Should I watermark my product images
-
I am in the process of creating new images for my products to use on my website. Are there any advantages or disadvantages of watermarking each image? Is there an SEO impact good or bad? I am aware that filename and Alt tags are important, but am unsure if google dislikes watermarked images.
-
Hi all, thanks for your comments. Looks like it wouldn't do any harm if I had a small brand logo placed on each image. Will have a think and probably just go for it.
Thanks.
-
Time might come, and might be around the corner when, images in Google Search will be OCR'd (scanned for text/wording and made searchable) this will result in your watermarks if its in Copyright Joe Smith (text form) will be searchable.
Also thing about this if you are using image search with an image of your brand, (not sure about practically but theoretically) you should be able to find all your images if they are watermarked with your Brand image in Google image search.
So if you are planning to future proof your images for image SEO go for it!
-
Are you selling your own manufactured goods or reselling someone elses? If you're reselling someone elses, don't they have images of their products already to use? I think it's rare for a reseller to take all their own product images, but if you do because you feel it gives you an edge, I would use your own logo prominently rather than as a watermark. Maybe you have an artistic presentation of goods that needs proprietary protection - that is the only case I can see for potential watermarking.
And, if you're selling your own goods, do you also sell them to others for resale? I frequently need product photos from manufacturers for promotion by authorized sellers of their brands.
Different companies have different ways they let marketing depts retrieve images, and from my side, the easier it is, the better. I've never seen anyone put watermarks on their images, but some create their sites so you have to go through a lengthy registration process and wait to hear back - huge pain in the kisser for me as I have to go to the client, they have to find the account, get it back to me, I enter it, oops, website says not that string of numbers, go back... etc. Time suck warp.
Some companies make their images non-downloadable (though there are some workarounds and screen shots). The ones I like best - just let me have the images, no mess, no fuss. I am after all trying to sell their products.
Then, I brand a corner with the resellers logo, but not as a watermark; rather it's a notice that yes, this company carries this merchandise. And for SEO, if the reseller branded image of the original product comes up in image search (which they do sometimes as I always fully tag out my images), then all the better. If you're selling your own goods with no authorized resellers, I think I would brand a corner also - no watermark, just a logo, but only if for some reason your logo is not already on the products.
-
Does the mark say, "EGOL?"
-
I do the bottom left or right... Weasels still steal it. Some publish with my copyright mark, some paint it out, some put a textbox over my mark.
-
Lots of good points already. I find that small logo in a corner is helpful because even if the image is stolen, saved to a computer, reused, posted on facebook without context, whatever -- your brand is still prominently displayed.
-
There may be some value in branding in that regard depending on what you're selling.
However, If its small and unobtrosive then the viewer probably wouldn't be able to tell what the logo is/says until they open the image.
Edit add - when its that small its easily removed and cropped so it really becomes a matter of whether you think its important as a branding element versus protection.
-
Watermarking can have an advantage in Google images. If you have lots of images your brand will show up often and people will get to know it, without ever having visited your site.
-
Do it - For me it adds credibility when a company watermarks their images unobtrusively, and G loves credibility...
-
Thanks for your feedback. I was thinking about a small brand logo bottom right or left of each image. Nothing instrusive. For the feeds it would be clean images.
Thanks again for your thoughts.
-
I agree w/ AWC.
If you do watermark, just make sure it's not the least bit distracting.
One ecomm site I work with has over 10,000 original product images. They were constantly being stolen, which is annoying considering the effort that goes into the production of the images. Once they were watermarked (via the ecomm platform), the poaching pretty much stopped.
-
A watermark won't affect your rank.
In my opinion this is more a matter of the use of your time.
I very rarely see watermarks anymore on ecommerce sites. I think a watermark will do more to pollute the appearance of your product than protect your images from piracy.
From a practical perspective, Google and other shopping feeds may have rules regarding watermarks and artwork associated with products so make sure you are aware of the rules if you use feeds.
Edit add - I can recall 1 ecommerce site I've visited using watermarks and the only other places I see it are sites that sell images and artwork.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
My website is not indexing the image.
Our website's images are not indexed. Will anyone help me? How will all images in my website be indexed? This is my website address: https://www.expertclipping.com/
On-Page Optimization | | jacky_risham0 -
I have an eCommerce Site with in some cases, 100s of versions of the same product. How do I avoid "duplicate content" without writing literally 100s of unique product descriptions for the exact same product?
