Is it worth creating an Image Sitemap?
-
We've just installed the server side script 'XML Sitemaps' on our eCommerce site.
The script gives us the option of (easily) creating an image sitemap but I'm debating whether there is any reason for us to do so. We sell printer cartridges and so all the images will be pretty dry (brand name printer cartridge in front of a box being a favourite). I can't see any potential customers to search for an image as a route in to the site and Google appears to be picking up our images on it's own accord so wonder if we'll just be crawling the site and submitting this information for no real reason.
From a quality perspective would Google give us any kind of kudos for providing an Image Sitemap? Would it potentially increase their crawl frequency or, indeed, reduce the load on our servers as they wouldn't have to crawl for all the images themselves?
I can't stress how little of a hardship it will be to create one of these automatically daily but am wondering if, like Meta Keywords, there is any benefit to doing so? -
Many thanks all. The crawler is currently in the process of creating an image sitemap as we speak. We tweaked the website a little to ensure the ALT text is spot on for the product in question before starting this process.
As mentioned my only reason for asking was to ensure that we weren't providing what would essentially have been redundant information for no reason whatsoever (ie Meta Keywords) but you've convinced me that it is a good idea.
Speak soon and thanks again.
-
I agree with the guys above, just do it because it usually can't harm anything. It's more a sign to Google that these images are out there then it's really a signal that they're of high quality. So in the end they'll still decide if they think it's worth indexing them or not.
-
I'm also in the camp of do it if it's so easy. Sitemaps are far superior to meta keywords because they're an actual technical specification of a quantifiable thing (image, page, etc.) versus a subjective listing like meta keywords.
Haivng easily and readily indexed images can also help with your backlink profile. XKCD has a great example of allowing for such promotion here: https://xkcd.com/license.html Obviously his content is more likely to be shared, but even in your case if it's a little help it's still help and is unlikely to hurt. Cheers!
-
Hi there
I would do it, especially if it's easy like you said. People are visual and you don't know how much it could potentially help users who need the visual validation that they are about to buy the right cartridge. With a sitemap, you're also able to add your own titles, descriptions, and it also helps Google find images that may potentially be reached through Javascript.
Again, if it's easy enough, do it - you covered another base and helped your chances of increased visibility. Here's more information for you.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
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
-
For SEO... - Display Graphs in HTML5 or Image?
Hi All, Would you recommend displaying charts and graphs as images or HTML5 (highcharts etc.)? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
Link Audit - Sponsor/Partners Images Links
Hi everyone, 1. I'm conducting a link audit and read that if you are a sponsor or partner of a company, links should be nofollowed. I always no follow them if they are money keywords, but branded I leave alone. is that a good strategy? Or do i nofollow my brand name as well? 2. What if I'm a sponsor and have my company logo on their website that links to my website? How would i know if that link should be nofollowed? a. Does it depend on the "alt" of the image? b. Does it depend on the landing page of the link of the image? c. Do i just no follow image links from sponsor pages and partner pages as a whole? Please keep in mind that I'm sponsoring websites that are relevant to my niche. PLEASE HELP!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Shawn1240 -
Subdomain Blog Sitemap link - Add it to regular domain?
Example of setup:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EEE3
www.fancydomain.com
blog.fancydomain.com Because of certain limitations, I'm told we can't put our blogs at the subdirectory level, so we are hosting our blogs at the subdomain level (blog.fancydomain.com). I've been asked to incorporate the blog's sitemap link on the regular domain, or even in the regular domain's sitemap. 1. Putting the a link to blog.fancydomain.com/sitemap_index.xml in the www.fancydomain.com/sitemap.xml -- isn't this against sitemap.org protocol? 2. Is there even a reason to do this? We do have a link to the blog's home page from the www.fancydomain.com navigation, and the blog is set up with its sitemap and link to the sitemap in the footer. 3. What about just including a text link "Blog Sitemap" (linking to blog.fancydomain.com/sitemap_index.html) in the footer of the www.fancydomain.com (adjacent to the text link "Sitemap" which already exists for the www.fancydomain.com's sitemap. Just trying to make sense of this, and figure out why or if it should be done. Thanks!0 -
Problem with SEO for my Image based website.
