Search…

X3 Photo Gallery Support Forums

Search…
 
User avatar
Joseph_balson
Experienced
Topic Author
Posts: 73
Joined: 08 Mar 2021, 05:35

Re: individual images SEO is terrible

14 Jun 2021, 06:28

mjau-mjau wrote: First of all, as noted earlier, it's likely Google is not finding the image pages, because click opens "popup". X3 actually has the link to the image page in the HREF tag of each popup link, and many years ago, Google would index the link. However, in modern days, Google simulates human behavior and therefore understands that "click" does not actually go to the image page (when popup is enabled).
I understand that, and maybe I benefited in some way from the old way of google to do things.
mjau-mjau wrote:There is really no "magic" solution to this. Should click go to a page that is emphasized for search engines (like Koken)? Or should it simply display the image in the most optimal way for humans (X3 popup)? There may be some ways to optimize for both worlds, although I will need to consider that for a future release.

For now, you can of course disable the POPUP, but let it be clear that X3's image "landing page" is VERY limited. It can perhaps be slightly customized (visual style), but this page is primarily generated for sharing and search, and not for humans. I can't get additional features and plugins working here without scheduling for an update.
I totally know there is no magic solution.
The popup is pretty and fast. The page is fast and not really pretty.
The only features I'd need on that page are a bigger image, possibility to view the full size photo (that could be a popup: it wouldn't matter here, and the plugins to work. 
mjau-mjau wrote:
Joseph_balson wrote:I was using koken automatic RSS to automatically post my photos on various big or small website with direct links to the image: I can't do it anymore, X3 rss is not about photos, and the atom format is not recognized by those websites. Therefore I lost my backlinks, making everything worse in google.
Yes this is likely indirectly related at some level, although it's unclear how much. Also worth noting, is that this would likely mean that you could keep "popup" since the image pages are linked to from elsewhere anyway (clearly indexed by Google).

This of course is a separate feature in itself, so I would need to consider it.
Well that would be nice, an Atom RSS is already being generated for pages.
Don't know how you could do it with images that are uploaded from lightroom (not the upload module in X3).
mjau-mjau wrote:With images in sitemap, it's likely you wouldn't need the popup disabled either, as the sitemap notifies Google about the images and their container pages.

I could perhaps create a custom script for this prior to any X3 update, if you want to try the effect?
Sure, I would really appreciate that.
Probably, although it wouldn't make a huge difference if the FILENAME used by X3 contains the search phrases wanted for the image. If it doesn't then yes it will have an impact, because the url should contain the search phrases you want for the image. Keep in mind, all this is related to the fact that Koken uses database, and also changes (and controls) the filenames of all your images (because they need to be managed by the database). Amongst other things, the database can then create and store abstract url's for each request, linked to each image. In X3, when a request comes in /path/some-file/, it will look for /page/some-file.jpg ... It can't relate an abstract path (for example from EXIF) unless all this (and images) are managed by database. All this would require a massive shift in how X3 works, using a database, and images and paths would not be physical, but controlled by database (like Koken).
Yes, I get that.
I'm not sure the majority of your customers would want to switch to a database managed X3.
I definitely would. But I already managed to somehow manage X3 in lightroom, and if all these tweaks allow my images to be indexed and served by google again, I can live without a database, even if it's a little less efficient.
mjau-mjau wrote:
Joseph_balson wrote:I keep gettings emails from my existing customers complaining about my website, and just asking me to do the search and send them the previews of the photos they want. 
As of now, X3 is fast, pretty, and in the end almost useless: the only new visitors I get are not potential customers, and my existing customers can't use it.
As you must understand, I can't attend to these complaints, as they are not from flaws or bugs in X3, but requirements from some specific users who are used to and expecting some specific website behavior that does not exist in X3. Yes I am open to new features in the future, but the above is not something that I can resolve for you in the short term.
I know it's not a bug or flaw from X3. There is very likely little you can do about a search feature, or a list of keywords / keywords in an image linking to all the other images containing that keyword. 
But if image search works again with the solutions you propose here, that would be huge progress for me.

What I can offer now:
I can create a custom script that adds all your images to sitemap. This will likely bypass the need to disable the popup, which really is not productive I think.

