Google Images update has just happened today, and is in progress further. I've been waiting 6 months for this. Check it yourselves to see how you stand
No need to check the SERPS, 90% of the traffic to one of my sites disappeared. I was hoping to double the revenue from that site from $1/day to $2/day. Google Image searchers do not give good CTR.
I recall reading that the filename of the image was a major factor in image ranking. Probably the equivalent of the title tag for webpages.
I would expect it to. I would also expect that the surrounding words on a webpage that inlined the image would have some effect.
1. The name of the image. More than 3-4 words, are not accounted for, and cut out. Be relevant and specific. 2. The alt attribute. More than 3-4 words, do not apply. But it's very important to have it. 3. The text, that's found in the page containing the image. 4. Is the image linked ? this is still unknown to me, and if it helps or not. I placed the above in order of importance.
ARGH! Looks like they're showing thumbnails from the images at the top of the normal SERPS now, too. So much for clean text-based interfaces. How long before Google becomes a full blown "portal", complete with flash pop-unders?
They are just trying different aproaches i guess. I don;t think it will ever be that way (Like msn or yahoo is)
Something I've done to position images on GG Image Search results is making an image thumbnails page, and then, naming the big version of the images using the target keyphrases, but intentionally letting spaces between every word of the keyphrase, and then using a number at the end: For instance, if I want to position an image for the keyword “blue butterfliesâ€, I make a thumbnail page for “Blue Butterflies Images†(linked from a good PR page), then put all the target images under a directory named /blue-butterflies/images/ and name every image using: “blue butterflies 1.gifâ€, “blue butterflies 2.gifâ€, “blue butterflies 3.gifâ€, etc. Then, when a search is done for images of “blue butterfliesâ€, GG Images shows the images as: domain.com/…/images/blue%20butterflies%201.gif or domain.com/…/images /blue%20butterflies%202.gif Note that every time a %20 is included, it is because the filename itself has a space as part of the name, and for some reason, GG Images likes this. It works also with jpgs. Has anyone else used this? .
Well , i really never optimize more than one picture for the same keyword. I use a different combination of keywords, for each and every picture.