Image Maps
-
Hey forum,
I'm curious about Image Maps. Few things I'm not sure about:
1. Will the links be followed? If so, will Google respect rel="nofollow"?
2. Will the image be considered 1 image? (indexed as image, etc.) Or will each map segment be treated as a separate image?
3. Any other SEO pros\cons to consider when adding an image map to an existing page?
Thanks,
Corwin.
-
Corwin - that's awesome info - thanks for posting the results of your tests!
-
For people who find this and want the final results, these are what I see at my site, YMMV:
1. Links from image maps are indeed followed, Google crawls pages that are only accessible via the image map. nofollow also seems to be respected, unless Google just decided not to index these pages for another reason, but I doubt it.
2. The images are indeed indexed for Google images as one image containing the entire map. This image gets the "alt" value of the entire image, not the individual map segments.
I hope this is useful.
-
Thank you! Great info and suggestions. I'll take your advice and post here once I get the results, so others can benefit from it.
-
1 - Can't say regarding nofollow - you could always try adding rel="nofollow" to the <area> tag and give it a shot.
Whether the links are followed depends on whether they're indexed. In my opinion, they shouldn't have any issue crawling the links. If you look at the source code of a page with an image map on it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_map for example) you'll see that the links are pretty clearly listed (and in Chrome's source code view they're even hyperlinked - which alone suggests they should be crawling them just fine.)
That said, I have not tested this, and I can't find any references to actual testing done online.
If I were you, I would test this by doing the following:
- Create an image map somewhere on your site (we'll call it the Map Page).
- Link that image map to a 2nd page of the site that is not linked anywhere else on the Map Page.
- Feel free to tweet the URLs of both pages to speed up the indexation process.
- Go in to Google Webmaster Tools, and see if a link is reported to the 2nd Page from the Map Page.
- If there isn't, double check the cache date of the Map Page to see if it's after the image map was added to the page.
- If you go through that test, and GWT doesn't report a link from the Map Page to the 2nd Page, then I would go ahead and use the image map, but I would also add text links on the page to ensure your optimal site structure is in place.
- If GWT does report the link, then that seem sufficient to me, so long as you specify the alt and title text for each individual link since that will function as your anchor text.
2 - The image will probably be considered one image as far as indexing in Google Images (would be strange if they indexed portions of the image), however the alt and title attributes should behave more like multiple images.
3 - I would just do the test I described above and you should be set. Also, take a look at what popular websites using Image Maps do in this situation. National real estate listing sites are a common one for image maps IIRC.
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
-
Use Canonical or Robots.txt for Map View URL without Backlink Potential
I have a Page X with lots of unique content. This page has a "Map view" option, which displays some of the info from Page X, but a lot is ommitted. Questions: Should I add canonical even though Map View URL does not display a lot of info from Page X or adding to robots.txt or noindex, follow? I don't see any back links coming to Map View URL Should Map View page have unique H1, title tag, meta des?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | khi50 -
Creative Commons Images Good for SEO?
I've been looking at large image packages through iStock, Getty, Fotolia and 123RF, but before spending a bunch of money, I wanted to get some of your feedback on Creative Commons images. Should be worried that something found on Google Images > Search Tools > Usage Rights section can be used without issue or legal threats from the big image companies so long as they are appropriately referenced? AND will using these types of images and linking to the sources have any affect on SEO efforts or make the blog/website look spammy in Google's eyes because we need to link to the source? How are you using Creative Commons images and is there anything I should be aware of in the process of searching, saving, using, referencing, etc? Patrick
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WhiteboardCreations0 -
Do Local Search Efforts (Citations, NAP, Reviews) have an impact on traditional organic search listings (without the A, B, C mapping icons), but rather the traditional listings?
Are citations, NAP, Reviews, and other local search efforts impact traditional SEO listings? Can one elaborate?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JQC0 -
Technical Question on Image Links - Part of Addressing High Number of Outbound Links
Hi - I've read through the forum, and have been reading online for hours, and can't quite find an answer to what I'm searching for. Hopefully someone can chime in with some information. 🙂 For some background - I am looking closely at four websites, trying to bring them up to speed with current guidelines, and recoup some lost traffic and revenue. One of the things we are zeroing in on is the high amount of outbound links in general, as well as inter-site linking, and a nearly total lack of rel=nofollow on any links. Our current CMS doesn't allow an editor to add them, and it will require programming changes to modify any past links, which means I'm trying to ask for the right things, once, in order to streamline the process. One thing that is nagging at me is that the way we link to our images could be getting misconstrued by a more sensitive Penguin algorithm. Our article images are all hosted on one separate domain. This was done for website performance reasons. My concern is that we don't just embed the image via , which would make this concern moot. We also have an href tag on each to a 'larger view' of the image that precedes the img src in the code, for example - We are still running the numbers, but as some articles have several images, and we currently have about 85,000 articles on those four sites... well, that's a lot of href links to another domain. I'm suggesting that one of the steps we take is to rel=nofollow the image hrefs. Our image traffic from Google search, or any image search for that matter, is negligible. On one site it represented just .008% of our visits in July. I'm getting a little pushback on that idea as having a separate image server is standard for many websites, so I thought I'd seek additional information and opinions. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MediaCF0 -
Link to image (jpg) - Do I benefit? If not how can I?
Doing some research I found a .edu page linking directly to an image on my site. I can't see how this really benefits me so am wondering how to point the link juice somewhere useful, like the page on which the image resides. Can this be done? One idea that just occured to me would be to rename the image and set up a 301 in the .htaccess. Would that work?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cornwall0 -
How to get the 'show map of' tag/link in Google search results
I have 2 clients that have apparently random examples of the 'show map of' link in Google search results. The maps/addresses are accurate and for airports. They are both aggregators, they service the airports e.g. lax airport shuttle (not actual example) BUT DO NOT have Google Place listings for these pages either manually OR auto populated from Google, DO NOT have the map or address info on the pages that are returned in the search results with the map link. Does anyone know how this is the case? Its great that this happens for them but id like to know how/why so I can replicate across all their appropriate pages. My understanding was that for this to happen you HAD to have Google Place pages for the appropriate pages (which they cant do as they are aggregators). Thanks in advance, Andy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndyMacLean0 -
Duplicate Listings on Google Maps
About 3 weeks ago google created a duplicate listing for our law firm on google maps. In building links I have tried very hard to ensure that our address and company name was always listed identically. Our correct firm name and address is Feldman Feldman & Associates, PC 2221 Camino Del Rio South, Suite 201 inevitably somehow the new listing stated Camino Del Rio S, Ste 201 All of our reviews moved over to this new profile, I claimed it, changed it to make it the same reported it to Google. Google merged them. Now Google has created another profile this time the firm name and address matches ours exactly (South and Suite both spelled out), but all of the reviews have moved over except for the most recent one(s). I have claimed it again and reported it to google, changed the address. Google then created another listing. Our page rank for keywords has been hurt by this. any idea why this keeps happening suggestions? Here are the two pages. This is our original listing http://maps.google.com/maps/place?hl=en&cid=468564492130231259 This is the new one google self created that stole all our reviews, but is ranked very poorly for the keyword searches. http://maps.google.com/maps/place?&cid=468564492130231259
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jfeld2220