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
-
Could you double check my new product markups?
Hey Mozzers! We are currently running a Google Shopping Ad campaign and one of the suggestions we had gotten from Google was to add product markups. I hired a developer to add the product markup to the product page templates (Magento, if it matters) and I just need help to double check his work before I approve and pay the final invoice. I've attached a screenshot of the page source with the item markups. I've also dropped the page source into Structured Data Testing Tool to see if there were any warnings. No warnings or errors. So it seems as if everything looks good, but I just wonder if it's a similar approach to SEO where the product markups could be better optimized. Thanks for the expert eyes on this! ruKjc
On-Page Optimization | | localwork1 -
Optimizing a product category vs. a bespoke content page
Hi there, I work for a furniture retailer in the UK and I have a question about ranking for search phrases. Say I'm looking to rank for the keyword phrases: 'Tempur mattress' and 'Tempur mattress liverpool' and I have a category at: www.mysite.co.uk/tempur/ which list all of our mattresses, would I be better trying to optimize this page for those key phrases or would I be better generating a new page, say, www.mysite.co.uk/tempur-mattress-liverpool.html Thank you for your input.
On-Page Optimization | | Bee1590 -
SEO before products on ecommerce site
Our company plans to quickly launch an e-commerce site to sell religion themed banners (religionbanners.com). We'll have our products up on the site in about a week. Should I block Google from accessing the site during this period? Is there anything wrong with starting simple SEO tasks such as submitting the site map on Google Search Console prior to us having the products on the site?
On-Page Optimization | | art_litho0 -
Product Landing page- Key Words used too often.
Hi There to everyone. I'm very new at SEO so I appreciate all the help I can get! Question: on my e-commerce website, one heading is "USB KEYS", then when you click on that, you get a page full of products with the word "USB KEYS" on the title, such as "4gig black USB KEY".. So then I do the MOZ Page grader and get a low score because on the product landing page it thinks I've used the word "USB KEYS" too much, like 72 times,.. But I have to use it- Cause it has to be in the product title! Is this ok!? thanks
On-Page Optimization | | cowhidesdirect0 -
H1 Tags on Volusion Product Pages
So I'm working with a client who has no heading tags on his site and I'm wondering if there is an ideal method to implementing these on the product pages specifically, as the wording I ideally want to specify is is the product title, which i can't really code with an H1. Has anyone run into this issue? If so, what was your solution? Also, how vital are these heading tags on the product pages, anyways? If the Volusion SEO expert could chime in, that would be much appreciated. Thanks everyone!
On-Page Optimization | | BrandLabs0 -
SEO Location Pages - ALT Image Tag Question
Hello Guru's, I have a Hire Website whereby you can rent products online. I have created different Location pages for these which are in essence the same pages page but with different location specific urls, title tags , on page content etc etc. This helps me to rank for local search. These location pages also display 20 products per page. My question is Should I make the ALT IMAGE TEXT location specific for each of the 20 products . Example - Steam Cleaner Rental in "location" or should I only amend a few of the Atl Image Texts to be location specific. I don't want to come accross as spammy in google eyes but I also don't want to be seen as having duplicate content , images etc etc What do you think ? thanks Sarah.
On-Page Optimization | | SarahCollins0 -
Product links on homepage
Hi, I;m wondering if it really does aid SEO or even hinder it now to have lists of top selling products as links on the base of each page. This was recommended to us sometime ago by a consultant so we did it but is it outdated? I'm concerned it may penalise our pages now by creating too many links? opinions appreciated. wwww.gourmetdirect.com and scroll down to see what I mean
On-Page Optimization | | GourmetDirect0 -
Product Title Formating Question
The majority of the products I sell require lengthy product titles, I have 600+ items that have titles over 70+ characters. In the interest of reducing the character count (Product Feeds) I'm trying to eliminate unnecessary "stop words" in the titles, such as "and", "with" etc.. I've listed an example of a current product listing below, followed by two different formats to reduce the character count. Which one if any is better for SEO or should I leave my titles alone and stick with my original format? Current Listing Example: DeWalt Dual Comfort Safety Glasses with Black Frame and Clear Anti-Fog Lens Suggested Listing Example: DeWalt Dual Comfort Safety Glasses-Black Frame-Clear Anti-Fog Lens DeWalt Dual Comfort Safety Glasses/Black Frame/Clear Anti-Fog Lens
On-Page Optimization | | MEldridge0