known and established photographers. It's only a matter of time before every business has a G+ page as it helps with search and maps so well</p>

<p>Forums are a dead architecture, it's not just PN and it's not just photo forums. One of the many things that's working against PN is that it's suffering from curmudgeon syndrome. Seems the young and active have wandered off as too many grumpy old farts are pooping on every thread and making PN a Fight Club. I never have been able to figure out why PN brings out the worst in some folks. And now it seems the mods have taken a break as it's been some time since I've noticed a few of them post. Or do any much needed moderating.</p>

[kerrystratton]

<p>Only one problem with google+; it is run by google. Won't use anything made or created by gaggle if I don't have to.</p>

[EricM]

<p>It took a lot for me to cave, but now I'm the polar opposite Kerry. Their services direct a lot of work my way, to my bank account. And out of all the big tech companies (Apple, FB, and Microsoft), history has already proven that our data is safest with Google and least likely to be used against us. </p>

[GBarrington]

<p>I too like Google+, in fact, I like the entire Google experience. I'm not a pro, just a reasonably serious amateur photographer, and the truth is when you want to talk/read photography, Google + is a pretty good place to go. Like Photo.net, there are lots of GOOD photographers there, but instead of separating the photos from the ideas the way the traditionally run photos sites do it in galleries and forums, G+ sort of mixes them into an organic whole.<br /><br /> As far as cranky, curmudgeonly behavior of the users go, Photo.net is downright genteel compared to others!</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>To test, if you Google image search "Bridge-Guadalupe" you do indeed show up on the first page of <a href="https://www.google.ca/search?q=Bridge-Guadalupe&safe=off&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=dcTUUbCMGqquiQL-uYHoDQ&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1920&bih=1113" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Google results</a>.<br /> For better results, drop hyphen and change the caption name to shorter more specific "Faust Street Bridge New Braunfels Texas".</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Jeez! How could I have missed that?</p>

<p>Why can't I be smarter about naming my images? Why can't I anticipate and out smart how Google includes specific data in a search?</p>

<p>Thanks, Eric, for proving my point why Google searches are so non-intuitive for both photographers and their naming conventions and strategies AND for searchers who must decipher the proper word combination (like a combination lock) in order to have them haphazardly show up in a Google image search.</p>

<p>It's always easier to backward think a situation when you "KNOW" how everything works compared to watching people from the outset operate a technology who can never seem to "KNOW" enough on how it works from the get go. I think that dynamic is referred to as "Hindsight is 20/20".</p>

<p>You don't know how many Google instructions and tutorials I've read in order to properly name and tag my images to improve indexing results. Have you seen how many there are? It's bewildering! I also implemented naming/tagging conventions suggested here at PN over a year ago and that didn't work.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>FWIW "Faust Bridge" gets your image closer to the top in google image search.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Google caching and search history is your friend. Google helps you figure out what you're trying to find. That's why it showed for you and not me.</p>

<p>Wow! I do know some ways to out smart Google searches. I turned off my search history so Google wouldn't record my searches.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>I'd also remove irrelevant tags as Google is savy to being tricked and once the bots feel you're trying to add too much, it's easy to get ignored there after.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>And how do you know this, Eric? Have you talked to the engineers at Google or did you pick this up in one of those thousand or so Google Search Optimization tuts?</p>

<p>Am I pooping on you as an old curmudgeon asking such prying and specific questions?</p>

<p>Why do I get the feeling I'm fixing to be sent down another time wasting rabbit hole renaming, changing & dropping tags as was suggested to me over a year ago by other PN contributors. It didn't work on Flickr either. Took me all day trying to come up with the right tag or name that was relevant to the image as well as to Google's bots.</p>

[EricM]

<p>lol, no not all Tim!</p>

<p>I learned empirically. I read a few blog posts and noticed that image results are best when 1) the file name matches 2) the alt tag and is relevant to 3) the accompanying caption as well as 4) the surrounding text on the page</p>

[Stock-Photos]

<p>A few tips for getting photo.net images to do well with image search:</p>

<ul>

<li>Put related photos in a folder which is named with your targeted search term</li>

<li>Make other off-site pages link to your image pages & folder pages</li>

<li>request critique on your images and put relevant keywords in the request and your follow-ups</li>

<li>Use the ADD URL feature on search engines</li>

<li>Keep images in place for a long time....</li>

<li>I try to keep my folders limited to 20 images</li>

<li>Take full advantage of the tags feature on photo.net. Make the word photo one of your keywords.</li>

<li>Put your contact info on the images itself of you're looking to sell rights (otherwise you won't get contacted)</li>

<li>The black borders I put around my images makes them stand out among the other thumbnails in image search results.</li>

<li>Consider adding an external link on any Wikipedia page which my be about your photo subject</li>

</ul>

[gulfbeach47]

<p>I should probably start another thread on this, but what is the difference in Key Words and Tags? <br />Do Tags have to be one word? Ex: FaustStreetBridge instead of Faust Street Bridge? I have been combining the words in my Tags and dont see the pix showing up in Google or Yahoo searches, but my photo Title shows up in searches most of the time. <br /><br />Also, my combined tag words show up in the photo.net image tag search at photo.net but not sure what good that does if I am trying to get a photo out there on the web. Ex: <a href="/gallery/tag-search/search?query_string=perdidokeyphotographer">perdidokeyphotographer</a></p>