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
-
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.
-
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.
-
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!
-
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.
-
Does the mark say, "EGOL?"
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Do it - For me it adds credibility when a company watermarks their images unobtrusively, and G loves credibility...
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
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
-
Keyword appearing on almost every slug of product pages = over-optimizatio
Hello all, I have an online store, let's say for example I sell forks of all kinds and colors. So naturally, I have 'product category' pages with titles and slugs like: Big forks
On-Page Optimization | Mar 11, 2024, 4:08 PM | Veptune
Small forks
Plastic forks
Red fork
etc.. And plenty of product pages with slugs and H1 like: Small red fork
Large plastic fork
18th-century fork
etc... Some category pages are well-ranked, others are not, the same goes for product pages. The problem is that for the main keyword, 'fork' (exact query in the search console), my site is completely absent. Google should logically have referenced my homepage (which has links to all categories) for this main keyword. I have also optimized the page for it, without overdoing it. I wonder if it's not because I have a lot of pages with 'fork' in the slug, and perhaps Google thinks it's too much (even though it's logical for this word to be present in all product pages because it's an essential word to describe the product). I wonder if I should not modify half of my product pages to remove the word 'fork' from the slug...(only from the slug, without touching the H1 because removing the word 'fork' would remove its meaning). Do you have any experiences with this kind of issue? I wouldn't ask the question if my homepage was behind the competition, but it's completely absent. Thanks0 -
Product Descriptions (SEO)
So I would like a few opinions. How long should a product description be? Enough to get the point across? 100 words? 800 words? Over detailed? Any advice would be appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | Aug 23, 2018, 7:12 AM | mattl990 -
Can lazy loading of images affect indexing?
I am trying to diagnose a massive drop in Google rankings for my website and noticed that the date of the ranking and traffic drop coincides with Google suddenly only indexing about 10% of my images, whereas previously it was indexing about 95% of them. Wondering if addition of lazy load script to images (so they don't load from the server until visible in the browser) could cause this index blocking?
On-Page Optimization | Sep 23, 2016, 4:58 AM | Gavin.Atkinson1 -
Is the HTML content inside an image slideshow of a website crawled by Google?
I am building a website for a client and i am in a dilemma whether to go for an image slideshow with HTML content on the slides or go for a static full size image on the homepage. My concern is that HTML content on the slideshow may not get crawled by Google and hence may not be SEO friendly.
On-Page Optimization | Jul 28, 2014, 11:47 AM | aravinn0 -
How important are image file names
Hi, How important do you think the image file names are for image search?
On-Page Optimization | Dec 18, 2013, 4:49 PM | jjtech
I know it used to be the best practice a while ago but is it still important? Thanks in advance, JJ0 -
Image titles and alt tags for multiple images
I'm hoping some of you may be able to help me understand the best way to optimize my image titles and alt tags for a specific situation. I'm working on an interior design website and they have hundreds of pictures. each of their projects has about 10 pictures. Is it best for me to us the key phrase in each title and tag? or is that to repetitive? here is what I mean: A project called "urban interior design" all images are of urban interior design, just different angles and features, so my initial idea is to just have each image title like this: Title: "urban interior design dinning area" Alt: "urban interior design dinning area view" Title: "urban interior design living room" Alt:"urban interior design living room couch view" Is this the best way or will it actually hurt my ranking with too much exact keyword use? Thanks for your help!
On-Page Optimization | Jan 2, 2013, 6:44 PM | TBSEO0 -
Different page for each product colour?
Hi Guys, I've just read an ecommerce article that suggests it's a good idea to have a different page for each colour that the product comes in. However surely this will mean duplicate content? What are your thoughts? Have you put this tactic into motion and how did it go? Thanks, Dan
On-Page Optimization | Oct 5, 2012, 12:44 PM | Sparkstone0 -
Alt tag matching product titles - e-commerce
Hey all, Just wondering if it is ok to match the alt tag to product titles. Imagine an e-commerce site that lists a whole lot of products on any one page for any one category. Each product listing has a thumbnail image beside it. The easiest way to implement this dynamically is to use the product title for the alt tag. Anyone had any experience with this? Is it overkill / spam of keywords - given that the product title is repeated. Our current situation is that our alt tags are simply blank or say 'photo' which is no good, and we have hundreds of thousands of pages. Cheers, Croozie
On-Page Optimization | May 22, 2011, 9:56 PM | sichristie0