getting images on Google Images

I have what I think is a pretty good picture of the Pensacola Lighthouse and have posted it here and on my website but it doesn't show up on Google Images search. What makes images show up there? Jeff

A quick Google search and you could have found this.

James

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Originally Posted by JamesV

A quick Google search and you could have found this.

James

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Thanks for the quick response. I read it but do not understand what they are saying, Jeff

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Originally Posted by Grandpaw

I read it but do not understand what they are saying, Jeff

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Well it looks like Google should be your friend to help you with the things that you don't understand.

James

Jeff, do you maintain your own website, or is it done for you by a service company?
You just need to do what google said, add the sitemap code to your website.
That helps google find things but shouldn't be necessary.

This is an SEO - "search engine optimization" - question and would probably be a better fit on the business forum since it's really a sales strategy issue. And to some extent, SEO is a black art. The only people who really know how Google works are the Google engineers. The basic rule is that the more sites that link to your page/photo, the higher it will be ranked. Your photo actually being a good image has nothing to do with it if no one is linking to it. So the best thing you can do is share your photo a lot - via links from other sites to the photo page here on the gallery. I do that all the time with my own photos and others I like on the site. I share links on our Facebook page and my through my Twitter account. Part of the reason I do it is just to so the photos get more attention. But it's also good for Google indexing.

Another tip I heard a photographer talking about on a podcast was to give your images a descriptive name. For example if you leave your photos with the name the camera gives your photos such as img_0145.jpg, nobody knows what that is. If you name the image Pensacola_Lighthouse.jpg it will help the search engines find that image.

Paul, Smugmug maintains the site. I'm thinking that I wouldn't want Google getting access to my photos on my site anyway do to the fact they are high res. pictures. I need to figure out how to link to the photos in my gallery here so only low res. pictures would be available. PJ, told me what to do if I can figure out how to accomplish that. Thanks everyone for your replies and help, Jeff