Image Indexing Issue by Google

[crackingmedia]

Hi, from experience it can take Google quite a time to index images on a site and if this is the first time you have submitted a sitemap that is probably going to be a factor as well.

Just one thing though with the images on your site. The ecommerce CMS system you are using is not helping interest by search engines in the images because the images don't have a descriptive title. This is one I found on the home page: http://pics.thesalebox.com/catalog/product/cache/1/small_image/175x175/f33bcb0b82304f8755dbcdf9b59ce0e0/1/0/100706555.jpg - the image is named: 100706555.jpg which although you have used alt tags on your images the non-descriptive image name doesn't help. Neither does the depth of your URLs - the image is located 10 folders down.

I hope that helps,
Peter

[SorinaDascalu]

Hi,

I noticed your images are all hosted on a subdomain, http://pics.thesalebox.com. Did you added this subdomain to Google Webmaster Tools?

[will2112]

If my images are hosted on a CDN server, would I need to add that subdomain to Webmaster Tools as well?

I have a site with lots of images and I can confirm that image indexing takes much longer than the regular webpages to be indexed.   I see that your robots.txt has a lot of Disallows on it.  Is it possible that you are blocking indexing of those images from the robots.txt?

http://www.thesalebox.com/robots.txt

[SorinaDascalu]

Yes, if your images are on a CDN server you must add to GWT that subdomain too  in order to be able to see if the images are indexed by Google or not.

[CommercePundit]

Hi Sorina,

Thanks for your reply,

Yes, I have submitted http://pics.thesalebox.com into google WMT and verified and submitted same sitemap.

Now can you please look in to more in this issue??

Thanks!

[CommercePundit]

Hi Will2112,

Thanks for focus on robots.txt, I have double check that all things that block by robots or not, but it's seems look perfect,

is there another suggestions?

Thanks!

[SorinaDascalu]

Here is a quote from Google's Webmasters Help:

In some cases, the image URL may not be on the same domain as your main site. This is fine, as long as both domains are verified in Webmaster Tools. If, for example, you use a content delivery network (CDN) to host your images, make sure that the hosting site is verified in Webmaster Tools OR that you submit your Sitemap using robots.txt. In addition, make sure that your robots.txt file doesn’t disallow the crawling of any content you want indexed.

Source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/178636

According to the above, now that you have also verified the subdomain where you are hosting your images you should be fine.

You don't have to submit the sitemap to the GWT account of the subdomain where you host your images, but you may add reference to your sitemaps in the robots.txt located in the root folder of your website, by adding something like this to the robots.txt file:

sitemap: http://www.thesalebox.com/AppliancesHomeEntertainment.xml
sitemap: http://www.thesalebox.com/Hardware.xml

[CommercePundit]

Hi Sorina,

Thanks for the focus on google webmaster policy about image indexing with sub domain.

=> I have already verified my Sub domain http://pics.thesalebox.com in to Google Webmaster Tool.

=> Also, I have already added sitemap in to this account.

Please check following links for more informations,
http://pics.thesalebox.com/ShopByDepartment.xml
http://pics.thesalebox.com/SportingGoods.xml

=> I have also verified current robots.txt to block this path, but there is no problem.

http://pics.thesalebox.com/robots.txt

Is there other way still i missing to work on it. please suggest me.

Thanks,

[CommercePundit]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for your valuable suggestions,

But i would like to index image with sub domain path,

I have already verified this domain into Google Webmaster Tool and check Robotos.txt to block, but all things working proper,

Now can you please assist me still images are not indexing and How much time google will taken in first time.

Thanks,

[crackingmedia]

Hi, I have seen a situation before where GWT says that no images are indexed but they have indexed them. I don't know why.

Checking Google directly, by searching site:thesalebox.com and then clicking the Image tab shows that Google do have images indexed on your site, maybe not all, but there are some so maybe more are being indexed:

https://www.google.com/search?q=site:thesalebox.com&safe=off&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=pPpgUoHvBoHJ0AWQnYGgDw&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1920&bih=955&dpr=1

Peter

[SorinaDascalu]

As I said, you can add reference to your sitemaps in the robots.txt file:

At the end of the file http://www.thesalebox.com/robots.txt add the following lines:

sitemap: http://www.thesalebox.com/AppliancesHomeEntertainment.xml
sitemap: http://www.thesalebox.com/Hardware.xml

[CommercePundit]

Hi Sorina,

Yes, That i can do,  i will and let you update, whether it's work or not

Thanks for your suggestions

[Christy-Correll]

Hi there, you've received a lot of thoughtful responses. Did any of them answer your question? Please let us know, thanks!

Christy

[Christy-Correll]

Hi there, I'm just checking in to see what the current status of this issue is. Please let us know, thanks!

Christy