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.
Best way to noindex an image?
-
Hi all,
A client wanted a few pages noindexed, which was no problem using the meta robots noindex tag.
However they now want associated images removed, some of which still appear on pages that they still want indexed. I added the images to their robots.txt file a few weeks ago (probably over a month ago actually) but they're all still showing when you do an image search.
What's the best way to noindex them for good, and how do I go about implementing it?
Many thanks,
Steve
-
The noindex meta tag keeps the page out of the index but since images have their own url, it doesn't keep them out of the index, so you should use the noimageindex directive on the pages where the images in question reside.
-
Thanks Chris! So, in my instance, should I just add that directive to the 2 pages that feature the images but are still indexed? Or should I also include it to those pages that are noindexed, just to be on the safe side?
-
Steve, As long as no other resources are are linking to your images, you could use the noimageindex directive as such:
-
Thanks Ash. I've just found this Google resource about it - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/59819?hl=en - that says "URL removal requests expire after 90 days, after which the content may appear in our search results again." Is that true? Is there a more permanent way or would I/the client have to manually re-remove it every 90 days?
-
You have to remove the images via Google Webmaster Tools. This support document has the instructions: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/181721?hl=en
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
-
Is it best practice to have a canonical tags on all pages
The website I'm working on has no canonical tags. There is duplicate content so rel=canonicals need adding to certain pages but is it best practice to have a tag on every page ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ColesNathan0 -
Faceted Navigation URLs Best Practices
Hi, We are developing new Products Pages with faceted filters. You can see it here: https://www.viatrading.com/wholesale-products/ We have a feature allowing to Order By and Group By, which alters the order of all products. There will also be the option to view Products as a table, which will contain same products but with different design and maybe slightly different content of each product. All this will happen without changing the URL, https://www.viatrading.com/all/ Is this the best practice? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | viatrading10 -
How Many Images on 1 Page Are Acceptable
Example I have a page with a slideshow of 35 pictures. They are all unique pictures and relevant to the page, have unique alt text, though no captions or description surrounding the images. Page also has a lot of unique written content. Question: is this large nr of pictures potentially overwhelming for search engines and they may think it is spammy and it would be a safer bet to only keep the top 10 pictures on such page? I did review this great whiteboard Friday - http://moz.com/blog/image-seo-basics-whiteboard-friday - and I noticed this at very end: "The other part, and I see this happen a lot especially with bigger clients, is when you put lots and lots of images on one page, like an image gallery, those pages tend to be very hard to get indexed. The reason for that is there's not a lot unique textual content. A lot of times it's just overwhelming to users. It doesn't provide a lot of benefit in a search result." My page has been indexed, but will ranking potentially be hurt and to play it safe I better reduce nr of pictures? I do understand the "do what is best for the user" scenario and that is what I am doing with a lot of amazing original pictures not found on any other website. However, with search engines we obviously have to consider how they operate as well. Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | khi50 -
What is the point of having images clickable loading to their own page?
Hello, Noticed a lot of sites, usually wordpress (seems to be the default) have the images in their posts clickable that load to their own page, showing just the image, usually a .jpg page. I know these pages seem to be easily indexed into google image search and can drive traffic to those specific pages... My questions are... 1. What is the point of driving traffic to a page that is just the image, there are no links to other pages, no ads, nothing... 2. can you redirect these .jpg pages to the actual post page? I ask because on google image search, there are 3 links to click (website, image link, image page), when you click to view the image, it loads the .jpg page, why not have that .jpg redirect to the real content page that has ads and also has other links. Is this white-hat? 3. Do these pages with just images have any negative effect on optimization since they are just images, no content? 4. Can you monetize these .jpg pages? 5. What is the best practice? I understand there is value in traffic, but what is the point of image traffic if I can't monetize those pages?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
What is the best URL structure for categories?
A client's site currently uses the URL structure: www.website.com/�tegory%/%postname% Which I think is optimised fairly well, as the categories are keywords being targeted. However, as they are using a category hierarchy, often times the URL looks like this: www.website.com/parent-category/child-category/some-post-titles-are-quite-long-as-they-are-long-tail-terms Best practise often dictates (such as point 3 in this Moz article) that shorter URLs are better for several reasons. So I'm left with a few options: Remove the category from the URL Flatten the category hierarchy Shorten post titles two a word or two - which would hurt my long tail search term traffic. Leave it as it is What do we think is the best route to take? Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | underscorelive0 -
Why is Google Displaying this image in the search results?
Hi i'm looking at advice on how to remove or change a particular image Google is displaying in the search results. I have attached a screenshot. From the first look of it, i assumed the image would be related and be on the dealers Google+ Local Page: https://plus.google.com/118099386834104087122/about?hl=en But there are no photos. The image seems to be coming from the website. Is there a way to stop Google from displaying this image or making them display a totally different image. Thanks, Chris XzfsnUy.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mattcarter080 -
Domain Name Change - Best Practices?
Good day guys, We got a restaurant that is changing its name and domain. However they are keeping the same server location, same content and same pages (we are just changing the logo on the website). It just has to go a new domain. We don't want to lose the value of the current site, and we want to avoid any duplicate penalties. Could you please advise of the best practices of doing a domain name change? Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Michael-Goode0 -
How To Best Close An eCommerce Site?
We're closing down one of our eCommerce sites. What is the best approach to do this? The site has a modest link profile (a young site). It does have a run of site link to the parent site. It also has a couple hundred email subscribers and established accounts. Is there a gradual way to do this? How do I treat the subscribers and account holders? The impact won't be great, but I want to minimize collateral damage as much as possible. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AWCthreads0