Why I say this ? Try a search for "Google" on Google Image Search. None of the top five results show images from the Google website. Now if you repeat the search for Firefox, no images are displayed from the official Mozilla or Spread Firefox website. Or look for iPod.
So how do individuals and small companies manage to stay ahead of corporate giants in Image search results ? It's a combination of luck and some image optimization techniques like text surrounding the web graphics, image captions, etc.
I say luck because search engines are very secretive about their image search algorithms. Regarding optimization, here are a few simple things that you should keep in mind for getting good rankings in Google Images Search:
» Use a descriptive image filename - If your webpage has pictures of Bill Gates house - use filenames like bill-gates-house-party.jpg instead of the default camera file name like IMG_401.jpg
» Attach a 7-8 description with both the ALT and TITLE attributes of the IMG tag - Make it a habit to use these attributes. An example could be <img src="/inside-bill-gates-house.jpg" alt="Bill Gates House Kitchen" title="Inside the kitchen of Bill Gates House" width="200" height="200" />
» A short two line description of the image just beneath the graphic is the best way to describe an image. It can work wonders for your image search rankings as well. For an live example, read any news story on the BBC website or see the screenshot on your right.» If possible, try to wrap text around your images using float.
» If you site design won't allow wrapping text or if the image is large in size, try to place the images near text that describes the context of your image. If the image is of an Adobe Photoshop box, don't place that image near the paragraph that describes Corel Photopaint.
» Web Images placed at the top of the page are more likely to appear in search results than the ones which are at the bottom. I have no proof to explain this but it's just an observation.
» Web Photo Galleries which have no text descriptions can make use of the Title and Meta tags to insert information about the images.
» The HTML tags enclosing the image descriptions will also matter. A descriptions enclosed in H3 or Bold tag will have more weight than the one enclose in the Parapraph tag.
If you aware of any more tricks or suggestions, please drop a comment here.
Again, while good rankings in Image search engines can drive lot of new traffic, it can also shoot up your bandwidth bill as people may hotlink images hosted on your webserver. If hotlinking is your concern, look at some of these free image hosting websites.
Related: Sex, Whitehouse and Google Images
Download PostSecret Postcards from Google Images
Find this article at: http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/06/how-to-get-your-web-pictures-on-google.html
web: http://www.labnol.org/ email: amit@labnol.org
Reader Comments
Neat pointers! Thank you
Written by
Boston Bala on 9/6/06 10:29 PM
You can save JPEG Metainformations, too!
In Windows: right click on image -> Properties -> Summary
You write down these info, and then save the file. Search engines can read them ;-)
Written by
Maurizio on 14/6/06 5:45 PM
I wanna know which image hosting sites are indexes better by google i use imageshack but never got results from it
Written by
Kaileena Suza on 7/7/06 4:23 AM
You can save JPEG Metainformations, too!
In Windows: right click on image -> Properties -> Summary
You write down these info, and then save the file. Search engines can read them ;-)
This does *not* save information into the image. If you copy that image to a non-NTFS volume, the metadata will be lost. It can be backed up using winrar, but the important point is, it's not going to be indexed by search engine when uploaded. There is metadata that can be embedded in the actual image (google IPTC and XMP), but I'm not sure which search engines actually index it yet fully if any.
Written by
Anonymous on 1/10/06 1:00 AM
HOW DO U GET PIKS ONTO GOOGLE! LIKE HOW DO U UPLOAD THEM? PLZ REPLY ANYONE I WILL APPRIATE IT LOADZ THANX X
Written by
GABBY on 1/11/06 10:49 PM
It is a very good post as of me :)
Written by
Avinash on 14/11/06 3:48 PM
For my anime avatar gallery I have setup a installation of gallery2 (which does all the features you mentioned). Hosting a separate browsable gallery as compared to just embedding your images it allows for another local site link with more similar / related content. Your basically expanding your site by having an additional section (which helps you organize your images as well). I use the avatars as post images, from time to time I pick from other "gallerys" as well (since we have so many images). -Breaths
Written by
anime avatars on 7/12/06 1:12 PM