Your Website Images - Be Careful What You Delete

If you're like me, you upload images as needed for your posts, like the one to the left here.

Once uploaded, those images sit in your Blogger Images File. If you use WordPress, it's the same thing - you upload the images and they're saved in your Media File.

This is all great. You have the images saved on site to be used again if needed, as part of your online marketing strategy.

BUT . . .

Yesterday, I decided to tweak my Google+ account. I edited my work information, changed the header (more on that below) and I deleted some of the albums cluttering up the Photos File.

This would seem like a good thing, right?

Not so much.

What happens is, as you upload images to your Blogger site they're saved in your Google+ account in Photos. Google creates a name for the album it creates of your site's images.

This is where haste makes waste comes a knockin' on the door. I knew some of the albums were connected to my Blogger sites, but it wasn't a thought in my head, as I deleted the album for this site.

SO . . .

The BAD thing that happens when you delete images or an entire album related to your Blogger site is those images are no longer available for your site. Where you added an image (that you just deleted) to a post a year ago or yesterday, it's no longer there. It's GONE.

The images you thoughtfully added to your posts from your Blogger Images File are GONE. In their place are grey circles.

SO, BEFORE YOU DECIDE TO DELETE YOUR IMAGES, BE SURE YOU HAVEN'T USED THEM IN YOUR POSTS!

Now, when you see a post with a grey circle in place of an image, you'll know why.

The Google+ Header

Google+ now has a bigger header and I created three different headers for my account. The dimensions specified are 480X270 and I made them to the correct size. I uploaded the first one and it appeared blurry, so I created a completely new one, uploaded that one, and it too was blurry. I repeated the process with a new third header and sure enough it was also too blurry to use.

Since this didn't work out I had to use one of Google's header designs and I'm not thrilled about it. A header should be site/genre relevant. While the image is beautiful, it has nothing to do with my work. I also don't like the new bigger header - it just takes up way too much website real estate space.

Here's what it looks like now:



I guess I'll ask the woman I use at Fiverr to create a header for me to see if her's will work correctly.

Happy marketing,


Karen Cioffi
Award-Winning Author, Freelance/Ghostwriter
Author-Writer Online Platform Instructor

Create and Build Your Author/Writer Online Platform


P.S. PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO SIGN UP FOR THE WRITERS WORLD newsletter (top right sidebar).

P.S.2 If we're not already connected on GooglePlus, please add me to your circles - I'll add you to mine: https://plus.google.com/107054879622971281466/posts

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12 comments:

VS Grenier said...

Nice reminder and tip for all of us. Thanks.

Karen Cioffi said...

Virginia, today I realized I lost the images on my Day's End Lullaby blogsite also. As luck would have it, a client asked a question that made me link to the site and found all the images gone. I never go to that site!

LOL The work I caused myself.

Now, I have to go check the Walking Through Walls site!

Carolyn Howard-Johnson said...

Karen, I'm not sure, but I think something like that can happen when you have images you pick up from your own computer file. You think you're just being tidy, but you may be wiping out links to places all over the Web!

Best,

Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Excited about how much the new edition of the Frugal Book Promoter (expanded! updated!) can help writers with the tried and true and the new media, too. Now a USA Book News award-winner in its own right (www.budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo) it the original edition was also a Reader Views winner and an Irwin Award winner.

Karen Cioffi said...

Carolyn, you're right. If the image is linked in from your computer files, if you delete the image from your computer, you'll lose the image on your site.

The moral of the story is don't delete images!

There's no way I can backtrack on this site and input the lost images. Oh, well.

Thankfully, I didn't delete the images on the Karen Cioffi Writing and Marketing site. :) Ah, those small blessing.

Magdalena Ball said...

A good reminder Karen. I've done that too with my site compulsivereader.com. Those grey circles aren't very appealing!

Karen Cioffi said...

Maggie, I'm so glad I'm not the only one. :)

Mary Jo Guglielmo said...

I had no idea Karen. Thanks for the info and for letting us learn from you mistake.

Karen Cioffi said...

Mary Jo, It is a a benefit that my mistake can help others!

Anne Duguid Knol said...

Thanks for the warning, Karen.I had no idea.And such a nuisance to have all those images cluttering the computer...

Kathleen Moulton said...

Karen, thank-you SO much for this! I was thinking about deleting the clutter!

Kathy

Karen Cioffi said...

Annie, that's what I thought - clean up the clutter. Oh Boy!

Karen Cioffi said...

Kathy, I'm so glad others are able to avoid making this mistake by reading about the consequences.

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