Posted 4 years ago #
Hey all!
I know this has been covered here and there but I couldn't find a solution so I'm posting it now.
I use WordPress (Mimbo theme) with Zenphoto. Not a single image of mine appears in Google Images. I have almost 1000 images in my gallery and around 50 outside of it. Am I missing something here? Is there anything I can do to get indexed? Am I doing something that is preventing indexing?
I would looooove any help on this one!!!
My site is here if that helps.
Thanks!
Pierrot
> "I couldn't find a solution so I'm posting it now."
What is it you're posting now?
Anyway, a little information about how long your site has been around, and what you DO get google hits based on, would be nice.
Do you have a stats package running, like analytics or awstats or something? If not, get one so you can see what search terms are actually being used to reach you.
I've had people hit my site based on google image searches, but I can't for the life of me make any of mine show when I try looking for them myself. That doesn't mean they're not there.
Posted 4 years ago #
Well, I monitor my site using analytics and stat press so I can say for sure that I have never gotten a google images hit.
I use 'all in one SEO' and 'XML sitemap' for SEO stuff, neither of which seem to help out for images.
There are plenty of search terms that reach my site, however none ever reach the images. What I'm wondering is if there is something very basic I am missing as none of my images are being indexed?
I just poked around your site, and I guess you must be talking about the gallery images - NONE of which you seem to have described or put captions on.
Exactly what keywords are they supposed to be associated with, when there are no words on those pages!?
Posted 4 years ago #
Ivovic,
That's what I'm talking about. I need to know if I am not doing something I should be! Now when I mouse over an image in the gallery the title comes up. Isn't that enough for indexing. If not, I will look into adding descriptions or captions.
So is that what is needed for Google image indexing?
Thanks,
P
well, the title is helpful, but really you need to think about how YOU want a search engine to work for you as a searcher, and you can bet that's how the folks at google address the issue.
when you search for "elephants" are you more likely to be interested in 10,000 pages saying stuff like:
- elephants are great
- wow, that looks like elephants
- elephants have wrinkles
- these are my elephants
etc...
or are you more likely to be interested in pages with lots of interesting content about elephants?
given that the google software can't actually "look" at the image (yet) the priority for images is very similar to that of text pages. The more relevant content there is, the more likely that pictures on that page are targeted to the search terms.
After all, you want pictures of elephants right? - you don't really want throwaway lines like "my ex girlfriend is an elephant" to rank particularly highly.
The people who make search engines have to struggle against webmasters who would force their way into the top results - really, we all want to be there, but the only reliable way of making it happen is to have *lots* of *quality* content about a focused subject.
You have a thousand images with barely any information attached to them, and the vast majority of which have no relationship to each other.
Only the artist and existing fans of the artist are likely to consider that a worthwhile hit in an image search.
As for your title tags... this image here is called '5' - seriously, are you pulling my leg? This is you trying to get indexed?
http://phauxshow.com/gallery/eric-ginsburg/5.JPG.php
"human series 2"
http://phauxshow.com/gallery/valentina-vasi/human+series_2.jpg.php
you've got to be freaking kidding. What exactly should I be searching for to find these things?
"teardrop"
http://phauxshow.com/gallery/mujahid-rieger/TearDrop.JPG.php
If I searched for teardrop, I'd honestly be quite disappointed if I found that. Not because it sucks, but because it's general usefulness as an image is extremely low. It's nice to look at, but what can I do with it?
Making your site work with search engines isn't very complex. You just have to put yourself in the shoes of the average consumer of search results, and ask yourself "if I wanted to find this, how would I look for it?"
For you, the answer is to include the words art, artistic, painting, etc on literally every page. Perhaps if I searched for "artistic representation of a teardrop" I might be more interested in that result -- particularly if it came with a description of the artist's vision when creating it.
You need descriptive alt and/or title text in the image tags for Google image search to favor you. Note: It can take over 6 months for images to show up in Google image search (they can be very slow to update).
Here is an example (fake):
<img src="http://example.com/images/sea-turtle.jpg" alt="Green Sea Turtle" title="Top view of a Green Sea Turtle" />
again, that stuff helps but it's not enough to make your results better than anyone else's for those 6 words, only 3 of which actually mean anything.
Posted 4 years ago #
yes, every image nees the alt and title tag, especially the alt tag. yours are all empty, therefore you will not rank in google...plus remember how long it may take to get them indexed once you redo them all. I have more hits to my site from images since I have honed them with alt and title tags and named my .jpg file something like "keyword_is_here.jpg"
Now go back to the question of all - how long has your site been around?
Google Images takes (basically) FOREVER to include a site's images in the results. Wait a few more months.
Posted 4 years ago #
Thanks for all of the great tips. And Ivivic, thank you for taking so much time to look at my site. If you ever need an image called '5' I'm your man!
Everything everyone has said makes sense. Ultimately, I have to take a serious look at how I am including my images. This is my first web project and it's just over a month old. I'm not being lazy with the gallery - I seriously didn't know about any of this! Also, the image names are somewhat out of my hands as the artists call them what they want. And, I understand the point about having no relevant content on the image page.
So I have a lot to do!
I suppose, more than anything I was just concerned that none of the images were showing up rather than thinking that they all might. I think for my site I will benefit from searched for the artist rather that image.
I'm going to look into creating tags right away.
Everyone, thank you!
Posted 4 years ago #
Ivovic, I spelled your name wrong! Sorry
no problem ;) Happens all the time.
I'm glad you're taking this all in good stead... If every image is valuable, then all you really need to do is present it in a way that demonstrates that value.
At the moment you have the equivalent of a shoebox full of assorted pictures - what you really need to do is make it into more of a gallery.
Mind you, I don't envy the job, you weren't wrong when you said you had a lot of work to do. That's a huge number of pictures to correctly index, label, tag and describe.
A very ambitious first web project. Kudos.
Good luck to you.
This topic has been closed to new replies.