For instance, one item where the only difference is the Sports Team Logo is different, etc... or It comes in a variety of color Variants. I'm using Shopify.
On-Page Optimization | | pstone291 -
No product descriptions
Hi all, Wondering if I could get the opinions from other Moz user's on this issue please... A client is building a new online store, it is in the flooring niche, using the drop shipping model. The plan is to launch the site with about 1,000 products and then add more as we go. All good so far (the site is magento based) However, the issue we are facing is down to product descriptions. The client needs to get the site up and running asap to start generating sales but the wholesaler has not provided any product description information for the products - save the size, shape and colour. Can anyone foresee a major issue in launching the website with no product descriptions, from a seo point of view, and then adding the descriptions as we go. Have been trying to establish what Google defines as being a thin site and all the information on the topic is suggesting it is more due to duplicate content where, for example, retailers are all still using the default manufacturer description or have spun the content. I cannot find much which would suggest that product pages missing a description would classify as thing. I am happy to be corrected though. I accept that it would be easier to rank with a good product description but the client is a two person business and it is pretty hard to find things to say about 1,000 different kinds of rugs! Any thoughts would be most welcome please. Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | daedriccarl0 -
Competitor scraped ecommerce product overview
I noticed by chance that the competitor of an ecommerce client has completely copied one of their product overviews, which is around 500 words in total. The site does not outrank my client, but could the scraped content be harmful in any other way? There are no links included within the text so there's no advantage in that sense. Is Google's algorithm intuitive enough to figure out where the original content came from and attribute it to my client, or is there still the possibility that it could have a negative affect as duplicate content? Any insights and suggestions much appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | pugh1 -
Rethinking company's monthly content production process.
I'm trying to rethink my company's content production process. I believe that we're stuck using a formula that works but can surely be improved. Our Current Process It essentially boils down to posting a certain number of content pieces per month for each client. After the pages are approved and live, there isn't much thought given to them. What We're Thinking After taking a step back, we realize now that a lot of these clients have sites with a tremendous amount of content that is rarely, if ever, revisited. In hopes of creating higher quality content and avoiding having to write that certain number of pieces per month, we're investigating alternative strategies to ensure each client has fresh content. What We're Looking Into Page Edits/Refreshes - I'm beginning to wonder if we can get similar gains by simply refreshing the content that already exists. We can include additional keywords and improve the content in a fraction of the time that it takes to produce a new piece. We're struggling to come up with a process for refreshing the content, however. Ideally we'd be implementing a process where content is revisited 6-12 months, but that still doesn't take care of the problem of creating too much new content. Simplified Version I believe that my company is creating too much content. Editing/refreshing seems like a better use of resources, but I have no idea how to implement a process and develop procedures. Questions What does your content production process look like? Do you produce a certain number a month, a quarter, as needed, etc? How do you go about refreshing your content?
On-Page Optimization | | SeoWebMechanix0 -
What image attribute should carry "anchor text" for internal linking
Newbie question: an internal link generally should carry keyword anchor text, so if the link is actually an image, what image attribute should contain the equivalent of the anchor text
On-Page Optimization | | k3nn3dy30 -
product links
If you sell a range of products say 3 at the most, all on their own pages, is it ok to link to the other products within the range from each page? I have tried this and it eventually leads back to the same page is this a good, bad or doesn't really matter thing? Also is the anchor text still important?
On-Page Optimization | | LadyApollo0 -
Best Way To Host Images For Image Optimization
I need an image optimization expert to tell me whether or not we are hosting images properly for SEO. Currently, we upload all images to Picasa and then call them out with a webpart in our content management system. See example here - http://www.tennisnow.com/Photos/2011-BNP-Paribas-Open-Day-5.aspx Here's an example of the url that is attached to each image - http://lh5.ggpht.com/_1Oyc-Zgkrpk/TX5H-Pfyd7I/AAAAAAAARbc/nG3Cw-G5tsY/s400/1215548409_FU9xA-L.jpg We have a lot of images, and we've hosted them on Picasa for speed purposes based on a recommendation from our developer (makes the pages load faster). I've read that Google can now factor page load time into its ranking parameters. We are not seeing the images from each photo gallery being indexed on images.google.com. We are torn. What should we do to rank for these images?
On-Page Optimization | | tennisexpress0