Google Indexed Images: Website Vs Social Media
-
I use Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram to post images that are already featured on my website. I have been following a routine of uploading the images to these social media platforms only after I can see Google has indexed the image from my original site. My website is ecommerce and the product images drive sales more than any other factor.
The thinking behind my method was that when these images are posted on Pinterest, Twitter and the various Instagram crawler sites (I realise Instagram images aren’t indexed directly), Google would recognise that the image was already attributed to my website. The ‘duplicate’ image would not therefore be indexed and the originally uploaded website image would remain in ‘Google Images’.
After completing various searches and reviewing other Q&A’s on Moz, it seems as though this is in no way guaranteed and images reposted on social media platforms may still replace the already indexed image from the website. I am assuming this is because Google views these platforms as more authoritative than mine.
I usually change the image by adding logos, text, backgrounds, borders etc before posting on Pinterest and this seems to have worked most of the time (both the original and ‘amended for Pinterest’ versions are often indexed) but images posted on other platforms are usually identical.
Does it make sense to continue with my method or am I shooting myself in the foot by reposting these images on social media at all? I obviously want customers searching for products, who then click on an image, to be directed to my site rather than one of my social media pages or worse, an image reposting site.
Additionally, If I post images on social media before they are uploaded to my website (for example to tease a product launch), would Google likely class these images as the ‘original’ and therefore be less likely to index the website version of the image once it is uploaded?
Any thoughts are appreciated.
-
Hey there! This is a fantastic question. I would continue the process of posting your images to social as it will improve the probability of people finding you either way. I know it's tedious but if you find that you get a presence in image search on your site and in Google with both, I would keep it up. You can create a custom action in photoshop where you just take an image into that and it'll brand it with a few clicks (you may have been doing that already).
I commend your diligence on doing both as an A/B experiment. I would love to know if these image searches via pinterest are driving response via your site (sales/leads).
Thanks!
John
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
-
Social Media / Articles
Hi Mozzers, I have a couple of questions regarding starting out into social media with an e-commerce website. Most of my experience lies in niche content where a social media following is more natural. Having completed most of the site audit (at least the planning). Its time to begin planning the next move into writing articles on the blog and heading out into social media to facilitate link building whilst i finish off creating the last of the updated website content. I have plenty of subjects I can think to write about and many keywords to target with articles on the website. But I could do with some advice linking this into social media. We have youtube, google+, facebook and twitter accounts but all of them are inactive bar profile information and have almost no following. We sell technical measurement equipment across a selection of niches. My plan is as follows so far, 1. Write 5-10 amazing new articles across the selection of products
Social Media | | ATP
2. Link to them all on each social media platform to begin populating each with content
3. Populate the website homepage with links to all our social media accounts to encourage following
3b. Include adverts stating discount codes etc can be obtained by following us on social media a little unsure where to progress from this point, I have no budget available at the moment, but may be able to obtain some if I can achieve some results without. As always thanks for your time.1 -
Facebook Page is not getting rank on Google
I'm trying to rank one of my client's Facebook link on Google. It was on page 3, few months back but now It is no where. I'm properly updating Facebook page, i also tried to make it good for SEO but still suffering and It is no where on Google. Page link is: http://on.fb.me/1iPqUpA Looking for suggestions.
Social Media | | wasimashraf300 -
Google+ What is up with results?
If anybody has followed me, they know I am not a big advocate of Social Media, but I understand when you must adapt. So we broke down and made our Google+ Page https://plus.google.com/113910385846996409142 The problem is, when you go to Google and search "Google+ Columbia Engineered Rubber" You get what appears to be 2 place pages (our company is in 2 locations) and one page that looks like something somebody tried to make, could have somebody here, or some auto generating thing..don't know. But our real page that we made (linked above) doesn't appear at all. Does anybody know how to go about consolidating these pages to the one I made, its quite confusing for one company to have 3 pages showing in results none of which are correct. Thank you for you time, Don
Social Media | | donford0 -
Google+ & Twitter, what do I post?
Hello, My site is bobweikel.com What do I post on Google+ and Twitter? How often? Can my posts be the same for all 3: facebook, google+, and Twitter
Social Media | | BobGW0 -
Images on Social Media - Can they be Optimized?
My company has been sharing images on its Facebook and twitter outlets which are getting a lot of shares. It seems to be the only thing really working for us. Is there a way to optimize this or use it to our advantage for our website? Or is this just something that will help me gain some edge rank in Facebook?
Social Media | | desmond.liang0 -
Which tool you best recommend for Social Media management, engagement, and monitoring. reputeme.com - trackur.com - viralheat.com - sproutsocial.com?
Please consider the pricing, ease of use, and accuracy, also, perhaps the social networks being monitored( as far as I am concern it's only trackur that monitors google+) Also if you have other recommendation, that would be awesome too. Thank you. PS: I love seomoz Social Media reporting, I just have other requirements too. Thanks.
Social Media | | TofSalcedo841 -
Social Media valuable for organic rankings?
Is there a link between ranking higher in organic search rankings and having a good social media presence. I think there is, the more likes and followers you have the better. The real question is how to you utilise it, do you regulary share content, put keywords in the share info for the ones you want to rank, how best can you utilise social media to help in organic search? I suspect social noise is used towards some kind of overall quality score in the search engines.
Social Media | | pauledwards1