Why are my blog slideshow images not indexed?
-
I'm managing a design blog hosted on WordPress. Each "design project" article includes a slideshow with additional images (and captions) for the project - these are images and text not found in the article itself.
Every slide has the same page path as the article, but a different query param at the end. So if the article is /article the first slide would be /article?slide=1 for example.
I'm having two issues:
- The slideshow images don't seem to be getting indexed.
- Screaming Frog reports duplicate meta descriptions and title tags for each slideshow page (same meta as article).
I want to do what's best overall from an SEO perspective. Having the slideshow images show in Google image search is a must. And having the captions indexed might help too? But I want the Google image results linking to the article and not the individual slideshow pages. And I don't want duplicate meta issues.
What's the best thing to do? Submit a sitemap that lists both article and slideshow images? "Rel canonical" the param'd slideshow urls to the base article url (not sure this makes total sense, since slide content is different from the article)? Get rid of slideshow altogether and put images in body? Some combo of these?
Hopefully this makes sense. Any thoughts appreciated!
-
I think I'll try an Wordpress image sitemap plugin. Just unsure if I should also no-index the slideshow pages, since duplicate meta might be a problem...
-
The problem that I have found with this in the past is that Google sees the whole page and not the images. I found this to be more of a limit of Wordpress.
However, you could use an image sitemap and see if you can get them indexed that way?
-Andy
-
Thanks for the thorough answer, Andy. Why wouldn't you suggest trying to get slideshow images indexed? For us, the slideshow images are high quality, unique visual assets.
-
It sounds like there are a number of issues going on here and it's quite hard to envisage everything.
Having captions indexed as snippets requires the page to be setup in such a way that Google can use them. But remember that in terms of what Google shows, they will deliver what they thing bets suits the search query.
In terms of images being indexed, have you thought about having an image sitemap, or having them included in this? However, I wouldn't be setting a canonical from slideshows to base pages as this sounds like it could cause you a load of headaches.
Duplication is hard to assess as there could be a number of reasons from this, including incorrectly set canonical tags, indexed pages or other semi-technical issues.
Personally, I wouldn't be looking at slideshow images as something to be indexed, but I would be using some of these images in the page itself. This is just what I have found in the past.
-Andy
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
-
Image results Bing vs Google
I have a website with a number of images and I have optimized all of the images on both a file name and ALT text level, relevant to content on the page they are published on. I haven't created a separate image sitemap, but the strange thing is that Google has all of my images indexed and they can be found for the right keywords, but when I look in BING! images, there is no image indexed available at all ...
Image & Video Optimization | | ConclusionDigital0 -
What's better for SEO an Optimized Image URL vs Optimized Image File Name?
I would like to know what is best practice for optimizing images for our website. Is it better to give an Image an optimized filename Or an optimized URL for SEO? Or is it better to do both? Would there be any harm in doing both if they are identical in their format? Any help would be greatly appreciated. With thanks, Kate
Image & Video Optimization | | K_borg0 -
SEO benefits of terms used in Alt-tag, image name, page title
On our website, we have products that come in different colours, and we have created a different SKU for each one .e.g. our Acacia Evening Dress comes in 3 different colours (black, blue and red) - Acacia Evening Dress Black (J7048BLK), Acacia Evening Dress Blue (J7048RB), Acacia Evening Dress Red (J7048R). Would it be beneficial for SEO if on the image Alt-tag we used the terms 'Jadore J7048 Red Acacia dress', 'Jadore J7048 Black Acacia dress' and 'Jadore J7048 Blue Acacia dress', because 'Acacia' is the internal name we have given to this dress, not the name provided by the label, Jadore, as more customers would search for terms such as 'black dress' or 'Jadore J7048'? Can we use the same terms in the Alt-tag on the image and the page title? How important is the Alt-tag in searching?
Image & Video Optimization | | CostumeD0 -
Does anyone know a browser extension that could show me the position an image has in Image Search?
Hello and thank you for your attention! Does anyone know a browser extension that could show me the image ranking in Google Image SERP - similar to what SEOmoz Tool does for regular search - shows you a number under each result, in the left side. Thank you so much!
Image & Video Optimization | | Netlogiq0 -
Dynamic image serving SEO
We often use images from a dynamic image server, to cater for image asset management, multiple sizes etc. Similar to Adobe's Scene7, although that came out after we chose our product. So widgets.com may have all its images with a URL like myimageserver.com?src=widgets/catalogue/productname.jpg;width=100;height=100;angle=90, instead of widgets.com/images/productname.jpg. A potential client wants to capitalise on traffic from Google image search. We could build an image sitemap, listing the images on each page. What should we place in the image:loc field? The code: myimageserver.com?src=widgets/catalogue/productname.jpg;width=100;height=100;angle=90 Apparently we have to verify the hosting site in Webmaster Tools, but I can't see where. I have a single Webmaster Tools account, where most of our sites are defined. Would I have to verify it for each site using the dynamic imaging program? Love to hear from anyone with solutions for getting images indexed when they are hosted at third-party dynamic imaging programs.
Image & Video Optimization | | ozgeekmum0 -
Will putting images in a light box or photo gallery affect my image SEO?
A website that is very image heavy and would like to enhance the user experience with a photo gallery. How will this affect the indexing of these photos? Can I still add alt. tags and title tags to these images?
Image & Video Optimization | | Unidev0 -
Will hosted videos be indexed and pulled into search results if a video sitemap is submitted, but the video itself is in an iframe?
We're working with a client to create and submit a video site map. All of their videos are on separate pages, with unique copy, etc. The problem is that the videos may have to be within an iframe. Will this be an issue with regards to being included in video and universal search results? Or will the video site map take care of it? While we're on the topic of video site maps, does anyone know conclusively what the best thumbnail size is? Google has conflicting information, one resource says 160 x 120, and another says 120 x 90. Thanks in advance!
Image & Video Optimization | | RedDoor580 -
Google Images
Hi, I'm setting up a Barcelona guide as a hobby: barcelonacitybreak.com. Naturally I take care to use good alt-tags, checking Google images I see one of the photos I took listed as number one: "hibernian bookstore barcelona". There is no doubt that this is the photo I took myself, but when I place the mouse over the photo the origin is listed as:http://www.auladirectiva.com/. What is even more worrying though is that when I press the image I automatically download this: "Antispy 2011" from http://protectionxpscannermaster.com! Evidently some kind of "anti-virus" program. How is this possible?
Image & Video Optimization | | vibelingo0