How to get listed on Google Image Search

[Dennismc]

Good tip here How to get your web pictures on Google Image Search - Digital Inspiration

[Rikluz]

Thank you for the tip but I had seen that already. Also, title tag in the images itself makes no differense at all from what I read from someone that had tested it. Those tips are mainly for those that have images listed already and want to improve the ranking. I followed some of the advices there with alt tags and text next to the images. There are still more to be done to make it perfect but I will focus on that later.

[dakwegmo]

Originally Posted by Rikluz

When searching for images on Google Image Search you will get the correct results even if the filenames look like garbage. Better naming on images would only increase the image ranking but not the visibility itself I think.

Also, it's better to name the image "smiling-man.jpg" and not "smiling_man.jpg". With just - between the words the seach engine will read that as "smiling man" but when you use _ instead it will only be found when searching for "smiling_man".

Yeah I know, should be more patient really. Some posts have been online for 2 month but I tried solving the Image Search issue maybe only 2 weeks ago. Difficult to know if the changes I have made had any effect though when I have to wait a few weeks to see any results.

I think what you're saying about the dash vs. underscore is incorrect. If you do a search for rosebud on google images, in the first page of results you'll see this image: http://www.invisiblegreen.com/images...ga_rosebud.jpg. If what you say is true, then the underscore in my image names would mean only people typing in the exact file name would find that image and clearly that's not the case. Every image on my site is titled with underscores instead of spaces, and I have a few images that show up in the first two pages of results for certain search terms.

Google's image search algorithm is using the same technologies as the web search, but it's looking specifically for images. Anything that will help you get higher rankings in google's web search will help you get listed and ranked higher with the image search. If you haven't already, sign up for a google analytics account and google webmaster tools, and follow the steps to activate the web stats and submit a site map to them. Make sure your image tags are completely populated with title and alt attributes. Also, include a something in the body of the page that discusses the photo. If you have an image named smiling-man and it's just there on the page, it's not going to be ranked as highly as if you mention a "smiling man photo" in the text on the page.

Lastly, I don't think the google image search will associate images with your blog if they're actually stored on picasa. Basically, what it will do is see the image tag on your site, see that it's linked from the picasa album, then index the image based on the location where it's actually stored. I could be wrong about this though, since blogger and picasa are both google products, and it may work differently than other blogging services.

[Rikluz]

I'm not convinced that I'm wrong about the underline still. The fact that your image shows up when you search for rosebud is because you have that word on the page next to the image with a correct alt tag. I don't think you get any help in the image rank from the filename you have on the picture. I think that the rest of your page is good enough for the images to appear high in the search result.

My blog pages have a high ranking on the regular search so at least some images should have appeared in the image search, but they don't.

When I have searched for images then I get a small image on the top with full page (it would be the blog in my case) in a frame below. When I click on the small image on the top, first then I get the full image at original sourse. I'm not totally sure how it works but I would think the images and the original page are linked somehow even in image search.

[dakwegmo]

Originally Posted by Rikluz

when you use _ instead it will only be found when searching for "smiling_man"

Based on the statement above, you are incorrect. Google image search finds the image file 20080528234335_uga_rosebud.jpg when you search for simply "rosebud" or "uga rosebud". So having the underscore doesn't mean I have to search for "uga_rosebud" in order to find this image. It's not that big a deal, but I didn't want people thinking they had to replacing underscores with dashes in hopes of improving the search engine ranking. If there's any difference between using - and _ in file names the difference is negligible.

[dakwegmo]

I tried to do a google image search on a couple of blogger sites and none of them returned any results (including strobist.blogspot.com).

[Rikluz]

Originally Posted by dakwegmo

Based on the statement above, you are incorrect. Google image search finds the image file 20080528234335_uga_rosebud.jpg when you search for simply "rosebud" or "uga rosebud". So having the underscore doesn't mean I have to search for "uga_rosebud" in order to find this image. It's not that big a deal, but I didn't want people thinking they had to replacing underscores with dashes in hopes of improving the search engine ranking. If there's any difference between using - and _ in file names the difference is negligible.

I think some references are needed from my side to explain my statement.

Official Google page:
URL structure - Webmaster Tools Help

Simplified version:
SEO: Dashes or Underscores?

I would still use dashes instead of underscores. The image above can be found with "uga rosebud" because thats the alt text of the image. Not because it file is named with an underscore.

[Rikluz]

Originally Posted by dakwegmo

I tried to do a google image search on a couple of blogger sites and none of them returned any results (including strobist.blogspot.com).

Thats strange... but when you search for just site:blogspot.com then you get quite a few blogs that do have the images listed there. Like this one = site:marcvaldez.blogspot.com

[Rikluz]

Originally Posted by dakwegmo

Google's image search algorithm is using the same technologies as the web search, but it's looking specifically for images. Anything that will help you get higher rankings in google's web search will help you get listed and ranked higher with the image search. If you haven't already, sign up for a google analytics account and google webmaster tools, and follow the steps to activate the web stats and submit a site map to them. Make sure your image tags are completely populated with title and alt attributes. Also, include a something in the body of the page that discusses the photo. If you have an image named smiling-man and it's just there on the page, it's not going to be ranked as highly as if you mention a "smiling man photo" in the text on the page.

Forgot to mention that I'm already using Google Analytics and the Webmaster Tools. It could be a time issue before the images show up but I don't think that I have made any changes that could affect the images being listed or not. I could be missing something but it would be good if anyone has experienced similar thing before.

[dakwegmo]

Originally Posted by Rikluz

I think some references are needed from my side to explain my statement.

Official Google page:
URL structure - Webmaster Tools Help

Simplified version:
SEO: Dashes or Underscores?

I would still use dashes instead of underscores. The image above can be found with "uga rosebud" because thats the alt text of the image. Not because it file is named with an underscore.

Not to get to hung up on this, but I suspect that advice on google's page is antiquated. Google desktop search can find files named with underscores, even if you don't use underscores in your search terms, so why wouldn't the web search include that functionality? Even if what you say is true that google web search wouldn't match "smiling guy" to the smiling_guy file name, it's such an inconsequential part of search engine rankings as to be nearly useless, since a proper alt tag will supersede the file name.