Indexing images? did something just happen?
-
did google stop indexing images? we had 563 in sept and now we have 1?
-
Here are a few facts about image search....
Images can go in and out of the image search collection - especially if they are new to image search. New images can go in and out for a few months before they stabilize.
If your newly uploaded image is already in the image search index (but hosted on another domain), google might index it and then drop it once they realize that your image is a copy - even if your copy is a different size, or slightly different in some way. Precedence has a slight advantage.
Your image that has been on your website and in image search for a long time - even as long as a decade - can fall out of image search if the same or very similar image is uploaded to another domain. Precedence does not guarantee persistence.
If you are the copyright holder for an image and it is on another domain in image search, you can file DMCA against that other domain using the Copyright Removal form in your search console. To do that, log into the google account for your search console and go here. BUT, BE CAREFUL.... if your copyrighted image is on another domain, the provisions of fair use can apply, so before you file DMCA, have a good knowledge of the fair use provision (U.S. copyright law) before you start filing take downs. The owner of the domain that you file against can sue you in certain instances. I strongly suggest getting that education first, and if you have questions about specific items, check with a copyright attorney before filing.
If you are grabbing and republishing images from other websites or other sources and do not own the copyright for them you might get slapped with a DMCA. Many owners of copyrighted images (they don't have to be marked "copyright") will file DMCA against you and some of they will sue you. The owner might also complain to Adsense and get your account turned off if you are a habitual infringer.
Lots of copyright holders watch their images like hawks. Some use automated methods or services that monitor their images. A few of them make big bucks by suing infringers.
Google usually responds quickly when DMCA is filed, sometimes within a few hours, and almost always within a few days. They will sometimes warn you about fair use issues, but they might not. Google might also tell you to contact the infringing webmaster in some instances - especially if the image is on a really prominent site. Or, they might tell you to file with the host where the image is visible - they often do this with wordpress, typepad, pinterest and other domains protected by Safe Harbor provisions.
I am not an attorney and do not give legal advice. I have been advised by three different copyright attorneys. I find that they usually don't cost as much as you fear and they can be worth a lot more than you pay them. This is how good professional service providers should be.
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 -
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!
Image & Video Optimization | | theoHP0 -
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 -
Google Places Images
Hi, i recently added a image to google places listing uploaded via the google places dashboard. It was uploaded about 3-4 weeks ago. The image is exactly 1024x1024 in size. I'm not sure whether google is not displaying it because its too big, or because it takes a while for google to start showing images for places listing. I was reading it can take up to 6 weeks. I don't want to have to wait 6 weeks, then find out the reason why the picture wasn't uploaded was because it was too big. Any suggestions on how i can find out which one is the case? Thanks, Matt
Image & Video Optimization | | Mattcarter080 -
H1 image
Hi, I was talking to a web consultant today that teaches SEO, he said that an image is ok as an h1 tag as long as it has an alt tag. This is something new to me and something that I've always tried to avoid. Does this now work? Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | brightonseorob0 -
Switching to a domain name with keywords in it, is it possible to make this happen smoothly?
Hello, We have been working on the SEO of our site for almost a year now, and we are still not really seeing the success we would like to see. I notice often we get outranked by other sites that have lower PA/DA/citations/reviews etc than us, and the only explaination i can find is that they are getting a boost for a Partial Keyword Match in the domain name. Right now our domain name is: http://www.storwell.com And we are considering switching to http://www.storwellselfstorage.com and of course 301 redirecting all the individual pages from the old domain to the new domain's pages. How much would we risk loosing out in this transition? Can we safely transfer domains, or do we risk loosing the majority of our PA & DA because the backlinks will point at redirects instead of the actual location? Has anyone successfully managed to transfer domains and keep their DA & PA?
Image & Video Optimization | | adriandg0 -
Hosting All Content Images On Flickr For Blog - What are SEO implications?
Hi, I am starting a travel blog and thought of the idea of hosting all the content images over at Flickr and just calling them into my blog content when needed. Benefits: push traffic over to my Flickr account pull traffic from Flickr to my blog However, I was just wondering about any SEO implications of having 3-4 links per post pointing to Flickr. Is this spammy? Will I lose my juice? Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks.
Image & Video Optimization | | DigitalLeaf0 -
Alt text in combination with images from another source / url
I have a feed that is parsed on my website. All images do come form another source( and url that differts from my site). However I can change the alt text. I concerns hotel mages worldwide. In order to relate the images with the different language I want to add a small phrase "airport hotel" translated in the laguages that are present on my site Example alt text will be alt="airport hotel: Mercure Schiphol Terminal" or in German alt="Flughafen hotel: Mercure Schiphol Terminal" Will this have a positive effect on my SEO despite the url of the images are not related to my site?
Image & Video Optimization | | fctexel0