Are the image captions searchable ?
Will renaming them help with search engines ?

Does it make a difference or not ?

Nope. Nothing about your image is searchable except for the tags.

quote:

Originally posted by Teesed:
Nope. Nothing about your image is searchable except for the tags.

And the tags are only good for the CafePress marketplace, not external search engines.

The file name is displayed in your media basket only for your convenience. For display to the public it gets rendered as a lower quality jpg and stored in a completely separate file system from the original image. After you upload it you can't touch the original, and neither can any other external source. The file system stores the image using numbers, so no search engine help there. If you display externally stored images using HTML then you can use captions and file names to some advantage for external search engines. Not worth it for every design, but useful for promotions.

quote:

And the tags are only good for the CafePress marketplace, not external search engines.

Technically, but searches in the marketplace are what gets your product in front of a search engine and on places like my affiliate shops. I hard-code searches (that use the image tags) so that the search engines have something to follow. They then index the good stuff you've put in your product titles and descriptions, but the image tag got it started.

A little nitpicky, but that shows the importance of the tags outside of just the marketplace.

ok so no to image captions.
yes to image tags.

"Technically, but searches in the marketplace are what gets your product in front of a search engine and on places like my affiliate shops."

when i search Google for Montessori gifts then click Google shopping , i see cafe press items every where

LIKE THIS

can you break down the general process that leads to Google picking this up ?

in layman's terms

quote:

image captions

What is image captions??? i dun even have a clue what is that when i upload the images in the basket??? what is the captions actually for???

i may be wrong but i believe the products are pulled from a databade that is submitted to google - such as googlebase

quote:

can you break down the general process that leads to Google picking this up ?

in layman's terms

I'll try.

Let's pretend you've hopped aboard the Search Engine Express. Let's travel the tracks.

It goes to the CP front page. Look out the window and what do you see? Links to stuff. Let's look at one of them, the link to the wedding portal.

The link for that is http://shop.cafepress.com/weddinggifts

So, our little search-engine-who-could follows this link to the town of WeddedBliss. What do we see out the windows in this town? More links!

Some of the links are actual images of products. CafePress in this case actually provides a track (link) right to that product. Follow the image of the journal. On that page, there's the title and description for that product and our little engine stops and picks up those words and puts them into one of the rail cars to take back to Google Central Station.

Now, let's back the train up and go back to downtown WeddedBliss. There are other tracks that go through this town.

Let's follow the ones from one of the text links for the journals. This one takes us to a place where CafePress has filtered the products so that only journals appear. And, they've included only journals tagged with "wedding shower". You can see that in the search box.

From this little junction, we can split off to each of the product pages, or go down the "next page" path to our heart's content. All the time, picking up the terms on those pages and dumping them into one of our rail cars.

So let's pull over for a second. How did the conductor get to that junction and find those products? From the products CP pulled up from the image tags. If you have a design on a journal, and it's tagged "wedding shower", you have a chance of being found by the Search Engine.

Now, let's say your image is tagged "wedding shower" and the Search Engine finds it through this link. When it gets to your product page it finds that you've named the product "Journal" and you haven't put anything at all in the description. It does find the "Product Details" text put in by Cafepress. So, it scoops up the word "Journal" and "Scribble important stuff - lyrics, recipes, addresses, and more. Our Wire-O bound, 160 page journal is unlined and measures 5" x 8", a handy on-the-go size to fit in your backpack. Go creative and let the muse flow." and drops it in one of the rail cars with all of the other stuff it has found at CafePress.

Now, Diane has an outstanding Wedding Shower Journal, but she forgot to put the tags on the image, so CafePress doesn't even show it in the map of town. She has a great title and description, but no one knows the little wallflower exists because no one put her in the debutant directory.

Our little train goes back to Google Central Station and dumps all of what it's found into the hopper. The station manager, Al Gorithum, puts things into storage, waiting for a customer to come make a request.

One of the townsfolk in "GoingToTheChapelAndWereGonnaGetMarried" drives into town and asks Mr. Gorithum if he has any "wedding shower gifts like journals".

He goes into the warehouse and looks down the aisles, makes strange contortions, says some magic words, makes sure no one's looking and comes out with a pile of things matching "wedding shower gifts like journals" in order from those best matching to those least matching.

My journal, which is named "Wedding Shower Gift Journal" comes up third on the list because the title of the product is really close to what they were looking for. In the description, it also says its makes a good "gift" for "wedding showers" so that helps.

Your journal with a much better design is either not on the list, or 7,843rd on the list. Why? You named it "Journal" and the product description from CP doesn't include the words "wedding" "shower" or even "gift".

But we both tagged our designs and were found right next to each other on CP.

Worse yet, Diane's journal - which is hundreds times better than ours and would be the perfect journal for this person - isn't anywhere on the list because it wasn't there for the Search Engine to bring back.

The end.

So, image tags get you into CP's marketplace.

But, your titles and descriptions get your product found by someone searching Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.

However, if you don't tag, you won't even be picked up.

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This is why if you tag your image with a unique tag like "kalamazoo5678" to find it in the marketplace, you'll never find your products with that term in a Google search. CP doesn't show that term on the product page and neither do you, so it doesn't get put into the hopper with the other words.

Now, let's add that this is only the Search Engine that is going through the state of CafePress. There are other engines going other places. Your blog on blogspot.com, your CPShop-run site, an affiliate site like mine, etc.

You can even drive your own truckload of products to Google Central Station and dump them in the hopper via Google Base. In that case, if you want to add your keywords, you can manually put them in with each product and they'll all go into the warehouse with all of the other stuff Mr. Gorithum can find for the customer.

Teesed - great analogy!

i love the search engine story perhaps you should publish that ?

Title:
The Little Image Tag & It's mighty journey ?

entertaining and useful .
Thanks

Tessed - I'm reading that story to my kids for bed tomorrow night (That's meant as a compliment, btw. I didn't mean to imply that it would put them to sleep)