I'm considering migrating my photo website from own hosting to a 3rd party host whish would mean many of my current url's would no longer be valid. This would result in a 404 which the provider says would return to their host url and not my home page url.
So my question is how long does it take google to completely reindex the site, so this problem will cease to exist?
Ta Rich
You can ask it to look quickly.
Surely the issue is that the pics need to be seen, not a 404 error?
As soon as they have moved (within a few days IME) google will catch up.
Do you get much referral via your images? Maybe do the move in a few chunks rather than one huge one. Google 'likes' new content...
I don't know exactly but if you are using Google Webmaster tools the diagnostics will tell you (to give you an idea they report checking about 1300 pages a day of our photo site). More importantly though, if this is for business, is that fact that if external links to your site no longer work and don't end up at your site then you may drop a lot in Google search :o(
You possibly want to find a different third part host. fwiw we use SmugMug and love it but there are downsides as well
Photoshelter was at the top of my list. However they don't enable descriptive URLs . Zenfolio does, but doesn't have the Stock sales.
I'll check Smugmug as well.
Which ever I go for, long term it has to be an improvement on the current shonkiness.
You could just place a manual redirect in all your pages and leave your existing hosting running for a month or so in parallel.
samuri - that would only temporarily work as once you stop the redirecting any benefit google gives you from external links would be lost :(. The more permanent solution is to be able to set up an htaccess file for your site but I don't think smugmug lets you do that.
richpips - Zenfolio vs Smugmug is a common topic on the SmugMug support forum. Might be worth a read
Is there a batch way to put a redirect on all pages?
Yep, I see what you're saying but you leave the redirects stay in place for a month until google has caught up. Belt and braces approach.
Yes Rich. Since you're using wordpress, placing a redirect in the header should do the trick. Might be worth doing a test first but in theory it should just be one file.
Is there a batch way to put a redirect on all pages?
I'm a little confused here. Do you have your own domain name that you are pointing at the new site as well or are you just moving all of your pics elsewhere and using their domain name?
If you are pointing your domain name at their site then the redirect has to be done using an htaccess file (AFAIK)
If you are just moving your pics and using their name then it will depend on how you host your site
sorry I can't be of more help
I'm not sure if this will be any good, but Google doesn't pick up on the photos in zenfolio. When I began with them they had the appropriate coding and my pictures and pages appeared in Google searches, not any longer. I don't fully understand all things web, so maybe I'm off the mark somewhere. What I do know is that when I Google the title of a picture, it doesn't appear when the search is completed. I might move everything to Smugmug next year.
I'm a little confused here. Do you have your own domain name that you are pointing at the new site as well or are you just moving all of your pics elsewhere and using their domain name?If you are pointing your domain name at their site then the redirect has to be done using an htaccess file (AFAIK)
If you are just moving your pics and using their name then it will depend on how you host your site
sorry I can't be of more help
I was going to move and take my domain name with me. It's looking now that I might not do that. I may redesign my front end and redirect for sales to a 3rd party, and just archive my old stuff.
:scratches head:
Smugmug uses flash for galleries - No good on iPad etc.
Google doesn't pick up on the photos in zenfolio
..and it doesn't pick up my images even though the are called search_term_123.jpg unless they're on a page that includes a reasonable amount of text eg a blog entry
Ok, I just paid attention and clicked on your name 
It's a bit complicated now as you have a reasonable PR with Google (I know that's not the most important thing with search but it an indicator of sorts). It can be painful with Smugmug (and also with Zenfolio according to don) to get Google to pick up your images quickly.
Most important is to know where your sales are coming from. If you are getting sales through Google search or even image search then you really care and maybe don't want to move. If your traffic is direct then you don't care, just move the site.
Smugmug probably may not be ideal if you just one 'fire and forget' for sales as it still only handles USD. If you want GBP you need to mess around a little and it sounds like you are trying to avoid that
Smugmug uses flash for galleries
Are you sure about that? They do for the front page slideshow but that is optional. In any case I believe they have an iPad app and they are moving towards html5 with lots of stuff at the moment. I suspect the currency thing may be more of a limitation for you
and it doesn't pick up my images even though the are called search_term_123.jpg unless they're on a page that includes a reasonable amount of text eg a blog entry
Yep. Google image search is quite special and a little random it appears. Everyone that seems get a lot of images up also have a lot of related text or a blog post. You actually seem to do quite well
I don't mind messing about a bit to get things right, with my limited skillz.
Looks like I can use a matched Graph Paper Press front end which I could host?, then send the customers -----> over there to photshelter to complete the sales.
I'm guessing that will actually boost ranking due to it being such a big site.
Thanks all for helping me think through this.
Are you sure about that? They do for the front page slideshow but that is optional. In any case I believe they have an iPad app and they are moving towards html5 with lots of stuff at the moment. I suspect the currency thing may be more of a limitation for you
I checked a few of their example websites, their slideshows were all flash driven. I want a slideshow on my front page (lightbox2 is a candidate)
Currency may matter but as paypal is used for payment, they automatically do the exchange.
their slideshows were all flash driven
It seems like their standard slideshow is flash for pcs/macs but html5 for iphone/ipad. See here, post number 5
I dont' think paypal is a standard method of payment for them although there is a workaround. More of an issue is the lack of a UK printing option at the moment
It seems like their standard slideshow is flash for pcs/macs but html5 for iphone/ipad.
Good to hear they're catching up.
Still their example gallery themes look as naff as my coppermine ones.
I can print up to A2 on my ipf5000 so the printing isn't so much of an issue.
Yep, a lot of the stuff in their help can be a bit out of date. It's a free trial so it's worth taking a look when you have time as they have a lot of different gallery styles. Their big selling point from my point of view though is their support forum is rather amazing. They respond very quickly themselves rather than being the usual user to user support nonsense. I had a specific problem and they came back with a bit of javascript to fix it for me the same day (IIRC - it was a while back now)
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