Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • Case Studies
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      What is your Brand Authority?
      Moz

      What is your Brand Authority?

      Check yours now
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • SEO Q&A

        Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • Case Studies

        Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. On-Page Optimization
    4. Should I watermark my product images

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Should I watermark my product images

    On-Page Optimization
    9
    13
    11095
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • BipSum
      BipSum last edited by

      I am in the process of creating new images for my products to use on my website.  Are there any advantages or disadvantages of watermarking each image?  Is there an SEO impact good or bad?  I am aware that filename and Alt tags are important, but am unsure if google dislikes watermarked images.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • BipSum
        BipSum last edited by

        Hi all, thanks for your comments.  Looks like it wouldn't do any harm if I had a small brand logo placed on each image.  Will have a think and probably just go for it.

        Thanks.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • vmialik
          vmialik last edited by

          Time might come, and might be around the corner when, images in Google Search will be OCR'd (scanned for text/wording and made searchable) this will result in your watermarks if its in Copyright Joe Smith (text form) will be searchable.

          Also thing about this if you are using image search with an image of your brand, (not sure about practically but theoretically) you should be able to find all your images if they are watermarked with your Brand image in Google image search.

          So if you are planning to future proof your images for image SEO go for it!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • Sharla
            Sharla last edited by

            Are you selling your own manufactured goods or reselling someone elses? If you're reselling someone elses, don't they have images of their products already to use?  I think it's rare for a reseller to take all their own product images, but if you do because you feel it gives you an edge, I would use your own logo prominently rather than as a watermark.  Maybe you have an artistic presentation of goods that needs proprietary protection - that is the only case I can see for potential watermarking.

            And, if you're selling your own goods, do you also sell them to others for resale?  I frequently need product photos from manufacturers for promotion by authorized sellers of their brands.

            Different companies have different ways they let marketing depts retrieve images, and from my side, the easier it is, the better.  I've never seen anyone put watermarks on their images, but some create their sites so you have to go through a lengthy registration process and wait to hear back - huge pain in the kisser for me as I have to go to the client, they have to find the account, get it back to me, I enter it, oops, website says not that string of numbers, go back... etc.  Time suck warp.

            Some companies make their images non-downloadable (though there are some workarounds and screen shots).  The ones I like best - just let me have the images, no mess, no fuss.  I am after all trying to sell their products.

            Then, I brand a corner with the resellers logo, but not as a watermark; rather it's a notice that yes, this company carries this merchandise.  And for SEO, if the reseller branded image of the original product comes up in image search (which they do sometimes as I always fully tag out my images), then all the better.  If you're selling your own goods with no authorized resellers, I think I would brand a corner also - no watermark, just a logo, but only if for some reason your logo is not already on the products.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • AWCthreads
              AWCthreads @EGOL last edited by

              Does the mark say, "EGOL?"

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • EGOL
                EGOL @BipSum last edited by

                I do the bottom left or right...  Weasels still steal it.  Some publish with my copyright mark, some paint it out, some put a textbox over my mark.

                AWCthreads 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • Oren.
                  Oren. last edited by

                  Lots of good points already.  I find that small logo in a corner is helpful because even if the image is stolen, saved to a computer, reused, posted on facebook without context, whatever -- your brand is still prominently displayed.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • AWCthreads
                    AWCthreads @BipSum last edited by

                    There may be some value in branding in that regard depending on what you're selling.

                    However, If its small and unobtrosive then the viewer probably wouldn't be able to tell what the logo is/says until they open the image.

                    Edit add - when its that small its easily removed and cropped so it really becomes a matter of whether you think its important as a branding element versus protection.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • gazzerman1
                      gazzerman1 @BipSum last edited by

                      Watermarking can have an advantage in Google images. If you have lots of images your brand will show up often and people will get to know it, without ever having visited your site.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                      • shendison
                        shendison last edited by

                        Do it - For me it adds credibility when a company watermarks their images unobtrusively, and G loves credibility...

