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Comparison of Image Sharing Sites for Potential SEO Benefit

Image Service Unique
HTML
TITLE		 H1 tag Tagging Options Optimized URLs IMG
ALT
text 		Text
Captions
on photo
pages 		Add external
link onto
photo page		 Photos can be Grouped
by Themes		 Allow users
to save favorites,
& display list on
public pages		 Allow user
comments on
photo page		 Provides
Image
Hosting		 PR # pages
indexed		 Other: Description
photobucket Yes - uses the file name, though No No Yes Yes No No Yes No No Yes 8 800k+   image hosting/sharing site
DropShots No No No No No Yes Yes No No No Yes 6 8k Framed photo pages kill SEO! image hosting/sharing site
Shutterfly No No No No No Yes No Yes No No No 8 68k AJAX is crappy for SEO! image hosting/sharing site
slide No No No No No No No Yes No No No 7 311k Flash-based, so not great for SEO. allows you to make slideshows/screensavers out of photos - a number of blogs/news services and sites like flickr & MySpace are already set up through here, so your photos could already be appearing here. Not really a photo sharing site, but a way of sharing your photos from elsewhere via a slideshow. Slideshow hosting site
PBase.com Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes 8 2.75 million Allows voting for images. image hosting/sharing site
Webshots Yes Yes, but H1 repeated- one on email text! No Yes No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes 8 11 million Allows any user to use the images on other sites. Has Facebook integration.  image hosting/sharing site
SmugMug Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes 8 5.35 million entire caption used as ALT text -- perhaps better if just picture title was used only. Also, entire caption appended onto TITLE -- too much text. image hosting/sharing site
MyPhotoAlbum Yes No Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes 8 147k image hosting/sharing site
PhotoSite No No No Yes No No No Yes Yes No Yes 8 514k image hosting/sharing site
Fotki Yes Yes, but implemented badly Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes 7 2.4 million image hosting/sharing site
dotPhoto Yes No No No Yes No No Yes No No Yes 7 130k Allows users to rate galleries. image hosting/sharing site
Phanfare No No No Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No Yes 6 11k Automatically sets up a unique third-level domain name for each user! Also provides RSS feed to update users when you add galleries/pix. image hosting/sharing site
Kodakgallery ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 0 10k Amazing that this venerable photography company has crappy SEO! Main page is redirecting, causing the homepage's PageRank to break. image hosting/sharing site
23 Yes Yes, but uses gallery title instead of indiv pic title Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes 7 489k Seems quite immitative of Flickr image hosting/sharing site
snapfish No No No No No Yes No Yes Yes No No 8 22k image hosting/sharing site
PictureTrail No Yes, but used twice on the page No No No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes 6 258k Provides option to disable right-click functions. image hosting/sharing site
eSnips Yes, but 2 sets of HEAD tags make nonoptimal No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes 5 305k Homepage redirects! Also bad: indiv photo pages have two sets of HEAD and BODY tags! image hosting/sharing site
flukiest Yes No Yes No No No No Yes No No No 5 11k image hosting/sharing site
Parazz No No Yes No No Yes No Yes No Yes Yes 5 4k Too much Flash/AJAX, though has XML/RSS image hosting/sharing site
PixPulse No No Yes Yes No Yes Yes No No Yes Yes 6 56k Allows users to vote on images. image hosting/sharing site
Riya ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 7 13k Bad: requires image uploader application, so I didn't test further true image search engine and hosting site
Ringo Yes Yes, but static, noncustomizable Yes No Yes Yes No Yes No Yes Yes 6 61k Integrates with MySpace easily image hosting/sharing site
MySpace.com No No No No No Yes Yes No No Yes Yes 8 19.4 million Not very valuable for image optimization due to lack of interlinking, but could still be valuable if you have optimized your MySpace profile, since users who come across your profile my browse your images and then click over to your monetized site, if you've linked the image title to your pages. social networking site
Facebook No Yes, but static, noncustomizable No No No Yes No Yes No Yes Yes 7 22k Has nice ability to associate people within an image with their facebook profiles -- this people-tagging function is very cool. social networking site
flickr Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes 9 29.3 million Great API allows for mashups and better distributions. image hosting/sharing site


Notes:

For "Optimized URLs", I counted them if they were not querystringed or if they are using mod/rewrite -- I didn't check for whether keywords are allowed/included in URLs - In a few cases, the TITLE was replicated in the URL for good keyword weight, but in most cases the URL is just a randomly assigned number.

For "PR", I just show the Google PageRank of the site's homepage.

For KodakGallery and Riya, both services required installation of their image loading software. Since I didn't want to load this software, I was unable to test their features for the chart. However, their PageRanks and # Pages Indexed were so low that they likely don't offer much that's worthwhile for optimization.

This comparison research was published in conjunction with a presentation on optimization through image sharing sites by Chris Silver Smith, presented at a number of conferences.

The Image Sharing Site SEO Comparison was provided courtesy of Argent Media, Dallas, Tx..

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