Web Developer Using Stock Photos

[TammyWood]

Hello,

The organization is selling a cms system in a niche market across the country. It has the normal SEO challenges, in addition he is using purchased stock images.

This seemed ok, while he was smaller but now we are growing rapidly and these images are VERY STOCK- and well used ( I have checked with Tiny Eye).

I remember a few years ago this was a flag to the search engines who went through manual review, is this still true?

It seems to me that the theme's that come with the images, are duplicated ( including navigation & footers), so having the duplicated images would be another negative.

Thank you for your suggestions!

[allenrocks]

I think if the stock image fits your brand then it's ok to use it. To the best of my knowledge the cover of Snow Leopard is actually a stock image, so even the best prefer to trust a professional to photograph a live snow leopard.

But back to your question I would certainly apply the names and alt tags to the business, so I wouldn't just use the most generic of naming conventions. Maybe a photo of happy customers would read "my_brand_testimonials" especially if it is on the testimonials page of your site. I would also make sure the stock is not commonly associated with your industry and that it's not too popular. If it is consider not making an image site map.

Another practice I would use would be if possible to alter the images for your use. Of course this is assuming you have the rights to make those modifications. But simple modifications can go a long way at explaining things. I myself have used skitch to draw attention to certain points.

Things I wouldn't do are to use a stock boardroom and claim it's the office. In this case theres really no stock solution and it looks deceiving.

I've never experienced this in a negative way but I find it hard to believe Google would penalize someone for using stock navigation buttons. I suppose if someone was crafting a directory using a popular directory software and provided little to no SEO value, but was the only player in a razor thin niche, then maybe being completely stock would hurt the site. But one could argue it never stood a chance regardless.

[donford]

Unique, Innovative, Fresh Content is what search engines are looking for. Having stock or generic images isn't necessary bad, but not exactly good. Does that help?

[allenrocks]

You should be good to go. According to Rand the footers, menus, and sidebar content is ignored. What is seen as unique is only the body section of the page. Here is the link:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-unique-does-content-need-to-be-to-perform-well-in-search-engines-whiteboard-friday

Hope this answers your question.