Text versus images: Do they carry the same SEO value?

[scottb]

Do you believe that Google values original images as much as original text? If I post an original standalone image and then separately another post that was pure text, would Google respond equally?

[aristotle]

If they both relate to the same subject, then it might be best to put them on the same page, with part of the text referring to the image.

[Robert Charlton]

In most cases, images need accompanying text on the page in order to rank. Generally, it's the text that ranks the image, not the other way around.

See this discussion, which is one of the best we've had on image search....

Is it worth changing domain to boost Image Search rankings?
May, 2014
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4673517.htm [webmasterworld.com]

There a lot in the thread about why images rank or don't rank, but here's an excerpt from my thoughts about the key factors. I suggest reading thw whole thread...

Images that rank seem most often to rank because they're included in pages that rank because of text content. I have seen exceptions to this, and haven't fully identified the reasons... except to say that these sites seem to have a following beyond Google traffic, and that their links are natural.

Beyond this, their structures appear to provide enough clues to Google that Google can figure out what types of sites they are. Image galleries, with nothing else to drive them, though, have generally fallen....

Any other information that you can give Google about the image can also help... filename, alt text, caption, and text nearby. Don't overdo this though to the point where it becomes spammy.

[scottb]

Thanks to both of you. Robert, your insight is very helpful. I asked the quesiton because I spent a large amount of time the other day creating a big, stand-alone, interactive graphic. I usually noticed a jump in Google visits when I post a new article. But not this time.

Looks like I need to add some text around it.

[Selen]

You can have it both ways: original image + original Alt / Title text on it :)

[Robert Charlton]

scottb, there's possibly a side issue here.

JS_Harris has noted in another current thread...

...many pages don't appear in image search results AND web search results at the same time for a given querie, even if they are ranked for both.

The thread he started to discuss that issue is here...

Google Rankings Issue Between Web and Image Results
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4788249.htm [webmasterworld.com]

I wasn't sure whether, when you posted your question above, you were trying to circumvent this particular issue, or whether you were simply being creative and trying to double your chances for a place in the serps. ;)

I don't want to detract from the other thread, and things can get pretty messy if we overlap discussions... so questions about one-or-the-other issues should go there.

I will say, though, that on searches I've run, I haven't noticed what JS_Harris reports, but I generally don't try to get images ranked by search... and most of infographics I see come either via organic search for articles, or else via social media like Twitter or Facebook. But I generally don't specifically search for interactive or informational graphics, so I'm probably not the kind of user you're targeting.

[tangor]

There's text. There are images. There's text which can describe an image.

The first two are different critters and might give different results. The latter MIGHT have some collective value.... but probably not that much.

A "picture is worth a thousand words" to someone who can see the picture. But a thousand words has more value to a search engine.

We have a case of apples and oranges and some want to provide a fruit basket complete with a card. That only works in rare and special occasions.

SEO value for images? Probably zero to non-existent.

[JS_Harris]

I think Google has an intelligent but slightly twisted sense of humor. I would not be surprised in the least if they designed their search engines(web+image) to mirror a '1 keyword is worth 1000 images' in terms of how much actual traffic they send. That being said...

scottb, there's possibly a side issue here.

JS_Harris has noted in another current thread...

I put my entire image folder in a url directory removal request and blocked Google-image bot from indexing anything in that folder via robots.txt. Note: Googlebot and google-image bots behave differently when you block them from a folder. Googlebot finds urls and indexes them with no descriptions but image bot simply doesn't index them at all.

Result
- Total image serp impressions down 100%
- Overall CTR improved greatly because web searches convert much better than image searches on my site
- Total clicks from search is also up though I'm dealing with a no new data problem in GWT since the 23rd of Feb.

That last line, and the fact I now see real traffic from web search to the affected pages, tells me images were indeed blocking the page from getting indexed in web searches as a non-image result. The way they have image reporting set up in GWT leads you to see 'related images' impressions as textual web impressions. I explained that in the other thread, if you're interested.

Unless Google fixes this oddity, and ideally re-designs image search again to send more traffic, I see no reason to unblock Google's image bot. I'm actually not vulnerable at all to hotlinking, backlinks from crappy image gathering sites or outright image theft from people scouring image search this way, works for me.

If the web/image ranking 'oddity' is intentional I don't see how it benefits users which leads me to believe it *should* get looked into and *should* get fixed soon enough. If/when it does it would take all of 10 seconds to remove the google image bot block so it's not a huge risk to try out on your site.