Okay, so I usually leave these etiquette articles to people that can explain things better than me (which is everyone), but this has been driving me crazy. Therefore, I'm sorry if this is totally confusing and/or terrible.
This article is going to focus on keywords in images, since that's where I see most problems. However, a few things mentioned in here also apply to other content.
Here is my opinion on how you should keyword images:
- To start off, you need keywords! I'm sure almost everyone knows that, but there are always images without any keywords popping up. Most people that do it probably won't read this, but hopefully some will.
- Make your keywords as specific as possible. Using general keywords, such as having only the name of a TV show, will most likely include EVERY SINGLE THING IN THAT TV SHOW'S SPOT. Use character names, episode names, season and episode numbers, the photoshoot the image came from, anything you know that applies.
- Adding onto the last one, do not use a keyword unless it applies to ALL OF THE IMAGES YOU ARE SUBMITTING. For example: You have a batch of icons. Some of them have character A in them, some of them have character B. DO NOT upload them all with both A and B in the keywords! Instead, add the icons in two separate uploads, or however many that apply. Otherwise, a person searching for one thing might find an image that does not include what they were looking for (e.g. an icon of A when they were looking for B, a picture from one episode when they were looking for another, etc). The same goes for different seasons, episodes, photoshoots, etc.
- Don't use the type of image in the keywords, such as "icon" or "wallpaper". Those were helpful back before the search sorted out the different image types. Nowadays, they are completely useless.
EDIT: As astroasis has pointed out, using the type of image in the keywords and/or title helps people on Google searches. So actually, using the image type or not is just up to your personal preference. Keywords like "image" or "photo", however, are still very general and probably don't need to be used.
- Adjectives are not very helpful. Having things like "beautiful", "amazing", or "love of my life" in the keywords - as long as they are only describing what you think of the image - probably don't help the people searching.
That's all I can think up right now. I'll probably add to the article whenever I find something new to put in there, so feel free to give me suggestions. Also, please give me your opinions on these tips. If you don't agree with any of them, if you have anything to add, just let me know. Thanks!
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I still use the type of image - just because when I'm searching for something specific, it reduces the amount of clicks I have to do to find what I'm looking for. I'm just lazy like that. =P
But I agree with all your points!
Those are helpful for people doing a search on, say, Google. At least, theoretically, that should be the case. I've seen one of the F4 say that the title matters more than keywords in those cases (?!) - so I've been making sure to put "icon" and "wallpaper" in the titles of such submissions, as well as the keywords. Seems stupid in the realm of Fanpop, but if it helps people find the content from other places on the Internet, then I'm all for it.
But really, that comes down to personal preference.
What really irks me is the use of "image" or "photo" as a keyword. And whenever I've said so, people have vocally disagreed that such keywords are super necessary... at which point all you can really do is throw your hands up and hope someday they might come to understand how the 0s and 1s of the cyberworld work XD
Anyway, good article!
(Edited to include extra punctuation - you can never have too much!)
You can link to this if you would like, germany. Thanks for the comments guys! :)
I am now in 100% agreement with everything everywhere!!! :D
Great job heeeresjoyce!
I'd say the more factual and more specific the keywords, the better. There's no harm in having a keyword of the content type - unless it's at the exclusion of another keyword about the subject of the image - and "photo" may come in handy if the Fanpop staff once again changes how search works. Recall that there are hundreds of thousands of images (at least) with such content keywords that predate the image galleries feature, a likely larger number that predate the automatic sorting that the system performed when the staff launched the different classifications of image galleries, and that doesn't even talk about the links that have been posted since those features have been implemented - I realize that last is tangential to your article, but it bears mentioning: there are a bazillion links on Fanpop to images on other sites, and the only way to properly indicate that is to include "image" in the description and keywords.
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