Video from Google on Image Search Optimization

[engine]

Google's John Mueller created a helpful reminder about images and Google search. It's less than ten minutes, and a good refresh, even if some of it is fairly basic, there are other tips on advanced options you may not already be using.

[JorgeV]

Hello,

I don't know if anyone is getting (useful) traffic from Google Image Search, since the revamp of the Google Image Search interface, which like the web search, allows people to get what they are looking for, without leaving Google's site. That being said, I don't see why I would make efforts to optimize my images and their placements, to help Google better index them, ... if Google wants to exploit my images, then, THEY have to make the effort.

[aristotle]

I don't watch google videos so don't know what Mueller said.

What I do know is that years ago several of my sites got a lot of traffic from google image search, but then google made some changes that caused it to fell drastically over a fairly short time period until it almost complelely ended. There were numerous discussions here about the reasons, although I don't remember the details. Anyway, I'm not going to spend any time now on optimizing that very likely will bring little if any benefit.

[engine]

Well, it's also worth remembering that it works the other way and you can block Google from your sites, or you could serve up images that suit your needs; that could include low res versions, or copyright notice versions, etc.

[DarkSilence]

Guys, does anyone get any traffic from Google Images search nowadays, just curious? :)

[aristotle]

Well, it's also worth remembering that it works the other way and you can block Google from your sites, or you could serve up images that suit your needs; that could include low res versions, or copyright notice versions, etc.

A few years ago I spent a lot of time optimizing my images for my visitors and was able to do it while also decreasing page load times. It was just a matter of improving my skills at working with images. I've got everything working now like I want it, and I'm not going to make any changes for google.

[aristotle]

Here's some simple .htaccess code that generates an x-robots tag that tells google not to index your images. I put this on one of my sites about 10 years ago and had (almost) forgotten about it until now.

<Files ~ "\.(gif|jp[eg]|png)$"> 
Header append x-robots-tag "noindex" 
</Files>

[RedBar]

For those wondering the great Google image theft was 2010!

In those days I was getting in excess of 100K image views per day and within, probably 3 months, 95% of that traffic disappeared. I obviously also used to get a lot of image theft, not much these days, and at one time until I stopped it, on a specific social site, 25K a day hotlinks for using that image as a background ... it was black ! I ranked #1 for a black image :-)

Do I still get image searches for my products? Most certainly YES.

I spend a lot of time on my images, my partners think way too much, however they drive enquirie, consequently and ultimately genuine bulk orders.

If you have a quality product then taking the time with its image(s) and on-page description can be the difference between a successful site and a failed business.