Why my images are not getting indexed, even though I have created image sitemap?

[Obbserv]

This post is deleted!

[DirkC]

The syntax of the sitemap is not correct - it should look like this:

 <code><urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" xmlns:image="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1">
 <url>
   <loc>http://example.com/sample.html</loc>
   <image:image><image:loc>http://example.com/image.jpg</image:loc></image:image> 
   <image:image><image:loc>http://example.com/photo.jpg</image:loc></image:image> 
 </url> 
</urlset></code> 

Source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/178636?hl=en

In you sitemap all the url's are encapsulated by ![CDATA[ ...]] - this needs to be removed.

Example:

http://www.urbandazzle.com/yorkshire-handled-mug-with-chalkboard.html]]>rgds,Dirk

[DirkC]

Apart from the syntax issue - the image also needs to be present on the page. If I take the first page in your sitemap: http://www.urbandazzle.com/yorkshire-handled-mug-with-chalkboard.html - the image you list in the imagesitemap doesn't exist in the source  (http://www.urbandazzle.com/media/catalog/product/c/h/chalkit.jpg) - instead the page is referencing the image http://www.urbandazzle.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/800x800/c7ea75a76d63a5bd57bd6d87127c28c4/c/h/chalkit.jpg (in fact - the same image seems to be called on different url's). In your sitemap you can only list images that exist on the page.

[Obbserv]

As per our Developer

"<" and "&". Also we are using caching on website. So we can't use  these cached images in image sitemap.

[DirkC]

Sorry - my mistake - we always escape the special characters - but cdata is also a valid approach.

Don't know how the caching mechanism on your site works but normally in the sitemap you should put the images that are available on the page.

Did you test the sitemap in Webmastertools?

[Obbserv]

Yes we have tested the image sitemap

There is no error as per webmaster but still our images are not getting indexed

[DirkC]

Is it possible to generate your image sitemap with the cached versions of the images that are actually used on the pages - or not to use the caching for images, and use the "normal" versions instead.

I think that the main reason why the images are not indexed is that in your site map you tell Google that on page xyz.html there is an image abc.jpg - but Google bot is unable to find abc.jpg on the page as it is the image fkkflmskgmlkdf.jpg which is used on the page.

[RuthBurrReedy]

DC1611 is correct - an image sitemap will not help your images get indexed if they are not present on the page the sitemap says they are. Have you tried running Screaming Frog or a similar crawl tool on your site, to see which images are discoverable by a crawler? A sitemap on its own is not enough to get your images reliably indexed - a crawler has to be able to find them naturally, when it crawls your site, as well.

[Obbserv]

Hey Ruth,

Still it is not getting indexed.

Please help

[DirkC]

Ravi,

Sorry to tell you the same message again - the problem is not that your images are not getting indexed. They are indexed, as you can check on site:www.urbandazzle.com/ (put on tab Images).

The goal of the sitemap is to help Google discover images as they are published o****n your site. The images you list in the sitemap do not exist on the site on the url you provide in the sitemap (see example above) . As long as there is a mismatch - Google will continue to show that 0% of these images are indexed, which technically is correct.

If you want to use the sitemap to see the % of images that is indexed - you'll need to change the (url of the) pictures used on the site or to replace the (url of the) images in the sitemap by the correct images.

rgds,

Dirk