Next release:
- Keywords in image page
- RSS feeds for sharing on other websites

I can't quantify the value of the above, but all logic says that images should be available in search again. It's unclear how much SEO-effect the RSS sharing from other websites has, because it could be huge or very little (depending on the rank of the other websites). I doubt "keywords" has much effect being "visible" on the page, unless they are part of the search and NOT already part of the image name / url (in which case, it's redundant). Having image URL's generated from IPTC is useful, but only if they contain the search phrases, and only if they contain words not already in the file name / url. In other words, in X3, the file name is crucial to emphasize what searches the image may show up for.
That would be just great.

I don't really see how X3 could easily generate images URL from the EXIF: like the keywords to links thing it would require a HUGE amount of parsing.
I can work out a way to do it in Lightroom when I export to X3: using a combination of titles/description to generate a file name on the fly. In that case, what would be the limitations and best formatting for X3?

The process would be as an example:

photo file name: DSC_123456789.jpg
title: Small Tortoiseshell - Aglais urticae
description: butterfly on a flower

generated file name during LR export to X3 over SSHFS: butterfly-on-a-flower-small-tortoiseshell-aglais-urticae-2021-01-01.jpg

after the export, I'd likely have to click on some update button in X3 to generate the RSS / sitemap.
 
User avatar
mjau-mjau
X3 Wizard
Posts: 13993
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 03:37

Re: individual images SEO is terrible

15 Jun 2021, 00:51

Joseph_balson wrote:The only features I'd need on that page are a bigger image, possibility to view the full size photo (that could be a popup: it wouldn't matter here, and the plugins to work. 
Perhaps you will consider keeping the popup enabled after further tweaks. Or if you want to disable the popup for now, I think we can make it bigger and allow the popup to work from the image page on click.
Joseph_balson wrote:Well that would be nice, an Atom RSS is already being generated for pages.
Don't know how you could do it with images that are uploaded from lightroom (not the upload module in X3).
I'm not quite sure what you mean "an Atom RSS is already being generated for pages". You mean from Lightroom or another app? If we build/modify the RSS feed in X3, it would be "dynamic", eg. it would read images/data in the folder, regardless of how they were uploaded. I might want to look into this immediately, and it doesn't necessarily need to initially be part of an X3 release, but sitemap w/images first.
Joseph_balson wrote:
mjau-mjau wrote:With images in sitemap, it's likely you wouldn't need the popup disabled either, as the sitemap notifies Google about the images and their container pages. I could perhaps create a custom script for this prior to any X3 update, if you want to try the effect?
Sure, I would really appreciate that.
Give me until the end of the week please, and I will look into a separate script that can be run outside of X3. Sitemaps for an entire website that contain all images across all folders may be massive slow to create (we need to extract exif/iptc from each image also), but that shouldn't be a problem. I have the below reference from Google, and the only thing I am uncertain about, is how to populate "caption" vs "title".
https://developers.google.com/search/do ... e-sitemaps
Joseph_balson wrote:I can work out a way to do it in Lightroom when I export to X3: using a combination of titles/description to generate a file name on the fly. In that case, what would be the limitations and best formatting for X3?

The process would be as an example:

photo file name: DSC_123456789.jpg
title: Small Tortoiseshell - Aglais urticae
description: butterfly on a flower

generated file name during LR export to X3 over SSHFS: butterfly-on-a-flower-small-tortoiseshell-aglais-urticae-2021-01-01.jpg
That would work out nicely! There aren't really any limitations as long as names are url-friendly like the above, trying to avoid too many special characters like #$?'" that get encoded when in url's.
Joseph_balson wrote:after the export, I'd likely have to click on some update button in X3 to generate the RSS / sitemap.
When you upload/replace files in X3 from outside the X3 panel, all you need to do is login to the panel and click "save". Once that is done, cache will become invalid and pages will get re-created based on new data/files.
 
User avatar
Joseph_balson
Experienced
Topic Author
Posts: 73
Joined: 08 Mar 2021, 05:35

Re: individual images SEO is terrible

15 Jun 2021, 01:23

I actually already re enabled the popup. Anticipating your fixes will work.

