Google Indexing of Images
-
Our site is experiencing an issue with indexation of images. The site is real estate oriented. It has 238 listings with about 1190 images. The site submits two version (different sizes) of each image to Google, so there are about 2,400 images. Only several hundred are indexed.
Can adding Microdata improve the indexation of the images?
Our site map is submitting images that are on no-index listing pages to Google. As a result more than 2000 images have been submitted but only a few hundred have been indexed. How should the site map deal with images that reside on no-index pages? Do images that are part of pages that are set up as "no-index" need a special "no-index" label or special treatment?
My concern is that so many images that not indexed could be a red flag showing poor quality content to Google.
Is it worth investing in correcting this issue, or will correcting it result in little to no improvement in SEO?
Thanks, Alan
-
I am chiming in a year late but there is just one thing I am not sure I understand. Why would you want to index images on no-index pages? What are these pages that you want to be no-indexed in the first place? If you do not want these pages to be found when searching in Google, why would you want some of the content, like images, be found instead?
I am with Michael and recommend that you fix the sitemap. I am also curious to know what has happened in the past year. Have your issues resolved? Have your SEO improved?
-
I would definitely update that sitemap. If your sitemap is telling Google one thing, and the pages themselves are contradicting the sitemap, AND it's happening thousands of times--that's a negative quality signal to Google, and could affect all sorts of things, from crawl budget to indexation to rankings.
ALT tags are worth fixing as well. That's really the #1 clue Google has to what the images are about. (Other clues: the image filename, and the page title, if it's the main image on the page). Here, I'm presuming that the images are ones you hope to have show up in image search results (otherwise why would you bother creating an image sitemap?)...in which case, you really, REALLY need to put the ALT text on them.
-
Apparently our site map submits images to Google even when they are on pages that are marked as no index.
The result is that only about 250 out of 2250 images are actually indexed by Google. Apparently Google (as you suggested) is not indexing images that are on pages that are marked "no-index".
Do you think it makes sense for my developers to modify the site map so it no longer submits images that are on pages that are marked as no-index? Is it worth investing resources in fixing this? If this is not going to cause SEO problems I would just as well leave it alone.
Also, the way images are set up, we do not have the ability to customize alt tags. Is this worth fixing? Could repairing these issues with images improve overall ranking?
Thanks, Alan
-
I've not seen instances where Google would index an image that's on a page that's marked noindex.
Be sure that you have consistency between your sitemap and your noindex/index tags on the pages, i.e. don't include a page or image in your sitemap where the page itself (or containing page) indicates noindex.
If you look at how Webmaster Tools OOPS I guess I mean "Search Console" (will Google EVER let a product keep the same name forever???) shows indexation of images in a image sitemap, you'll notice they pair the image indexation count with the web page indexation count. I take that as an indication that they're not interested in indexing images on noindexed pages (which I have to say makes sense to me).
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
-
How do we preserve images in google search after CMS migration?
Hi Folks we are about to migrate to a new CMS (bigcommerce/volusion type of thing) are are advised that we will preserve our google love for our old URLS with 301 re-directs. OK but what about images that show in search (we have a lot of our images show up high in relevant google image search) will this method work the same or should we do something else to keep the image benefits? many thanks Tom
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tomnivore0 -
Pages are Indexed but not Cached by Google. Why?
Here's an example: I get a 404 error for this: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.qjamba.com/restaurants-coupons/ferguson/mo/all But a search for qjamba restaurant coupons gives a clear result as does this: site:http://www.qjamba.com/restaurants-coupons/ferguson/mo/all What is going on? How can this page be indexed but not in the Google cache? I should make clear that the page is not showing up with any kind of error in webmaster tools, and Google has been crawling pages just fine. This particular page was fetched by Google yesterday with no problems, and even crawled again twice today by Google Yet, no cache.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | friendoffood2 -
I have removed over 2000+ pages but Google still says i have 3000+ pages indexed
Good Afternoon, I run a office equipment website called top4office.co.uk. My predecessor decided that he would make an exact copy of the content on our existing site top4office.com and place it on the top4office.co.uk domain which included over 2k of thin pages. Since coming in i have hired a copywriter who has rewritten all the important content and I have removed over 2k pages of thin pages. I have set up 301's and blocked the thin pages using robots.txt and then used Google's removal tool to remove the pages from the index which was successfully done. But, although they were removed and can now longer be found in Google, when i use site:top4office.co.uk i still have over 3k of indexed pages (Originally i had 3700). Does anyone have any ideas why this is happening and more importantly how i can fix it? Our ranking on this site is woeful in comparison to what it was in 2011. I have a deadline and was wondering how quickly, in your opinion, do you think all these changes will impact my SERPs rankings? Look forward to your responses!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | apogeecorp0 -
Google disavow tool
I have an algorithmic penalty on one of my websites. I never received a notification of a manual penalty in GWMT and even sent in a reconsideration request 6 months ago ad they told me their were no manual penalties on the website. I have cleaned up my link profile and what I could not clean up I sent in using the Google disavow tool a few days ago. I've heard to just wait if it's algorithmic or should I send in another reconsideration request for disavow links tool?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarkHIggins0 -
Why is Google Displaying this image in the search results?
Hi i'm looking at advice on how to remove or change a particular image Google is displaying in the search results. I have attached a screenshot. From the first look of it, i assumed the image would be related and be on the dealers Google+ Local Page: https://plus.google.com/118099386834104087122/about?hl=en But there are no photos. The image seems to be coming from the website. Is there a way to stop Google from displaying this image or making them display a totally different image. Thanks, Chris XzfsnUy.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mattcarter080 -
Google images directing to Escaped Fragment instead of #!
Our indexed images in Google images are directing to:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CBuy
http://www.cbuy.tv/?escaped_fragment= for example, instead of: the http://www.cbuy.tv/#! version. Is there something we can do on our end to fix this or is this a bug with Google?0 -
Google Sitemap only indexing 50% Is that a problem?
We have about 18,000 pages submitted on our Google Sitemap and only about 9000 of them are indexed. Is this a problem? We have a script that creates a sitemap on a daily basis and it is submitted on a daily basis. Am I better off only doing it once a week? Is this why I never get to the full 18,000 indexed?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EcommerceSite0 -
Google Places / Google Analytics
I apologize first if this comes across as extremely novice, but I realized I really didn't know the answer and so - here I am. 🙂 Is anyone familiar with tracking google place traffic in google analytics? Is it possible? I'd love to know how many of our visitors are coming from our google place listings (we have several locations throughout the state.) Much gratitude in advance ~ Alicia
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Aaronetics0