Web Developer Using Stock Photos
-
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!
-
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:
Hope this answers your question.
-
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?
-
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.
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
-
Reducing cumulative layout shift for responsive images - core web vitals
In preparation for Core Web Vitals becoming a ranking factor in May 2021, we are making efforts to reduce our Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) on pages where the shift is being caused by images loading. The general recommendation is to specify both height and width attributes in the html, in addition to the CSS formatting which is applied when the images load. However, this is problematic in situations where responsive images are being used with different aspect ratios for mobile vs desktop. And where a CMS is being used to manage the pages with images, where width and height may change each time new images are used, as well as aspect ratios for the mobile and desktop versions of those. So, I'm posting this inquiry here to see what kinds of approaches others are taking to reduce CLS in these situations (where responsive images are used, with differing aspect ratios for desktop and mobile, and where a CMS allows the business users to utilize any dimension of images they desire).
Web Design | | seoelevated3 -
Multiple sites using same text - how to avoid Google duplicate content penalty?
Hi Mozers, my client located in Colorado is opening a similar (but not identical) clinic in California. Will Google penalize the new California site if we use text from our website that features his Colorado office? He runs the clinic in CO and will be a partner of the clinic in CA, so the CA clinic has his "permission" to use his original text. Eventually he hopes to go national, with multiple sites utilizing essentially the same text. Will Google penalize the new CA site for plagiarism and/or duplicate content? Or is there a way to tell Google, "hey Google, this new clinic is not ripping off my text"?
Web Design | | CalamityJane770 -
Anyone using CloudFlare on multiple sites?
We are considering using CloudFlare as a CDN for a large group of sites. The fees are $5 to $200 depending on many factors. We tried the free trial on one site and were impressed with the results. I am wondering if any of you have any longer term experience with this and performance metrics, etc.
Web Design | | RobertFisher1 -
Does IE9 use doucument mode IE9 Standards or Quirks???
Trying to set up the styling on a new Shopping Cart, and having trouble with Internet Explorer (IE) When I view it in IE, I click on F12 to identify the code viewer (like FireBug) and it lets me choose to view it using the browser IE9 or earlier. So far, so good... But right next to the browser selector is the "Document Mode" selector and sometimes it says "Quirks Mode" and sometimes it says "IE9 Standards" (when using IE9 browser) - and parts of the page styling goes crazy when I switch back and forth from Quirks to Standards. Help! Which does IE9 and IE8 actually use? Does it have to work for both? Is there a way to force it to one or the other? Any guidance or tips is appreciated. Thanks, Greg
Web Design | | GregB1230 -
Web Design for Ecommerce like wanelo
Hi, I have a client that wants to design an ecommerce site like http://www.wanelo.com/ initially they want to set up a first release to test their market using just he basic functionality thereofre you see a picture click on it add toshopping cart an buy. Does anyone know of a theme that can be used on wordpress or any other ecommerce system that has a pre defined theme as http://www.wanelo.com/ Thanks
Web Design | | VivaArturo
Arthur0 -
How can the Web site designer and the SEO strategist work together peacefully?
The organization I work for has decided to re-design or re-develop the existing company Web site. My part in this project is to come up with new features to add to the site, as well as making the site SEO-friendly (copywriting, link-building, keyword research, etc.). I don’t know a thing about Web site design, coding, format, etc., and I guess I will have to work with a designer on this project. How would I go about finding a Web site designer? Should they have some SEO knowledge? How much designer, coding and site structure knowledge should I have? And how do we not infringe on one another as we work together? (Sorry so many questions.)
Web Design | | Obie0 -
Image Replacement Using Cufon (Javascript)
Our agency is working with an outside developer that has designed a beautiful site. The possible problem is that they used Cufon to change a large amount of the text on the page to an image of the text in a nicer font. On some pages all of the text is replaced and on others its about 20%. The text that is replaced is identical to what is shown to the user. I realize that Google has stated that sIFR (similar to Cufon) is okay, in a limited way years ago, but I am stil a little leery of the large amount of image replacement that is happening. I am also worried about user experience, should flash not be enabled or it is slower to load. So I have a couple questions. 1. Would this amount of image replacment raise a flag to Google, especially since it is the heading tags and large chunks of the body content both? 2. I know about 2% of the site's users do not have javascript enabled. Do you have an idea of what percentage of people have issues, like slow connection speeds or slow computers, using javascript even if it is enabled?
Web Design | | DirectiveGroup0