Advice for using AdSense (profitably!) on photo pages

I'm adding photos with commentary, but still worried

[ThatAdamGuy]

Hi there,

After using a mishmash of formats to showcase my photos, I've realized that I need to move up a notch and use a more professional program to facilitate the display of lots of cool photos I've been waiting to showcase.

Right now, I'm deciding between two programs -- Exhibit Engine and PhotoPost -- both of which have their strong points.

However, I'm particularly concerned (especially with Exhibit Engine) that the huge database-driven URLs will be completely incompatible with AdSense. In other words, I fear that even if I include thoughtful titles and commentary with my photos, AdSense is unlikely to put any paying ads on the pages :(.

Here, for instance, is a URL (with hostname anonymized) from Exhibit Engine:

theirsite.com/gallery/photo.php?photo=231&exhibition=2&offset=84&varlist=a%3A15%3A%7Bi%3A0%3Bs%3A1%3A%220%22%3Bi%3A1%3Bs%3A31%3A%22ee_order_to_exhibition.ee_order%22%3Bi%3A2%3Bs%3A4%3A%22DESC%22%3Bi%3A3%3Bs%3A20%3A%22ee_photo.ee_photo_id%22%3Bi%3A4%3Bs%3A0%3A%22%22%3Bi%3A5%3Bs%3A1%3A%221%22%3Bi%3A6%3Bs%3A6%3A%22thumbs%22%3Bi%3A7%3Bs%3A2%3A%2285%22%3Bi%3A8%3Bs%3A6%3A%22public%22%3Bi%3A9%3Bs%3A7%3A%22default%22%3Bi%3A10%3Bs%3A1%3A%222%22%3Bi%3A11%3Bs%3A2%3A%2210%22%3Bi%3A12%3Bs%3A1%3A%220%22%3Bi%3A13%3Bs%3A1%3A%220%22%3Bi%3A14%3Bs%3A1%3A%220%22%3B%7D&lang=eng

ACK!

Can anyone offer and advice or reassurance? I know that if I manually put all my photos up, on URLs like this:

mysite.com/photography/europe/germany/heidelberg_castle.jpg

that I'd likely get some AdSense ads about photography or Europe or Germany or travel or castles, etc.

But I just can't justify adding hundreds of photos manually, complete with thumbnails, extracted IPTC info, search routines, etc.

Anyway, I thank you very much in advance for your advice on how I can best get my photo gallery to be compatible with AdSense. I anticipate a lot of page views, and don't wish to count AdSense out!

[CPCretirement]

I use Photopost on a few websites and Gallery on another. Both seem to be able to display targeted ads just fine.

If you would like to see examples send me a sticky mail for urls.

[ThatAdamGuy]

Well, I've learned pretty conclusively that Google unsurprisingly does NOT like long (database-driven) URLs like the one I noted above. I've begged the author of the photo gallery software (Exhibit Engine) to please use shorter URLs, but he's quite reluctant to implement cookies :(

Anyway, right now I'm getting only ads related to the NAME of my site (which would be like the movie review site RottenTomatoes getting ads for produce or grocery services <sigh>.

More details in this thread [webmasterworld.com].

[europeforvisitors]

Something else to consider is how much text is on the page. No matter how you're serving up your photos, if your picture of the Eiffel Tower has a five- or ten-word caption that merely says "Eiffel Tower in Paris," you're probably going to attract more schoolchildren and picture fans than travelers who will click on ads for Paris hotels, tours, etc. (assuming that your five- or ten-word caption for the Eiffel Tower in Paris results in such ads). If you want a photo gallery to bring in targeted ads and profitable traffic, writing text is likely to take more time than laying out photo pages--which means that photo-gallery software will be the least of your worries.

For what it's worth, I use a simple homemade Microsoft FrontPage template for my photo pages and serve up the pages as HTML "flat files." (I don't use FP's photo-gallery template, which is quick and easy but not at all Google-friendly.) And I tend to spend a lot of time writing text, compared to the time I spend dropping in photos and linking the pages together.

[edited by: europeforvisitors at 3:29 pm (utc) on Jan. 5, 2004]

[bcolflesh]

I've begged the author of the photo gallery software to please use shorter URLs

That's not his problem - you can rewrite them yourself - check:

httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_rewrite.html
httpd.apache.org/docs/misc/rewriteguide.html

and the numerous rewrite threads here in WW.

[ThatAdamGuy]

EFV, you raise an excellent point! You're absolutely right that -- for AdSense purposes (and other reasons -- thoughtful commentary is incredibly important. But even that would be for naught with the URLs like the insanely huge one I detailed above.

Indeed, bcolflesh, even using mod rewrite would not begin to help here. it'd simply change this:

theirsite.com/gallery/photo.php?photo=231&exhibition=2&offset=84&varlist=a%3A15%3A%7Bi%3A0%3Bs%3A1%3A%220%22%3Bi%3A1%3Bs%3A31%3A%22ee_order_to_exhibition.ee_order%22%3Bi%3A2%3Bs%3A4%3A%22DESC%22%3Bi%3A3%3Bs%3A20%3A%22ee_photo.ee_photo_id%22%3Bi%3A4%3Bs%3A0%3A%22%22%3Bi%3A5%3Bs%3A1%3A%221%22%3Bi%3A6%3Bs%3A6%3A%22thumbs%22%3Bi%3A7%3Bs%3A2%3A%2285%22%3Bi%3A8%3Bs%3A6%3A%22public%22%3Bi%3A9%3Bs%3A7%3A%22default%22%3Bi%3A10%3Bs%3A1%3A%222%22%3Bi%3A11%3Bs%3A2%3A%2210%22%3Bi%3A12%3Bs%3A1%3A%220%22%3Bi%3A13%3Bs%3A1%3A%220%22%3Bi%3A14%3Bs%3A1%3A%220%22%3B%7D&lang=eng

...to something with slashes in it.

The point is that the software is currently trying to keep track of a user's path via the URL (in a 'session' of sorts), so that when he or she hits NEXT, they'll appropriately see the next picture in whatever format, category, and so on that they've been browsing in already.

Luckily, the author of this program has kindly agreed to implement a cookie system in a future version, which will dramatically reduce the length of the URL. At that time, I'm guessing I can certainly use mod rewrite to change something like this:

/photo.php?photo=231&exhibition=2

...to this:

/photo.php/231/2

...though I'm guessing AdSense would probably do fine even with the non-rewritten URL, given its brevity.

Anyway, now I just have to wait until the new cookie'd-version of this software gets done (or, perhaps, jump ship to another piece of software, though I'm loathe to do that), and when I have some photos-with-detailed-text online, I'll report back here about how stuff goes with AdSense.

Thanks for the feedback!