My website focuses on movie posters. I'm having a little debate on what is the best way to have images linked to. The current image location is stored like this: /movie-name/poster-1.jpg
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | thedevilseeker
/movie-name/poster-2.jpg Is it best to leave it like that or change it to : /movie-name/movie-name-poster-1.jpg
/movie-name/movie-name-poster-1.jpg The reason I ask, is that I read today that Google uses the image name to help detect what the image is about. At the same time, if the movie name is the in folder structure, along with the image name... wouldn't it start to look like keyword stuffing?0 -
Google Preview not showing images
No matter which our pages i find in the SERP the Google Preview does not show images for www.spies.dk Try searching for "rejser til malaysia" on google.dk. The result www.spies.dk/malaysia is not showing images. Why is that? Using the "google preview tool" under labs in Google Webmaster Tools sys it found 13 errors on that page: | Ressource: | Information: http://images2.spies.dk/images/SiteID11/SiteLayout/logo-spies.png?v=4 | Indekseret http://images1.spies.dk/images/StaticLayout/Spies_hori_sRGB.png?v=1 | Indekseret http://images1.spies.dk/images/SiteID11/Button/search-button-text3.png?v=2 | Indekseret http://images2.spies.dk/images/Country/my1001_10_48.jpg?v=1 | Indekseret http://images2.spies.dk/images/SiteID11/Button/Opdater_bt.png?v=2 | Indekseret http://images1.spies.dk/images/SiteID11/Button/Sog_bt.png?v=3 | Indekseret http://images2.spies.dk/images/Country/my1002_2_22.gif?v=1 | Indekseret http://images2.spies.dk/images/Resort/bkikki1001_4_11.jpg?v=1 | Indekseret http://images2.spies.dk/images/SiteID11/Button/Vaelg_bt.png?v=7 | Indekseret http://images1.spies.dk/images/Resort/bkiskn1001_4_11.jpg?v=1 | Indekseret http://images1.spies.dk/images/Resort/kulkum1001_4_11.jpg?v=1 | Indekseret http://images1.spies.dk/images/Resort/lgklak1001_4_11.jpg?v=1 | Indekseret https://track.adform.net/serving/scripts/trackpoint/async/ | Indekseret |
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | alsvik0 -
Submitting sitemaps every 7 days
Question, if you had a site with more than 10 million pages (that you wanted indexed) and you considered each page to be equal in value how would you submit sitemaps to Google? Would you submit them all at once: 200 sitemaps 50K each in a sitemap index? Or Would you submit them slowly? For example, would it be a good idea to submit 300,000 at a time (in 6 sitemaps 50k each). Leave those those 6 sitemaps available for Google to crawl for 7 days then delete them and add 6 more with 300,000 new links? Then repeat this process until Google has crawled all the links? If you implemented this process you would never at one time have more than 300,000 links available for Google to crawl in sitemaps. I read somewhere that eBay does something like this, it could be bogus info though. Thanks David
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | zAutos0 -
Duplicate content for images
On SEOmoz I am getting duplicate errors for my onsite report. Unfortunately it does not specify what that content is... We are getting these errors for our photo gallery and i am assuming that the reason is some of the photos are listed in multiple categories. Can this be the problem? what else can it be? how can we resolve these issues?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEODinosaur0 -
URL formating is it worth changing?
One of my clients sites has almost OK URL's, set up something like the following: keyword2_keyword3_keyword1 Ideally the URL's would be more like this: keyword1-keyword2-keyword3 My question is is there any point in changing them and 301 redirecting them over just to get the target keywords in a better order and change the _ to a - ? Has anyone tried this and its worked or not worked, I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. Justin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GrouchyKids0