many folks who are setting up sym sites appear to be new to webhosting, so here's a reminder that one of the best tools available is free from google:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home

it shows traffic, who links to you, indexes, let you submit pages & images directly, etc, etc

also useful are the crawl errors which show pages that aren't working, and the optimization area shows problems with metadata like missing titles, short cdesc, etc, etc

Nice tip. Thanks.

I have been using the tools for about 2 weeks now.  I have noticed that the indexing of pages and images takes a loooong time.  I have had my sitemap up since day one, but only 50% of my pages and <10% of my images have been indexed.  I am in the process of redoing my key words to see if that makes a difference.

Any suggestions?

Quote from: cascoly on May 14, 2013, 20:52
many folks who are setting up sym sites appear to be new to webhosting, so here's a reminder that one of the best tools available is free from google:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home

it shows traffic, who links to you, indexes, let you submit pages & images directly, etc, etc

also useful are the crawl errors which show pages that aren't working, and the optimization area shows problems with metadata like missing titles, short cdesc, etc, etc

It might be good to hear what various people have for results. I haven't even looked at  my highly neglected www.clipartillustrations.com, but I will get back to you on that.

This latest version as much more packed into its SEO, utilizing a number of things to promote your images on the machine level. Also thanks to Microstockman I've also got another method integrated, which will also help your images get not only indexed but found by specialty services as well.

It will be interesting to see the results before and after 2.2.x upgrade.  I will keep you posted.

Quote from: quailrunphoto on May 25, 2013, 01:01
I have been using the tools for about 2 weeks now.  I have noticed that the indexing of pages and images takes a loooong time.  I have had my sitemap up since day one, but only 50% of my pages and <10% of my images have been indexed.  I am in the process of redoing my key words to see if that makes a difference.

Any suggestions?

Quote from: cascoly on May 14, 2013, 20:52
many folks who are setting up sym sites appear to be new to webhosting, so here's a reminder that one of the best tools available is free from google:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home

it shows traffic, who links to you, indexes, let you submit pages & images directly, etc, etc

also useful are the crawl errors which show pages that aren't working, and the optimization area shows problems with metadata like missing titles, short cdesc, etc, etc

it seems to take at least a week, but good news is once you are indexed google is fast to pick upchanges; bad news is not everything you submit is indexed,  and images are really tough to get indexed - 10% is about best I've gotten with image site maps.  one comment has been that our images don't get indexed if google already has them thru stock atencies - I've found many of my images high on googlw images, but usually from an agency

also, the numbers for sitemaps and health index don't always quite add up - not really anything to worry about

Thanks for the advise.  I will stop worrying so much about it but continue to monitor.  Just my OCD kicking in.   

don't worry, it just needs some time, forget about it and check in a week

Quote from: plrang on May 26, 2013, 00:20
don't worry, it just needs some time, forget about it and check in a week

the MOST important thing is to submit a sitemap of some kind -- my indexed pages went from a few to almost 2000 after submitting the sitemap

I installed "Google XML Sitemaps" plugin to generate my sitemap, it work fine with Symbiostock so far, added my sitemap to webmaster tools yesterday, submitted 296 get indexed 161 today. 

I am using Google webtools and seem to remember somehow linking the Yoast SEO sitemap and google

Quote from: Tinny on May 30, 2013, 08:43
I am using Google webtools and seem to remember somehow linking the Yoast SEO sitemap and google

yoast produces a bunch of sitemaps  -- in webtools just go to optimization/sitemaps and submit each of them

Anyone know if there a way in webtools or google analytics to track the traffic to and from the Symbiostock network?

Any way to track search words that are both filled and not filled on the Network?

Quote from: grsphoto on June 03, 2013, 19:30
Anyone know if there a way in webtools or google analytics to track the traffic to and from the Symbiostock network?

Any way to track search words that are both filled and not filled on the Network?

By default you can see "source" traffic, with a list of sources. That includes your network sites.

Search words? There are of course "landing keywords".

Symbiostock might do best with its own internal analytics, but it will have to be shared or I'm wasting my time . I could probably implement it in a day when I feel bored.

I can use javascript to append a referal variable to the links to your site on-click. (For SEO reasons we do not want this a part of the URL in the page).

Then we can build up a simple analytic system of incoming and outgoing traffic, as well as keyword specific stuff.

Quote from: grsphoto on June 03, 2013, 19:30
Anyone know if there a way in webtools or google analytics to track the traffic to and from the Symbiostock network?

Any way to track search words that are both filled and not filled on the Network?

you can do it in analytics but I prefer webmaster tools

try traffic/search queries to get a list of the most popular ways people are seeing your site in google results (also shows how far down the pages you're showing up)

'links to your site' shows some really impressive traffic being generated by other symbio sites


soon there will be a log of searches that are done -- from this you'll be able to see what keywords are used on each site and which other sites were returned

from this we can create network graphs like http://moviegalaxies.com/movies/513-The-Lord-of-the-Rings:-The-Return-of-the-King  (sorry, this doesn't work with ie10)  where we can show which hubs are generating, which receiving most traffic, etc.  collecting the data is the main hassle, once that's done, it will be available for anyone to work over as they want.

Quote from: cascoly on May 26, 2013, 04:25

Quote from: plrang on May 26, 2013, 00:20
don't worry, it just needs some time, forget about it and check in a week

the MOST important thing is to submit a sitemap of some kind -- my indexed pages went from a few to almost 2000 after submitting the sitemap

I created a site map but it only shows my pages, not my images. Cant find the setting on the plugin to include image pages, any ideas? I am using http://www.arnebrachhold.de/projects/wordpress-plugins/google-xml-sitemaps-generator/

cheers

The yoast SEO plug-in as well as other cool things, creates and Maintains site maps... I think this is the best in class plug-in for SEO

I agree - yoast is the best I've found.  most sitemap generators don't create image sitemaps

another good sitemap generator is from Wonder