I meant an atom RSS feed is currently generated but not for images. So there is a basis to generate an RSS2 feed including images. 

I guess like with the full sitemap, an intense parsing.would be required.
Title is the exif title, caption is the exif description.

So now I'm gonna wait for your fixes. Thanks for working on that, I really appreciate it.

one last question: EDIT: don't mind, your "sorta cart option" answers that need better.
in the popup, is it possible to add a link besides the top right icons for a "request licence quotation" form? or maybe in the popup caption thing at the bottom? That would kink to a "normal" page with a contact form, with a passed parameter for the image reference?Image
 
User avatar
Joseph_balson
Experienced
Topic Author
Posts: 73
Joined: 08 Mar 2021, 05:35

Re: individual images SEO is terrible

15 Jun 2021, 01:56

I can work out a way to do it in Lightroom when I export to X3: using a combination of titles/description to generate a file name on the fly. In that case, what would be the limitations and best formatting for X3?

The process would be as an example:

photo file name: DSC_123456789.jpg
title: Small Tortoiseshell - Aglais urticae
description: butterfly on a flower

generated file name during LR export to X3 over SSHFS: butterfly-on-a-flower-small-tortoiseshell-aglais-urticae-2021-01-01.jpg
That would work out nicely! There aren't really any limitations as long as names are url-friendly like the above, trying to avoid too many special characters like #$?'" that get encoded when in url's.
turns out I didn't find (yet) a way to do that properly. I can avoid special characters, but I can't replace ' ' with '-' in LR during the export.

would it work?

I did a test in an invisible album:
the file name exported in LR is  'a simple pretty wild flower-20210613-10-25-28.jpg'

X3 seems to generate this link for sharing : (base url)/a_simple_pretty_wild_flower-20210613-10-25-28/#pid=a%20simple%20pretty%20wild%20flower-20210613-10-25-28.jpg

this is the URL for the page with the image when popup is disabled: (base url)/a_simple_pretty_wild_flower-20210613-10-25-28/

and the filename in the <img> tag is 'a simple pretty wild flower-20210613-10-25-28.jpg'
 
User avatar
mjau-mjau
X3 Wizard
Posts: 13993
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 03:37

Re: individual images SEO is terrible

15 Jun 2021, 01:59

Ok, I'll get back to this thread later this week :thumbsup:
Joseph_balson wrote:one last question: EDIT: don't mind, your "sorta cart option" answers that need better.
in the popup, is it possible to add a link besides the top right icons for a "request licence quotation" form? or maybe in the popup caption thing at the bottom? That would kink to a "normal" page with a contact form, with a passed parameter for the image reference?
Yes it's possible to create a dynamic link in the caption. I'll write instructions later today.

I remember helping another user with something similar earlier, and we even included a preview of the specified image on the contact form destination.
 
User avatar
mjau-mjau
X3 Wizard
Posts: 13993
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 03:37

Re: individual images SEO is terrible

15 Jun 2021, 09:45

Joseph_balson wrote:or maybe in the popup caption thing at the bottom? That would kink to a "normal" page with a contact form, with a passed parameter for the image reference?
I'm not sure if you want to add such a link globally to ALL gallery popup images, or just for some galleries. Here are the outlines to add this feature to a single gallery:

1. Go to the page Settings > Gallery > Caption > Caption Defaults > Default image description, add add the below with [prepend] selected:
Code
<span style="display:block"><a href="/contact/?image={image_path}" class="button small">Request price</a></span>
Image
This creates the link-button in the popup that links to a contact page. You may need to adjust the href attribute and link text in the above.
Image

2. On your contact page (which could be any contact page you create), add the following to page Settings > Page > Advanced > Page javascript:
Code
var image = location.search.split('image=')[1];
var form = document.querySelector('.content .contactform');
if(image && form) {
  form.insertAdjacentHTML('beforebegin', '<a href="' + image + '" class="popup x3-style-frame" style="margin-bottom: 2rem; display: block"><img src="' + image + '"></a>');
  form.insertAdjacentHTML('afterbegin', '<input type="hidden" name="image" value="' + image + '">');
}
It injects the specified image into the contact form page, and also adds a reference to the image in a hidden input field, which then gets forwarded by email when the contact form is submitted.
Image
Room for lots of adjustments of course, but that's the zest.
 
