How do you bounce back from a loss in image search?
-
Looking for any help in understanding what I can do to get my images back up in the images index. My site took a hit last month which I've been working to get back up but nothing has seemed to push the needle.
Has anyone else experienced such a loss in the image index before?
-
I'll be honest in saying I had a couple of sites affected by the panda/farmer update but saw no changes in image search so I really don't think this has anything to do with these updates. Additionally many have said that if your query drops were not on these update days then you should be looking elsewhere.
Have you seen anything that indicates any loss around the dates shown in my original attachment? I have a few other similar niche sites which both more and less content than the above described one which saw no changes which additionally says to me that this has nothing to do with the farmer updates.
If anyone else has noticed losses in image search I'd be very interested in sharing data. And the same for anyone who's simply seen a loss of "image search" queries at anytime. This is a first for me and I'd love to find someone who has been in the same boat (the image boat).
-
Part of the panda and farmer update targeted scrappers so basically Google most likely viewed those images as scrapped or of such poor quality that it pushed them deep into the index. When it comes to image optimization you need to take a look at what Google's bots can see and that is Resolution, Compression and Meta Data.
- The higher the resolution the better
- The quality of the compression
- The Meta Data, I'm not talking about ALT attributes, Titles or Descriptions, I mean stuff like GPS coordinates and manually entered information about the objects in the image and the occasion on which it was captured, as well as copyright information, categories and searchable keywords.
If your images are not digital masters i.e. has not been prepared and optimized for a particular use, such as a printed magazine or use on the internet. Then they are most likely scrapped content and there is no recovering from that. Our graphic designers place copyright information and SO MUCH MORE into every image we create for clients so that if they are ever scrapped google can see the originator of the content via the meta data.
I would recommend getting a digital master image just like one of yours that is not ranking and then fill in all of the Meta Fields using a program like Adobe Photoshop and then place it on your site and see if you can get that one to rank. If so, then all 100k images are tainted if that image still wont rank then your entire site is in Google's penalty box.
I would grab an image from istockphoto to test all of this out.
-
Hi Seth,
It's an car niche site and we're talking about 100,000 images. They are all still in the index, just lost their visibility. Any experience in dealing with "lots" of image search results? Have you seen an image query results drop like this where the results remain in the index. Think "farmer" just images and no one else
-
My first recommendation would be to stop doing what you were doing last month. on a more serious note, what type of images are they? Are they all digital masters? How many images are we talking about here?
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
-
Not using alt tags for decorative images?
Hi everyone, My coworker recently stumbled across this article that instructs you to not to alt text for "decorative images" as you might get penalized you for over optimization https://www.shopify.com/blog/7412852-10-must-know-image-optimization-tips Has anyone heard of this or have any thoughts?
Image & Video Optimization | | AliMac260 -
Negative SEO with Google Images
We have a client in the heavy equipment industry that is trying to "push down" images in a Google image search that are associated with an accident over ten years ago. This client has launched a new website, and we have applied the best practices of on-page SEO (page titles, unique meta-descriptions, alt-image tags, focused keyword targeting, etc.). The challenge we have is with Google Image results. It seems the image results shown in the Google Image search rankings are often not inline with how images have been labeled in the alt-tag section. I have checked these images with the Moz Chrome extension, and I have often found the way the image is labeled in the alt-tag is not related to the search query made within the Google image search bar. I certainly may not be factoring in other weighted items when it comes to how images are ranked. Are there other ranking factors associated with Google Image results outside of the Alt-Image Tag? If so, what are those factors? Our ultimate goal is to provide a strategy that would allow us to tag images within this specific sector that are relevant to this specific heavy equipment product, and at the same time, "push down" the rankings of the images that have a negative association to them. We certainly want to take the right approach here, and want to earn these rankings. However, the way Google ranks images seems to be a mystery of sorts. Is there a specific strategy relevant to Google Image rankings that would fall inline with the challenge listed above? I appreciate any advice on this topic. Thank you.
Image & Video Optimization | | JaredBroussard0 -
Moving Images to Subdomain: SEO Impacts
For sever work- load enhancements we are planning to move our images to a sub-domain. so the files would be located at something like images.domain.com Rather than domain.com/images/ We are a large Ecommerce site so we have a lot of images. These will be self hosted so we are not using a CDN. I'm hoping someone has done the same and if there were any steps they had wished they had taken before making the move/ if they noticed any traffic impacts things like that.
Image & Video Optimization | | RMATVMC0 -
CDN image links passing SEO benefit?
We used a CDN to host all of the images on our site, and the paths are such:
Image & Video Optimization | | PixelKicks
http://cdn.onedirection.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/harry-styles-tongue5.jpg Frequently we get a lot of other websites using our images, which we're fine with, but I would like to know if we get any SEO value from these image links? Interestingly they do appear in the "Just Discovered" section of OSE. Cheers, Chris.0 -
How can I make embedded YouTube videos point to my domain in the search results?
We've recently moved to using YouTube for embedded videos on our site. We have a number of videos that are embedded and then a larger number of videos which are part of our YouTube channel. I've been reading recently that it's possible to get Google to list embedded video links pointing to your site rather than to YouTube itself. I am interesting in driving traffic directly from the search results to our pages rather than via YouTube. Could somebody provide a basic step by step guide on how to do this please? Or is this something that is not possible? I've been doing a lot of research online but, sadly, can't work out how to do this.
Image & Video Optimization | | RG_SEO1 -
Practice Name vs. Dr. Name in Local Search
I wanted to get some opinions on an interesting situation for local search. Many doctors and dentists are found in one of two ways online: Their name and title, e.g. Dr. James A. Smith, MD Their practice name, e.g Smith Plastic Surgery, P.C Often sites like Healthgrades are providing data on the doctor him or herself, and the information can be tough to switch out. At the same time, there's a tendancy on the Dr's part to want to be listed as their practice name. Their site is often set up that way. How are you handling this kind of setup? Have you found a way to reliably associate (and format) a practice and doctor's name in a listing, in such a way that doesn't violate Google's quality guidelines? I know the drill for handling a doctor within a hospital, but this is a slightly different situation...
Image & Video Optimization | | BedeFahey0 -
Maximising Local Search
Hi, I work for a weather company. I have recently begun to define a keyword strategy to target specific keyphrase segments with the objective to maximise webpage visibility and increase CTR. One growing keyphrase segment is "location weather" based searches (e.g. "London Weather", "Manchester Weather"). I am keen to understand how I can maximise our presence for location weather searches within the SERPs. This seems to be a common trends seeing as Google announced that over 20% of all searches contain a relevance to locality. I have been trying to understand if there is a way to maximise our location based weather pages, perhaps using the Google Local search tactic and if there are any recommendations you could suggest? ISSUE: In order to maximise your presence through local search you need a fixed address, something our site does not offer, however it does offer bespoke landing pages for a specific weather forecast based on locality (city, town etc) Essentially, are there any recommendations you can provide a website that offers specific location based pages (without a fixed address) to maximise our location weather based search rankings within the SERPs? Many thanks Simon
Image & Video Optimization | | simonsw1 -
Is there an easy way to see how competitive a local search term is?
Is there a quick and easy way to see how competitive local search terms are? I am looking at helping my clients show up on the local search results. Some times all I have to do is claim a listing and they move right to the top. Sometimes I claim a listing and nothing happens so I get links and I get reviews and it takes awhile. I want to be able to put an accurate price point on the service I am offering. I have looked at the search volume and it hasn't been the best indicator because some industries are more competitve than others. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
Image & Video Optimization | | jimmyseo0