Should I watermark my product images
-
I am in the process of creating new images for my products to use on my website. Are there any advantages or disadvantages of watermarking each image? Is there an SEO impact good or bad? I am aware that filename and Alt tags are important, but am unsure if google dislikes watermarked images.
-
Hi all, thanks for your comments. Looks like it wouldn't do any harm if I had a small brand logo placed on each image. Will have a think and probably just go for it.
Thanks.
-
Time might come, and might be around the corner when, images in Google Search will be OCR'd (scanned for text/wording and made searchable) this will result in your watermarks if its in Copyright Joe Smith (text form) will be searchable.
Also thing about this if you are using image search with an image of your brand, (not sure about practically but theoretically) you should be able to find all your images if they are watermarked with your Brand image in Google image search.
So if you are planning to future proof your images for image SEO go for it!
-
Are you selling your own manufactured goods or reselling someone elses? If you're reselling someone elses, don't they have images of their products already to use? I think it's rare for a reseller to take all their own product images, but if you do because you feel it gives you an edge, I would use your own logo prominently rather than as a watermark. Maybe you have an artistic presentation of goods that needs proprietary protection - that is the only case I can see for potential watermarking.
And, if you're selling your own goods, do you also sell them to others for resale? I frequently need product photos from manufacturers for promotion by authorized sellers of their brands.
Different companies have different ways they let marketing depts retrieve images, and from my side, the easier it is, the better. I've never seen anyone put watermarks on their images, but some create their sites so you have to go through a lengthy registration process and wait to hear back - huge pain in the kisser for me as I have to go to the client, they have to find the account, get it back to me, I enter it, oops, website says not that string of numbers, go back... etc. Time suck warp.
Some companies make their images non-downloadable (though there are some workarounds and screen shots). The ones I like best - just let me have the images, no mess, no fuss. I am after all trying to sell their products.
Then, I brand a corner with the resellers logo, but not as a watermark; rather it's a notice that yes, this company carries this merchandise. And for SEO, if the reseller branded image of the original product comes up in image search (which they do sometimes as I always fully tag out my images), then all the better. If you're selling your own goods with no authorized resellers, I think I would brand a corner also - no watermark, just a logo, but only if for some reason your logo is not already on the products.
-
Does the mark say, "EGOL?"
-
I do the bottom left or right... Weasels still steal it. Some publish with my copyright mark, some paint it out, some put a textbox over my mark.
-
Lots of good points already. I find that small logo in a corner is helpful because even if the image is stolen, saved to a computer, reused, posted on facebook without context, whatever -- your brand is still prominently displayed.
-
There may be some value in branding in that regard depending on what you're selling.
However, If its small and unobtrosive then the viewer probably wouldn't be able to tell what the logo is/says until they open the image.
Edit add - when its that small its easily removed and cropped so it really becomes a matter of whether you think its important as a branding element versus protection.
-
Watermarking can have an advantage in Google images. If you have lots of images your brand will show up often and people will get to know it, without ever having visited your site.
-
Do it - For me it adds credibility when a company watermarks their images unobtrusively, and G loves credibility...
-
Thanks for your feedback. I was thinking about a small brand logo bottom right or left of each image. Nothing instrusive. For the feeds it would be clean images.
Thanks again for your thoughts.
-
I agree w/ AWC.
If you do watermark, just make sure it's not the least bit distracting.
One ecomm site I work with has over 10,000 original product images. They were constantly being stolen, which is annoying considering the effort that goes into the production of the images. Once they were watermarked (via the ecomm platform), the poaching pretty much stopped.
-
A watermark won't affect your rank.
In my opinion this is more a matter of the use of your time.
I very rarely see watermarks anymore on ecommerce sites. I think a watermark will do more to pollute the appearance of your product than protect your images from piracy.
From a practical perspective, Google and other shopping feeds may have rules regarding watermarks and artwork associated with products so make sure you are aware of the rules if you use feeds.
