Your own uncharted island. And only you know the address.

If you dream of a secret retreat for your family, a SmugIsland is for you.

You can fill it with photos, captions & keywords without anyone knowing except the people you tell. When they arrive, they can explore your SmugIsland as if it were open to the public.

They'll have to remember the address, because they can't look it up on Google.

When you register for SmugMug, we assume you want to be discovered. If you want your own SmugIsland, read on.

Will Google discover your smug mug?

Search engines become popular by discovering web pages and making them easy to find. Unless you tell them not to, they'll find your SmugMug pages too.

Also, many SmugMug customers want their photos to be discovered from SmugMug pages, like popular photos. If you don't you can set privacy options to make a SmugIsland.

Hello world!

In your Control Panel in the Settings tab, you'll find an important privacy option: Hello World! It has three options:

1. Yes:  This is the default option and perfect for people who seek fame. Google will find you and help others find your photos.
2. Homepage only:  This allows Google to see your SmugMug homepage only, so your grandma can find you. It will index the words you see when you're logged out, such as text in your bio. Google will not go into galleries, however, and index such things as photos and captions.
3. No:  This is the no trespassing sign for Google. It lets you build a secret island.

Hello smuggers!

SmugMug has many pages, such as our general homepage. It has a search box at the top that by default allows people to search for you and your photos. To build an island, set your privacy features in your Control Panel under the Settings tab.

1. Yes:  The default option, perfect for people who seek fame.
2. Your name only:  This is the "don't thwart your grandma" option. She can still search for your name on any SmugMug page to find you, but your photos won't show up in searches and won't land on our popular photos page.
3. No:  Other SmugMug pages will pretend they don't know you. But on your SmugMug pages, visitors will be able to use the search box, keywords, etc., to find your photos (like they can in option two, above).
4. Lock down:  You'll be invisible on other SmugMug pages besides your own, and your visitors will not be able to use keywords or searches on your SmugMug pages (but you'll be able to).

I just want certain galleries excluded from Google or SmugMug searches.

Set the Hello world! option or Hello Smuggers! option to No in Customize Gallery.

Yes means that gallery will inherit your site-wide SmugIslands settings, from your Control Panel.

I want to bury treasure on my SmugIsland.

If you want to limit visitor access to certain galleries on your SmugIsland, you can:

• Make them invisible by making them unlisted.
• Block access with a password.

Personal search.

You, as the site owner, can search all your photos anytime. Visitors to your SmugIsland cannot search unlisted or password-protected galleries.

Gotcha: Changes to your Hello world! settings can take weeks to take effect because Google, Yahoo, and other search engines need to re-index your site. Changes to your Hello smuggers! settings can take hours to take effect if you have lots of photos.