User avatar
Joseph_balson
Experienced
Topic Author
Posts: 73
Joined: 08 Mar 2021, 05:35

Re: individual images SEO is terrible

15 Jun 2021, 11:47

Thank you that is just perfect!
 
User avatar
Joseph_balson
Experienced
Topic Author
Posts: 73
Joined: 08 Mar 2021, 05:35

Re: individual images SEO is terrible

15 Jun 2021, 12:35

seems it's not working on the photos that are using the fotomoto plugin
 
User avatar
mjau-mjau
X3 Wizard
Posts: 13993
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 03:37

Re: individual images SEO is terrible

15 Jun 2021, 14:00

You mean you have it working for another gallery that doesn't use Fotomoto? Do you have a link? I need to see the context ... 
 
User avatar
Joseph_balson
Experienced
Topic Author
Posts: 73
Joined: 08 Mar 2021, 05:35

Re: individual images SEO is terrible

15 Jun 2021, 14:31

sure:

I kept one gallery with fotomoto: https://www.joseph-balson.com/Albums/Awards/ Only the fotomoto link works, the new quotation link doesn't show up.

any other gallery has fotomoto disabled: the new link for quotation works.
 
User avatar
mjau-mjau
X3 Wizard
Posts: 13993
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 03:37

Re: individual images SEO is terrible

16 Jun 2021, 01:08

I must admit, it's a bit hard to diagnose from here exactly why it's not working for the Fotomoto page ... It could be the Fotomoto plugin hi-jacks the description, or description somehow is disabled. You can try to move the template code from DESCRIPTION up to TITLE instead and set "append":
Image
 
User avatar
Joseph_balson
Experienced
Topic Author
Posts: 73
Joined: 08 Mar 2021, 05:35

Re: individual images SEO is terrible

16 Jun 2021, 01:40

that works, but it's really ugly.
I reverted back to putting that button in image description, maybe you'll find a fix later. Right now I can live with that.
 
User avatar
mjau-mjau
X3 Wizard
Posts: 13993
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 03:37

Re: individual images SEO is terrible

16 Jun 2021, 02:51

Ugly in what way? It can be formatted of course to suit intentions. As with all custom fixes, they are not tested solutions so I can't consider the outcome for all scenarios / combinations. We can keep it like this for now. If you want me to look into buttons also when Fotomoto is enabled, perhaps you can offer me panel login so I can test various scenarios.
 
User avatar
Joseph_balson
Experienced
Topic Author
Posts: 73
Joined: 08 Mar 2021, 05:35

Re: individual images SEO is terrible

16 Jun 2021, 03:16

It's just those two buttons together don't look good. Since the fotomoto thing  wasn't any priority for me anyways, it can wait. When my photos are indexed again in  google, maybe I'll think of the print option. Not my priority: licencing is.

The formatting of the captions is what it is for now: title, description, button, date, exifs, and sooner or later keywords. I wish I understood more the philosophy behind your css to adjust fonts size weight color and add br or hr.
 
User avatar
mjau-mjau
X3 Wizard
Posts: 13993
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 03:37

Re: individual images SEO is terrible

16 Jun 2021, 04:28

Joseph_balson wrote:The formatting of the captions is what it is for now: title, description, button, date, exifs, and sooner or later keywords. I wish I understood more the philosophy behind your css to adjust fonts size weight color and add br or hr.
There's not much hocus pocus. Basically all items, including buttons, will simply display on one new line. We don't use <br> (line-breaks), although they can be part of titles/descriptions if you added them. One item (like description) may of course break into multiple lines internally. Font-size is 16 px, except 17px for main title, to make it stand out a little more. Of course, if you have multiple "buttons", that could easily look less appealing or cluttered ... In my example above, one could of course style the link so that it's a simple text-link instead of a button, but you still need to consider how all items play alongside each other in a popup caption.

All items have a "popup-caption-{item}" class, so that they can easily be customized with custom CSS. In the code offered, I simply made it a button (to stand out), inside a <span> tag set to "block" so that it consumes one row, and doesn't flow into the row of another item.