I wrote a blog post about how to rank well for your images at google image search, here is the Image Seo Guide
I like what you've said there in your blog. But I think you should post this on more appropriate category so that more will appreciate your blog.
What kind of timeframe have you guys noticed in getting your pictures indexed? My blog posts are indexed every couple days, but I haven't had any of the pictures within the posts indexed so far...
If you have google site maps there is a wealth of knowledge on your images top keywords, ranking in image search and clicks. Can't really say how long it takes to find/rank/trust an image, but if it is keyword specific, you will notice it when it starts to show in sitemaps. One other thing- I've carefully looked at the alt keyword definition and made sure I followed guidelines to describe the pic. I do not use the "longdesc" tag. (too much work) And following guidelines I do not use alt to stuff keywords- I use carefully selected words to really describe the pictures on my site, in sentence format, as if you could not see the image.. AFAIK, keyword stuffing was an old trick (that worked) in the past, but I think the se's must consider this in the alg. as at least google is tracking image rank vs. clicks from the description in the the alt tag, (and I can verify I am ranking specifically for my alt text in images). Image ranking does not seriously interest me, BUT, I do think ranking/clicks for an image, and using alt appropriately can improve trust. I am not trying to imply any of you are stuffing keywords. - but I just wanted to share my tips and thoughts that I have on what is working for me. The "trust" part is what I care about really.
I think they only update image search every few months - I have a couple of 'picture rich' tourism sites, one took about 3 months and the other closer to six months to be indexed. Being included properly in image search has made a big difference to visitor numbers in these sites. The indexing of images was not a gradual process, just one day I start being found for lots of image searches. I have noticed that my main competitors (who score higher than me) for these sites do use 'keyword stuffing' in the ALT text, and also have descriptions and titles that are sometimes hundreds of words long, with a high rate of repeated words, which makes me despair - why don't I do the same? - I don't and won't but it is irritating all the same.
Nice article, I did some of tis things already for some of sites where I have only images, but I'll improve now.
You also need to look at the age and the number of back links of your competitors’ site, some times they rank higher just due to age of the domain. But, since I want my site to last, and I want to minimize any alg fluctuations, in the long run following the real www tag definitions is the way to go. Measuring (but not sure how they measure) alt tags for spam or repetitive keywords is a good way for the se's to assess a site for keyword accuracy.
Hey guys, do you think that ranking well in google images will deliver many people to my site? I mean I know that it won't be as many as if you were to great a search ranking but hey...It's something
Hey muffin man, I do not care about ranking in google images- but mine is a content (words) site My pics are just frosting. The folks that visit with google images are just looking for pics to use. They do not read my content, or visit my ads, I think they just view or copy my pics.
My website is about 2 years old, my homepage image has steadily risen to the first page of about 183.000 results in about a year and a half. At the last update, it got ranked 3rd, which provides me around 100 uniques a day...
Yep, usually I think Corinaw is right, people want to see or 'borrow' a picture of something rather than look at the info. All the same, I guess a percentage of these visitors must then be attracted to look at something else on the page or the site, so I am generally pleased to have visitors from images. Being a tourist site, if just one of these visitors a year books a holiday through my site that is good for me, and hopefully the pictures get them in the right frame of mind. Depends a lot on your type of site I think.
Doesn't worth it imo..not that much traffic..and you image will be hotlink(for sure) and you loss you bandwidth