The images on site are not found/indexed, it's been recommended we change their presentation to Google Bot - could this create a cloaking issue?
-
Hi
We have an issue with images on our site not being found or indexed by Google. We have an image sitemap but the images are served on the Sitecore powered site within <divs>which Google can't read. The developers have suggested the below solution:</divs>
Googlebot class="header-banner__image" _src="/~/media/images/accommodation/arctic-canada/arctic-safari-camp/arctic-cafari-camp-david-briggs.ashx"/>_Non Googlebot <noscript class="noscript-image"><br /></span></em><em><span><div role="img"<br /></span></em><em><span>aria-label="Arctic Safari Camp, Arctic Canada"<br /></span></em><em><span>title="Arctic Safari Camp, Arctic Canada"<br /></span></em><em><span>class="header-banner__image"<br /></span></em><em><span>style="background-image: url('/~/media/images/accommodation/arctic-canada/arctic-safari-camp/arctic-cafari-camp-david-briggs.ashx?mw=1024&hash=D65B0DE9B311166B0FB767201DAADA9A4ADA4AC4');"></div><br /></span></em><em><span></noscript>
aria-label="Arctic Safari Camp, Arctic Canada" title="Arctic Safari Camp, Arctic Canada" class="header-banner__image image" data-src="/~/media/images/accommodation/arctic-canada/arctic-safari-camp/arctic-cafari-camp-david-briggs.ashx" data-max-width="1919" data-viewport="0.80" data-aspect="1.78" data-aspect-target="1.00" >
Is this something that could be flagged as potential cloaking though, as we are effectively then showing code looking just for the user agent Googlebot?The devs have said that via their contacts Google has advised them that the original way we set up the site is the most efficient and considered way for the end user. However they have acknowledged the Googlebot software is not sophisticated enough to recognise this. Is the above solution the most suitable?Many thanksKate
-
Hi Dan
I had missed that reply; cheers for the heads up (my email notification never came through). I'll talk to the devs about implementing to target all bots.
Thanks!
-
Hi Kate
Wanted to be sure you saw Barry's reply over on the Google forum. He also seems to think this would be fine, but I do agree with his recommendation to target all bots, not just Googlebot.
I also was able to find your page in Google and checked the cached version. Google's cache looks the same as the live version, so I think you should be fine.
-
Many thanks for taking the time to respond and sorry for my slow response.
At present we feel that it could be seen as cloaking as we would be introducing specific code just for Google. This would change the render view in Search Console as well between Google / users.
Thanks
Kate
-
Hi Kate
I don't think it would be looked at as cloaking. One thing I would definitely do though to check is a fetch and render in search console. In the render, the Googlebot view should be the same as the browser view. You can also check the cached version of the page as well.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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.
Related Questions
-
Why is my website not ranking for it's brand name in SERPs but has been indexed by Google?
The website https://christchurch.crowneplaza.com has been live for a couple of months but is not being found in Google search results - even when searching for it's own brand name 'crowne plaza christchurch.' Google has indexed the site - but we are still not showing - https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fchristchurch.crowneplaza.com&rlz=1C1NHXL_enNZ735NZ735&oq=site%3A&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57j69i58j69i59l2j69i65.896j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 Any ideas as to why? I think it may be because their are two versions of the site, http and https, both with their own rel=canonical tags. Could this be the cause? Any help much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Timmy30 -
No images in Google index
No images are indexed on this site (client of ours): http://www.rubbermagazijn.nl/. We've tried everything (descriptive alt texts, image sitemaps, fetch&render, check robots) but a site:www.rubbermagazijn.nl shows 0 image results and the sitemap report in Search Console shows 0 images indexed. We're not sure how to proceed from here. Is there anyone with an idea what the problem could be?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Adriaan.Multiply0 -
Google WMT/search console: Thousands of "Links to your site" even only one back-link from a website.
Hi, I can see in my search console that a website giving thousands of links to my site where hardly only one back-link from one of their page to our page. Why this is happening? Here is screenshot: http://imgur.com/a/VleUf
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
How should I handle URL's created by an internal search engine?
Hi, I'm aware that internal search result URL's (www.example.co.uk/catalogsearch/result/?q=searchterm) should ideally be blocked using the robots.txt file. Unfortunately the damage has already been done and a large number of internal search result URL's have already been created and indexed by Google. I have double checked and these pages only account for approximately 1.5% of traffic per month. Is there a way I can remove the internal search URL's that have already been indexed and then stop this from happening in the future, I presume the last part would be to disallow /catalogsearch/ in the robots.txt file. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GrappleAgency0 -
Why is a site no longer being indexed by Google after HTTPS switch?
A client of ours recently had a new site built and made the switch to HTTPS. We made sure to redirect all of the HTTP pages to HTTPS and submitted a new sitemap to Google. GWT says the sitemap was submitted successfully but only 4 pages have been indexed where there should be over 2000. This has led to a plummet of organic traffic and we can't find the issue. Has anyone else had issues/success with doing a HTTPS switch that knows how to fix this problem?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ATMOSMarketing560 -
'Nofollow' footer links from another site, are they 'bad' links?
Hi everyone,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | romanbond
one of my sites has about 1000 'nofollow' links from the footer of another of my sites. Are these in any way hurtful? Any help appreciated..0 -
Why is google automatically showing my competitor's result even when customer types in our brand name on the query?
This is little weird. We run a website specific to mobile phones called as 91mobiles.com. The site has gained lot of user interest and trust in the last 2 years [pre-dominantly indian users]. Lot of our users type mobile phone model and 91mobiles as the query. Example "Sony Xperia P 91mobiles". Google is showing gsmarena.com results on top and then shows our own results below! What's annoying is the fact that google also bolds the term gsmarena [denoting that it's a synonym]. Any idea why this is happening? We are very sure that we are not doing anything wrong..We have worked really hard for the last 2 years to reach where we are..and it's kind of hard to see gsmarena siphoning away our traffic for no reason at all [even when customer types in 91mobiles a part of the query to quality it]...Can some experts here demystify this? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gaadi0 -
Best solution to get mass URl's out the SE's index
Hi, I've got an issue where our web developers have made a mistake on our website by messing up some URL's . Because our site works dynamically IE the URL's generated on a page are relevant to the current URL it ment the problem URL linked out to more problem URL's - effectively replicating an entire website directory under problem URL's - this has caused tens of thousands of URL's in SE's indexes which shouldn't be there. So say for example the problem URL's are like www.mysite.com/incorrect-directory/folder1/page1/ It seems I can correct this by doing the following: 1/. Use Robots.txt to disallow access to /incorrect-directory/* 2/. 301 the urls like this:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | James77
www.mysite.com/incorrect-directory/folder1/page1/
301 to:
www.mysite.com/correct-directory/folder1/page1/ 3/. 301 URL's to the root correct directory like this:
www.mysite.com/incorrect-directory/folder1/page1/
www.mysite.com/incorrect-directory/folder1/page2/
www.mysite.com/incorrect-directory/folder2/ 301 to:
www.mysite.com/correct-directory/ Which method do you think is the best solution? - I doubt there is any link juice benifit from 301'ing URL's as there shouldn't be any external links pointing to the wrong URL's.0