Description Updates - Does Google Index These?

Search bots are continually indexing the Interent and making updates. It might take days, weeks or months. You can give them a nudge by promoting it on social media.

Notice how when you search for "news" on Google, you are not given articles from 1984.

....

Also, why not consider the description as helpful to a buyer trying to make a purchase decision? Google is just software. A buyer is a human trying to decide if they should spend the money or not.

when google comes by, it probably takes everything. i think the more often you update, the more often it comes by. like if there is always new content it can grab. you shouldn't worry about google, you should be talking to the buyer, that's really what the descriptions are for. but google does take things. and the better descriptions usually rank a little bit better, in theory.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Yes, Philip. As said, they're here constantly

Thanks for the replies and comments, think I'm going to be busy over the coming weeks and months updating my descriptions! Ideally, I need to try and do a better job getting this information right at the upload stage, rather than revisiting and finishing it later.

I hadn't really thought about descriptions being of much importance to buyers, so will take that on board. In the meantime, I think my priority is just trying to get more visitors to actually see my photos, which is where I hope Google (and other internet bots) can help, in addition to any promotional posts by me on social media.

google doesn't really care about its about, it just needs to organize. the description is in place of you explaining stuff to people.

if you want more people, descriptions won't help, you have to promote the site, funnel them in with links.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Mike, agree that promoting with links / social media is important for getting more visitors, but rather than "descriptions won't help" for getting more people, I think they 'might help', IF my images and their descriptions could appear on the first few pages of a Google search (easier said than done!!). I would have thought some potential buyers start their image purchase search using Google etc, and as Google etc like content (content is king, I believe is the saying), better detailed and more informative descriptions would possibly help me climb a spot or two higher up the search listings, which in turn might help get a few more visitors to my work.

descriptions keep people on the page. that helps you in google by keeping them there, i think they call it retention. you'll more likely show up in images. but to be on the first page you would need a lot of links back to the site. or a very exact search phrase. i don't even look to see if i'm there or not.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

sometimes i type my name into google just to see what comes up as things that others type in. and sometimes the results are interesting.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Mike, yes, 'retention' thats a good point, think that helps with Google's 'bounce rate' analysis, eg, if your bounce rate is 'high', you go lower in the search, if your bounce rate is 'low', that helps get you a little higher in the search listings, like you say....a good description will help keep people longer when viewing work. I guess the more you start looking into these things, the more complicated it becomes, eg, so many different variables impacting on whether our work gets seen, or is unlikely to ever get seen!

some people just look at my work to read the descriptions.

the main points are:

1. create a nice picture that people would like to see and or buy.
2. give a good and or interesting title to make people look
3. give a description that describes what is going on it, how people should feel about it etc. get them to remember something in their childhood or something. for google it should answer a question, so it should be concise and to the point.
4. good keywords get people there, tells google what it is and how it should be used in context, which then goes back to the description, because one of the factors is how the keyword is used. like if you say car in the keywords, it wants to know what kind of car, is it a train car or something else?

there are over 200 different things google looks at, so i just go with the bare basics, talking to the customer.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Mike (and others above). Many thanks for your help and useful input on this post, appreciated.

"Think like a buyer, sell like a seller" - Edward Fielding, just one of the countless others.

I do believe good descriptions help get your image into the Google searches. I am fairly certain that updating the descriptions will eventually change the ranking but I also think there is a newness advantage in any search and it is better to get it right on upload. I also believe that a good description can make the difference between a sale or a buyer moving on. Sometimes the person buying is not sure if the photo is what they think it is and need assurance. This is especially true if it is a gift.
At one time my stock photo agency said that descriptions are important in getting in the Google search. They even said that the optimal amount at the time was 50 words. The descriptions are not even visible to the searcher anymore as they went with a cleaner look, But google still sees the descriptions and they still want them.

I attribute most of my success her to being found in the Google search. The fact that FAA is favored by Google helps, but so does the description. Last week I sold a large print. I haven't promoted the image in a long time. But Google is working for me 24/7. I doubt someone came here looking for a print of a cluster of lychee fruit on the tree. More likely thy found me in a search from a google search.
https://www.google.com/search?q=lychee+fruit+on+tree&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiZvKq9ruThAhVMRK0KHUt6C54Q_AUIDigB&biw=1586&bih=930

Bradford, thanks for your comments. Do you think that the 50 words guideline is about right for description length? I have noticed that some successful sellers here on FAA have relatively long descriptions, perhaps 2 or 3 paragraphs, so was thinking that 'more is better', not so sure now though.

I agree that getting descriptions right from the first upload makes most sense, as uploading, keywording and adding descriptions can be time consuming, so going back at a later date to re-edit is not ideal.

Getting Google to work for you 24/7 sounds perfect :-)

Here is my SEO primer - https://www.dogfordstudios.com/selling-art-search-engine-optimization-seo/

Google needs words and links. Words to provide context around the image and links to show the popularity of the page.

How to get quality back links - https://www.dogfordstudios.com/how-to-get-quality-back-links-for-seo/

Edward, thanks for the seo primer link, will have a look at that tomorrow (it's past 11pm in UK, so bedtime for me).