Adding keywords to images

I'm currently having the images on my site keyworded. For every image,
around 20 keywords are defined. Here is an example:

http://www.molon.de/galleries/China/.../img.php?pic=8

The keywording project has been going on since June and should be
completed by December, with all 8500 images of the site keyworded.

I used to show the keywords in a box below the image. Clicking on a
keyword would launch a search on the site for the keyword.

The problem is that instead of improving the search engine hits, the
keywords have apparently had a negative impact on the site's traffic.
It's as if Google was thinking I was trying to spam my way up the
rankings.

So in September I made the keywords invisible again (they are only
indexed by the internal search engine of the site - for demonstration
purposes I have reactivated temporarily the keywords of the Downtown
Guangzhou photo gallery).

What am I doing wrong and how to make Google index the keywords with no
search engine penalty for the site? The clickable keyword feature is
actually a very useful feature and I hated having to disable it.
--

Alfred Molon
http://www.molon.de - Photos of Asia, Africa and Europe

Alfred Molon <REMOVEalfred_molon (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote:

What am I doing wrong and how to make Google index the keywords with
no search engine penalty for the site? The clickable keyword feature
is actually a very useful feature and I hated having to disable it.

Use rel="nofollow" to tell Google you don't want to reward the endpoint
Use JavaScript to turn keywords into links
Use cloaking to hide the a element(s).

No idea which one works best.


Also, you might want to consider:

using:

http://www.molon.de/galleries/China/...ngzhou/Town/8/

instead of:

http://www.molon.de/galleries/China/...n/img.php?pic=
8

I recommend to 301 redirect the latter to the former, and internally
redirect the former to the php script (the loop avoiding is probably
easiest when you copy img.php as imgnew.php).

Also from SEO pov, I strongly suggest to replace:

08 Street with fruits shop

With something like:

<h1>Street with fruits shop</h1>
<div>photo #8</div> (maybe -->)
<p>
3-4 sentences with a description (2 is probably sufficient).
</p>

Also, very important, change the title to:

Street with fruits - China Guandong Downtown Guangzhou Photo Gallery

Don't stuff picture and jpeg into it.
Don't use 8, the title should be clear enough.

This order of words stops Google from putting all pages on the China
etc. stack.

Finally, previous image and next image is not good. Use a (short) title.
You might want to use:

previous next
< Fruit bats attacking a tourist Dog barking at the moon >

Or some similar navigation device. But be sure to put those (short)
titles there, as part of the anchor text.

--
John Need help with SEO? Get started with a SEO report of your site:

--> http://johnbokma.com/websitedesign/seo-expert-help.html

Thanks for the reply, John. I've fixed the title of the image pages (and
added a few new galleries in between). What about the keywords? Will
Google penalise the site if they are listed below the image, separated
by commas? I've also asked in webmasterworld.com and received no
definite answer there (people actually doubting that the keywords have a
negative impact).
--

Alfred Molon
http://www.molon.de - Photos of Asia, Africa and Europe

Alfred Molon <REMOVEalfred_molon (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote:

Thanks for the reply, John. I've fixed the title of the image pages (and
added a few new galleries in between). What about the keywords? Will
Google penalise the site if they are listed below the image, separated
by commas? I've also asked in webmasterworld.com and received no
definite answer there (people actually doubting that the keywords have a
negative impact).

Tags are very common, so I doubt it. Especially if you can add a short
description (2-3 sentences).

--
John Need help with SEO? Get started with a SEO report of your site:

--> http://johnbokma.com/websitedesign/seo-expert-help.html