Best way to noindex an image?

[steviephil]

Hi all,

A client wanted a few pages noindexed, which was no problem using the meta robots noindex tag.

However they now want associated images removed, some of which still appear on pages that they still want indexed. I added the images to their robots.txt file a few weeks ago (probably over a month ago actually) but they're all still showing when you do an image search.

What's the best way to noindex them for good, and how do I go about implementing it?

Many thanks,

Steve

[trainSEM]

You have to remove the images via Google Webmaster Tools. This support document has the instructions: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/181721?hl=en

watch?v=PDjOL73wkow

[steviephil]

Thanks Ash. I've just found this Google resource about it - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/59819?hl=en - that says "URL removal requests expire after 90 days, after which the content may appear in our search results again." Is that true? Is there a more permanent way or would I/the client have to manually re-remove it every 90 days?

[Chris.Menke]

Steve, As long as no other resources are are linking to your images, you could use the noimageindex directive as such:

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/79892?hl=en

[steviephil]

Thanks Chris! So, in my instance, should I just add that directive to the 2 pages that feature the images but are still indexed? Or should I also include it to those pages that are noindexed, just to be on the safe side?

[Chris.Menke]

The noindex meta tag keeps the page out of the index but since images have their own url, it doesn't keep them out of the index, so you should use the noimageindex directive on the pages where the images in question reside.