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                        • BipSum
                          BipSum last edited by

                          Thanks for your feedback.  I was thinking about a small brand logo bottom right or left of each image.  Nothing instrusive.  For the feeds it would be clean images.

                          Thanks again for your thoughts.

                          gazzerman1 AWCthreads EGOL 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 2
                          • SErOb
                            SErOb last edited by

                            I agree w/ AWC.

                            If you do watermark, just make sure it's not the least bit distracting.

                            One ecomm site I work with has over 10,000 original product images.  They were constantly being stolen, which is annoying considering the effort that goes into the production of the images.  Once they were watermarked (via the ecomm platform), the poaching pretty much stopped.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                            • AWCthreads
                              AWCthreads last edited by

                              A watermark won't affect your rank.

                              In my opinion this is more a matter of the use of your time.

                              I very rarely see watermarks anymore on ecommerce sites. I think a watermark will do more to pollute the appearance of your product than protect your images from piracy.

                              From a practical perspective, Google and other shopping feeds may have rules regarding watermarks and artwork associated with products so make sure you are aware of the rules if you use feeds.

                              Edit add - I can recall 1 ecommerce site I've visited using watermarks and the only other places I see it are sites that sell images and artwork.

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                              • 1 / 1
                              • First post
                                Last post

                              Got a burning SEO question?

                              Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                              Start my free trial


                              Browse Questions

                              Explore more categories

                              • Moz Tools

                                Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                              • SEO Tactics

                                Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                              • Community

                                Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                              • Digital Marketing

                                Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                              • Research & Trends

                                Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                              • Support

                                Connect on product support and feature requests.

                              • See all categories

                              Related Questions

                              • jtiernanibm

                                How best to wrap anchor tags around a product tile

                                anchor tags ecommerce product listing page

                                Hi Say I am on a Product Listing page on ecommerce website and I have product tiles which contain images and name/price underneath them. Is it better to wrap the whole product tile (image and name/price) in an anchor tag (linking to their product page) or to wrap the image and the name/price underneath in anchor tags separately (linking to the product page) ? thanks

                                On-Page Optimization | | jtiernanibm
                                0
                              • JamesDavison

                                Value of using spaces or no spaces on product category page varient keywords

                                keywords page grader several search terms category page

                                Hello, all fellow Mozzers,
                                I have taken over a project and this account, so can't change the username according to MOZ.🙃 We run an eCommerce website, and to me, some of the content is conflicting as some pages have more information content than what I would put in a commerce page, but this is how the boss wants it to work, personally, I would separate the content out.
                                The page I'm working on:
                                https://www.longstonetyres.co.uk/tyres/205-70-14.html
                                and this is an example of the rest of these types of pages, I will be tackling:
                                https://www.longstonetyres.co.uk/tyres/125-15.html I was tasked to improve SEO ranking, when using the MOZ page grader I had a score of 24 out of 27 83% SEO score and 3-page problems. 7th position in Google for the search term 205/70 R14 As it is a generic product listing page, It was pointless to add to the URL and the Internal links I can't reduce as these are links to products, so I went to reduce the
                                keyword stuffing and making the page content more natural, this improved the page to 25 out of 27, 87% SEO score and 2-page problems. Improvement to 3rd position in Google, but he wants to chase 1st place to be above his competitors, which is fair enough. It turns out that in the past, they have used this type of page to try and get a high ranking for several search terms, as it is a different variation on a tyre size terms are:
                                205/70 R14, 205/70R14, 205/70 R 14
                                205/70 X 14, 205/70X14, 205/70 X14
                                and so on for all the different ways you can search for this tyre size. He is also convinced Google will see these as different search terms, and while I agree to an extent, this causes Keyword Stuffing on the page, which in turn was harming the rankings. Each product listed on the page already has its own title 205/70 R14, 205/70 HR14 and so on, so my question is. What is the best practice for writing content on these types of pages to gain high rankings for several Keywords, and what value does writing the same keyword with spaces and no spaces have? Any help or advice is welcome, so I have a better understanding of how to approach this for this page and the rest of the site. Cheers Mal

                                On-Page Optimization | | JamesDavison
                                0
                              • Dan-Lawrence

                                Duplicate Content Re: Product listing body copy on Website, Amazon & Ebay - issues ?

