Thanks for taking the time with the stats. Indeed in your case, this seems to be rather unsatisfactory. Slightly new to me, as I haven't earlier come across anyone with such volumes of image-search results or such a dependency on image search results. Based on the info gathered, I think it comes down to a few things:
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).
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.
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.
Joseph_balson wrote:I also noticed the sitemap generated by X3 doesn't list each image. It was in koken. Don't know what effect it can have.
Just a note on this again. 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?
Joseph_balson wrote:X3 uses the filename to create a page for a photo. Koken was using the exifs title or description if no title, or keywords if no title or description: I'm pretty sure that helped the SEO.
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).
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.
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.