I write words and post pictures and they get stored in Google's big giant brain. The big giant brain is connected, wired and open to the entire world as we know it, except maybe for places like China where government forces the blocking of entire domains. Without net neutrality the same could happen here. It would just be corporations making those kinds of decisions. But I digress.
A lot of traffic comes to Outside Clyde now from image searches. A huge chunk of that, if not most is from outside the US, largely from Europe and a lot of the former Soviet republics. I do not tag or label any of my images. Another option I choose to ignore. The sitemeter gives me no indication of what search words are used for these image searches and most of the time will not let me back track to the actual image or particular post being viewed.
The googlebot has been visiting Outside Clyde a lot of late too. In some respects it is a bit odd that the googlebot would be searching the content of its own brain. Doesn't it already know what is stored in there?
I have to wonder how my unlabeled images are being tagged and sorted for image searches that are driving as much as 25% of the traffic to this blog. I have to wonder why so much of this image search traffic is foreign. I have to wonder what is the interest of these image search visitors and what are they doing once they get here. More often than not it is a single page visit.
All it takes is a right click and poor ethical standards and any image on any blog is yours for the taking to do with as you wish. That is one reason why I reduce all my images to 25% of the original. That size is certainly fine for use on the web, but it makes printing the image marginally worse for those people with poor ethics and high quality standards.
I also shrink the images because my stinking Hughes satellite ISP simply can't handle uploading a full size image. When e-mailing a full size image to my sister for her to print it can take several tries and much time and effort before it will go through. Larger size images also slows the loading of any site or blog that uses them. I do not want to be aggravated by my own blog being slow to load or only showing half loaded pictures.
I have other things to do.
I have long know that adding a snowmark to my images would add another layer of protection against the ethically challenged. It was another step in the process though. I like to avoid steps in the process.
Picasa of late had been forcing me to go past a page to down load their new photo editor to get to my photo page that holds all the pictures from the blog. I hardly ever go there since I do not use it as a social media site and the process is automatic and needs no input from me.
Out of curiosity I googled Picasa and watermarks and found the new Picasa photo editor would let me add one to my images. So yesterday night between 2 and 7 am when stinking Hughes satellite internet allows me to down load stuff without penalty, I got the new Picasa photo editor. I spent quite a bit of time exploring the new program and how to snowmark the images and get them posted with the least amount of steps in the process. I like to avoid steps in the process.
It works. Picasa even synchronized itself with my Kodak program or just runs along side it without interference and duplicates the filing work automatically as I download pictures from the camera using Kodak's filing system. The Picasa photo editor can talk to Blogger it seems, but Blogger can not talk to Picasa. I was looking for a possible way to add snowmarks to all of the archived pictures on Blogger that are stored in my Picasa photo albums. There does not appear to be an easy way to do that. Google get busy and fix that.
The main object though is to find the route with the least amount of steps for adding snowmarks to the images on the blog from now on. Right now that seems to require the use of both Kodak and Picasa photo editors because Picasa does not seem to want to let me save a smaller image in the editing process.
One day I may need to try and sell prints of the better pictures for some real money. If I don't get a job job or more clients that day could come sooner than my anticipated roadside possum stand of curios, extra produce and mountain herbs to supplement my meager govmint retirement check.
There is certainly no shortage of ways to do that on the web now if need be. The boon. It is best I try to maintain as much control of these images as possible in the mean time. The bane.
Added: I see the images in this post shrank from the normal posting size. They still open to the larger size when clicked. I think I know why. But for now I am going to go play with my tongue and groove ceiling....... Fixed. A little number change in the HTML code makes them bigger.
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7 comments:
I don't see the point of tagging either, since the words still show up on google searches.
I think most blogs get a lot of foreign traffic, but in my case anyway it's people with blogs or garden interests who happen to live in Europe.
It does seem ridiculous that people can just download pictures, etc -- is there a host service anywhere that doesn't allow that, I wonder? For now I just hope someone doesn't steal anything. I'd rather post pictures than host garden tours.
I love your pictures today, well everyday. The 4th one especially has so much intimacy and atmosphere.
Have you thought about monetizing the blog?
Long ago, my brother sold some images for calendars. I don't remember how much money it was but it probably wasn't much. With today's economy, it probably would be even less, but it is something to think about.
Sallysmom
I've thought for a long time that your photos had the post card quality to them.
Wishing you the BEST in whatever you choose to do.
Hi Christopher! It is amazing what one can do on the internet and scary too what some will do with the information. Your photos are spectacular and I know you could sell them if you so chose to do so. Good luck!
Hopefully this week will bring a reprieve to cold weather and more progress on the cozy cabin.
I recently considered selling some of my own photos, not so unlike your own. But, I spoke to a web hosting company about this. Apparently the pixel rating must be 10 or greater, and at full size mine are a mere 3.
With so many people out there carrying around digital cameras and posting photos of their own, who would buy mine or yours? Consider too that if someone did pay for a digital copy, they'd have to go through the expense of printing it out if they wanted wall art.
Anyway, I like your webpage, and I'll try to read more.
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