Edit add - I can recall 1 ecommerce site I've visited using watermarks and the only other places I see it are sites that sell images and artwork.
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
-
Combining products - edit existing product page or 301 redirect to new page?
We want to combine existing products - e.g. 'hand lotion' and 'body lotion' will become 'hand & body lotion'. As such, we'll need to combine the two product pages into one. What would be the best route to take in terms of SEO to do this? My initial reaction is to create a new product page and then 301 or 302 redirect the old products to the new product page depending on if the change is permanent or temporary. Would you agree? Or am I missing something?
On-Page Optimization | | SwankyApple1 -
Will it upset Google if I aggregate product page reviews up into a product category page?
We have reviews on our product pages and we are considering averaging those reviews out and putting them on specific category pages in order for the average product ratings to be displayed in search results. Each averaged category review would be only for the products within it's category, and all reviews are from users of the site, no 3rd party reviews. For example, averaging the reviews from all of our boxes products pages, and listing that average review on the boxes category page. My question is, will this be doing anything wrong in the eyes of Google, and if so how so? -Derick
On-Page Optimization | | Deluxe0 -
Product URL
Hey Mozzers, Nice quick and simple one for you. Which of these 2 options is better for SEO and userbility and why domain.co.uk/productname.html
On-Page Optimization | | ATP
domain.co.uk/shop/category/product.html The top one stops stops any funky problems with magento making 2 paths to the same product but the second option feels more natural and helpful to the user. I feel both a valid but I would like some opinions please0 -
Magento product pages - should they have a .php or .html?
Hi all, I'm using a plugin to do some SEO work on my Magento site It says this is an error: Product pages should have a suitable file type extension such as .php or .html I removed .html when I first set up my store because I though it looked more aesthetically pleasing, but does this have a negative effect on SEO? I can't find much information on this matter in my searches. Can anyone shed any light on this? Thank you, Laura
On-Page Optimization | | llj0 -
Homepage vs. Product page competition
I think my homepage and basic product listing page may be competing.. We have a very old domain with lots of links w/ generic anchor text ( click here, etc. ) That page is http://mybrand.com which Google ranks for our "widgets" search term. We have a page http://ourbrand.com/widgets that lists the 5 or 6 basic widgets we sell. This page is indexed also, but doesn't have nearly as many links since it is new compared to the age of the domain. After reading this.. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-solve-keyword-cannibalization I I'm not really sure I can remove all "widgets" links from our homepage, since that's a core part of our site's menu / hierarchy. So maybe my best effort would be to reorganize the page so that the homepage focuses on Our Brand Name Widgets .. and let the product page focus on the widgets keyword. Is having those two pages serve to represent those two separate but similar keywords feasible? Thoughts?
On-Page Optimization | | minutiae0 -
How do websites display product attributes listed with their meta descriptions in Google SEPRs?
If you take a look at this SERP for "boys costumes" you can see that Amazon, HalloweenExpress and Target all have attributes listed such as "Products 1-25 of 500" or Kids Legolas _Costume. _ These are getting blended with their meta descriptions. How are they doing this? Anyone see any lifts in ranking or CTR by doing this? Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | Troyville0 -
Duplicate Product BUT Unique Content -- any issues?
We have the situation where a group of products fit into 2 different categories and also serve different purposes (to the customer). Essentially, we want to have the same product duplicated on the site, but with unique content and it would even have a slightly different product name. Some specifications would be redundant, but the core content would be different. Any issues?
On-Page Optimization | | SEOPA1 -
Change in Product Name
My site - http://www.guru99.com/quick-test-professional-qtp-tutorial.html Currently caters to an automation testing product from HP called Quick Test Professional popularly know and searched as QTP Recently HP changed the product name from QTP to HP Functional Test. Considering this , what do I do with exiting QTP pages and how do I optimize the site moving ahead...
On-Page Optimization | | krishrun0