                                Hi Is it ok to have identical product body copy on market/platform listings same as the websites product listings ? In this case the products are the websites/own brand products (all pages canonicalised), so i take it shouldn't cause any issues or are you supposed to differentiate the product body copy on marketplace listings ? Im asking re seo reasons All Best Dan

                                On-Page Optimization | | Dan-Lawrence
                                0
                              • soralsokal

                                How many words for product description

                                Hi, I've read articles on the MOZ blog, which stress the point for unique product descriptions. I think this was even mentioned in one White Board Friday. Now I am in the process of writing them. How many words should they have at least in your opinion? Best, Robin

                                On-Page Optimization | | soralsokal
                                0
                              • Towelsrus

                                How often should I update category and product content to keep it fresh?

                                I want to keep our site up to date and fresh with content. How often should I update categories and products pages with content? What angel should I take with categories (new products/services etc.) Thanks Craig

                                On-Page Optimization | | Towelsrus
                                0
                              • John_Francis

                                ALT tagging images with keyword. What is too much?

                                I was wondering about the best practices of ALT tags in images. Say if you have an eCommerce site and you're on a product page. This product page has 5 images of the same product (different images), should you give every image an Alt tag with the keyword for that page? Or, is that keyword stuffing, and it would actually be best practice be to provide alt tags on just one image?

                                On-Page Optimization | | John_Francis
                                0
                              • hith234

                                One site with one product or multi product website

                                Lets suppose that i have 10 NICHE products under me. Should i make one site for each product or one site overall. If i make 1 site for each product i get several advantages Domain name has keyword Title tags etc will be dedicated to one keyword only. Disavantage - Backlinking for each domain will become tougher. Advantage of one site onl Good management Seo / backlinks becomes easier Blogging to attract traffic becomes easier Can target a lot of keywords through business blogging Disadvantages Can become messy with unimportant keywords gaining importance. SO WHAT DO YOU THINK??? One site per product or One site for all products?

                                On-Page Optimization | | hith234
                                0
                              • MikeDelaCruz77

                                E-Commerce product pages that have multiple skus with unique pages.

                                Hey Guys, With the recent farm/panda update from google i'm at a cross roads as to how I should optimize product pages for a project i'm working on for a client. My client sells tires and one particular tire brand can have up to 15 models and each model can have up to 30 sizes. IE: 'Michelin Pilot Sport Cup' comes in 15 different sizes. Each size will have it's unique product page and description bringing me to my question. Should I use the same description on every size? I do plan on writting unique content for each tire model however i'm not sure if I should do it for every size. After all the tire model description is the same for every size, each size doesn't carry any unique characteristics that I can describe. Thanks in advance!

                                On-Page Optimization | | MikeDelaCruz77
                                0

                              Get started with Moz Pro!

                              Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                              Start my free trial
                              Products
                              • Moz Pro
                              • Moz Local
                              • Moz API
                              • Moz Data
                              • STAT
                              • Product Updates
                              Moz Solutions
                              • SMB Solutions
                              • Agency Solutions
                              • Enterprise Solutions
                              Free SEO Tools
                              • Domain Authority Checker
                              • Link Explorer
                              • Keyword Explorer
                              • Competitive Research
                              • Brand Authority Checker
                              • MozBar Extension
                              • MozCast
                              Resources
                              • Blog
                              • SEO Learning Center
                              • Help Hub
                              • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                              • How-to Guides
                              • Moz Academy
                              • API Docs
                              About Moz
                              • About
                              • Team
                              • Careers
                              • Contact
                              Why Moz
                              • Case Studies
                              • Testimonials
                              Get Involved
                              • Become an Affiliate
                              • MozCon
                              • Webinars
                              • Practical Marketer Series
                              • MozPod
                              Connect with us

                              Contact the Help team

                              Join our newsletter
                              Moz logo
                              © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                              • Accessibility
                              • Terms of Use
                              • Privacy

                              Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.