Image Duplicates - Does Google Penalize on this?
-
Hi Mozzers,
I have some doubts on the images hosted on my site. I have a single image on the website coming from 3 different locations. The locations are:
img.mydomain.com/site/default/serivces.jpg
img1.mydomain.com/site/default/serivces.jpg
www.mydomain.com/site/default/serivces.jpg
Now, these 3 are the same images with the same Title (they currently do not have an Alt Tag). Now, the 2 sub-domains when opened without any internal URL, redirects to the main domain.
For instance, if I access img.mydomain.com it 301 redirects to www.mydomain.com but if I access img.mydomain.com/site/default/serivces.jpg I will get the image and it does not redirect. I have checked Google Image search and the full path on the sub-domain of the image is being indexed and crawled by Google Image bot.
Now, this is true for both the sub-domains which act as CDN for the images. If Google does crawl all the locations which have the same image, does it cause a duplicate issue for it?
I know that if it was content, I would be in trouble but does image also has the same implications. I am planning for image optimization and faced with this situation.
Any answers?
Cheers,
-
Cheers Nagul!
Give it a go. And let me know when you get ready to publish it and I'll share it around. It would really be quite a useful topic to learn about.
-
Let me try and give it a shot...it might be my 1st SEOMoz article. Good idea...Cheers Jesse.
-
Looks like there is enough interest here for a full blog entry on image sitemaps. Nakul? Anyone?
-
Thanks Nakul. That solves the issue.
Cheers,
-
Claudio, I would recommend doing a separate images only sitemap in the right format. See these links for more details:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=178636
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/adding-images-to-your-sitemaps.html
-
Akhil, at any given point, there's only 1 of those 3 URLs of the images that would appear on the site. I would therefore only choose 1, the one that is primary / most important to you.
-
Jesse, yes, I would recommend doing this for any site with a considerable number of images. If you want your images to be found, it won't hurt to do an image sitemap. Definitely recommended. Google webmaster console then gives you a good read on how many of the images you submitted are already indexed as well as a count of the pages those images are on, that are indexed.
-
Thanks for the response Nakul. So, in the image sitemap, would you recommend to add all the locations of the images or should I just mention only one. If one, which should be that and any reasons for choosing the same. If this does not cause a duplicate issue, it is fine with me.
For better indexation I can certainly have a sitemap but would like to know on how to go about this?
Cheers,
-
Dear Nakul,
About the image sitemap, what do you recommend :
1. use the attribute on the current sitemap withing the prop or build a separate sitemap for images.
To be honest Im not sure what is the best way and Im worry about sitemap related issues
Waiting your response
Claudio
-
Nakul, would you recommend this practice to all sites with a decent number of images? Or is it only important in this case?
-
Do you have an Image Sitemap created and submitted in your webmaster console ? If not, I would suggest you do that. Other then that, if I were you, I wouldn't worry too much about this being an issue at the moment. Google is smart enough to understand this as a CDN situation. As I said above, doing an Images XML sitemap should be all you need to do in this regard. I hope this helps.
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
-
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 -
Google+ Local ranking for company with no website
Hi,
Image & Video Optimization | | Ant71
Im about to start helping a small business who has a facebook account but no website. Has anyone got any experience of getting a business ranking locally without a website? Just wandering if NAP details from a facebook / Google+ account helps with local citation building? Or whether a basic website is required? Antony0 -
Google+ Local Reviews
Hi everyone, Is it against Google+ Local's guidelines to request one's customers to post reviews on their page? For example, asking my customers on my email list, or through Facebook if they can leave a review on the G+ Local page? Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | FernwoodFitness0 -
How to keep rankings in Google Maps?
Hi, I know how to get in top 3 listings for Google maps, i ranked my client #1 for
Image & Video Optimization | | Davidmez
pretty competitive keyword that gets about 2000 local searches a month. My client was there for about 3 months or so, but now she doesn't even rank in top 10, But shes number one after maps listings. So my question is how do you keep that rankings once you ranked #1 for maps? All my pages are highly optimized
My Google places page 100% competed and highly optimized
I use twitter every week to build citations What im i missing? Thanks0 -
Google Place Result taking over Organic Search Result
Hey there, One of our client contacted as stating that their Google ranking dropped. It was originally listed No.2 on the organic search result, but now it shows up only as Google Place instead, and the ranking is lower than before. Apparently it happens in Japan quite often nowadays, does it happen in your country too? Especially on Google.com? Is it becoming a trend?
Image & Video Optimization | | YukiTokuda0 -
Video SEO: Should I add Video Transcriptions to You Tube Videos Even with Google CC?
So, You Tube allows plenty of room from descriptions. I think 5,000 characters. Google does a poor Closed Caption of our audio. Should I also be adding accurate transcriptions to the description field in YouTube to help my Video SEO. What are the pro's cons and is it worth doing?
Image & Video Optimization | | BlairKuhnen1 -
Does position in local directories effect google detecting citations?
There are a lot of local directories that i have seen google pull citations from. Quite often i see people putting listings in these directories prefixed by several "A"s, so that they will appear on the first page of the list. Just how deep does google crawl through the pages of these lists? will google actually crawl through all the pages? Some of these directories offer paid listings that appear at the top of the directory. We have been considering purchasing some of these paid positions, so that google would be more likely to pickup our citations. In one case i have noticed a directory: shopincities.com do something that spiked my interest. Basically, if you start clicking through the different pages of a category, the site will block you after 3 or 4 pages in. It serves you an error saying that you are not human. In my mind this is to prevent google from fully crawling their whole list, so that the people who pay for the top positions are picked up, and the people who don't pay, even though their profiles are listed there, never get crawled by google. So would you pay for position on these directories? here are some examples: http://www.shopincities.com
Image & Video Optimization | | adriandg
http://www.411.ca
http://www.goldbook.com
http://www.n49.ca
http://torontodirect.com
http://www.yellowpages.com Or would you just throw a whole bunch of A's infront of your business name so you appear on the first page of listings? Or do you belive it doesn't matter how deep you are in the listings, and with enough time google will find it regardless and credit it as a citation?0 -
Name Change in Google Places
In the middle of a nightmare in Google Places. Dealing with a number of Chiropractic franchises. They all had previous practices (and Places listings). In many cases, a duplicate listing was created. Some locations are "under review", others have lost their ranking and a few are ranking for both location in the 7 pack.(usually because they had a different phone number used so I assume Google sees it as a separate company despite the same location) I am trying to fix all these duplicate or near duplicate listings that were created previously. In one case I edited the existing listing and tried to verify by phone. I got the 5 digit code but Google then said code is not valid. Has anyone been through a similar situation? Should I delete/deactivate old listing and Then optimize the remaining or vice versa? A complete mess. In some cases they may have four listings...old company, new franchise and new name, Doctors names. Any insight appreciated.
Image & Video Optimization | | AgileInt0