How do you get photo galleries indexed on Google News?

[BostonWright]

I work for a news site and some of our photo galleries get indexed by Google News while others never do. I'm trying to determine why some are more successful than others even though they all follow the same guidelines regarding keyword-rich headlines & copy, h1s, etc. When comparing what's been indexed in the past with current galleries, there doesn't appear to be an obvious pattern. Can anyone share some insight into this?

[mediawyse]

Google image optimization can be hit or miss. But honestly, VERY few people actually spend the time to implement the suggestions Google tells you to implement.

For example, have you reviewed the detailed video and resources on this question directly from Google here:

http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=175538

In your question, you didn't mention keyword-rich file names or ALT tags on the images. By far the TWO most important optimization guidelines in my opinion and which Google mentions specifically above. Some other considerations to take into account when optimization images are the following:

• the context around the image

• internal anchor texts linking to the image galleries themselvers

• external anchor texts/links coming into the image galleries

• making sure to specify the height and width of the images (this definitely helps)

• adding an image SITEMAP to your site listing all your images

I do ALL the above and can't say I've ever had an issue with my image galleries or those of our clients NOT getting indexed. But who knows, we "could" just be getting lucky?

Hope this helps. Good luck!

[BostonWright]

Thanks Casey. I do not have a problem getting indexed on Google. I'm specifically referring to Google News indexing. I have yet to find any specific recommendations for getting photo galleries indexed on Google News.

We always have ALT tags filled out and we are getting better at naming our files with keywords, although we do have some CMS limitations in regard to file names. We do a pretty good job with writing captions and including keywords, we always specify the image size (height/width/file size), attribute images, and optimize internal anchor text with at least one major keyword phrase.

My real problem is that we do all of this for all of our photo galleries yet only some get indexed in Google News. The one thing we do not do is include photo galleries in our sitemap and I'm making that change this week. Hopefully that does the trick.