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Promotion Tip:
Search Engines Get The Picture
by Larisa Thomason,
Senior Web Analyst,
NetMechanic, Inc.
Looking for pictures of Jack Benny, Rosa Parks, or pomegranates? You can find them easily now on many search engines just by selecting the image search option and entering the keywords. That's great news for searchers, but webmasters and designers aren't quite as excited. Image search has implications for site promotion, copyright infringement, and data transfer limits.
How To Find Images
Search for images at Google, AllTheWeb, and AltaVista:
Instead of the text list of Web site matches that you're used to seeing on a search results page, an image search results page gives you thumbnails of images. A search for "Maine Coon" on Google gives your page after page of thumbnail pictures of cats. Click on a thumbnail to view a larger version of the image and view a cached version of the page it's from. You can also click on a link that takes you to the actual Web site.
All three engines include a warning about copyright infringement. AltaVista's warning is on the main image search page, while AllTheWeb and Google include it with every image.
Copyright And Download Concerns
Copyright is a big issue with many Web sites - especially those belonging to artists and graphic designers. They worry that the image search capability just it makes easier for others to steal their designs.
Their fears are probably justified: many casual users seem to feel that everything posted online is in the public domain and theirs to copy, plagiarize, and use any way they please. That happens a lot with text, but images are even more tempting. Searchers may rationalize that it's ok: after all, the search engine downloaded a copy to display in its search results.
A recent decision by the United States 9th Circuit Court of Appeals deals with just this issue. The court decided that a search engines' use of thumbnail images is a "fair use" and not an infringement of copyright. However, if the search engine offers visitors access to the full-sized image that visitors can download without visiting the original site, that may be a copyright violation. Read the entire text of the decision.
Some webmasters make their images off limits to spiders using the robots.txt file. Be careful if you try that! It's easy to get confused and close your entire site to search engine spiders! Visit the robotstxt.org site to learn more about the Robots Exclusion Protocol. Note: the site is sometimes down, so if your first visit attempt fails, try again later. The NetMechanic FAQ for HTML Toolbox discusses setting up a robots exclusion file.
Google explains how to keep the Google spider out of your image files in the All About Google section of their site.
Careful About Data Transfer Limits
Can't believe that extra traffic could possibly be bad? Well, consider the data transfer limits (if any) in the service agreement you signed with your Web hosting provider. Free hosting services and low-cost hosts usually severely limit the amount of data transfer that customers are allowed. Sites that exceed that limit have to pay more or may be shut down by the host!
Roughly, 1 gigabytes of data transfer equals 100,000 hits to your site. That's a number that most small sites can only dream about. But remember, that formula is for the average site - not one loaded with images or multi-media applications. Image-heavy sites could unexpectedly receive a hefty bill if a lot of casual visitors come looking for images through a search engine's image search function - without any sales to offset the extra cost.
The search engines try to minimize the problem by serving up cached images and pages. Still, you may get a lot of site traffic from visitors who like the thumbnail picture and want to see what else you have. Use that traffic wisely. Offer compelling content along with the images and you may be able to turn casual image hunters into repeat visitors - even customers.
Use NetMechanic's free image optimization tool, GIFBot, to minimize your image file size without sacrificing quality. It will help you stay within your data transfer limits and please visitors who expect pages to download quickly.
Optimizing Image Files For Search Engines
Unless you're an artist, you're probably not worried about the odd searcher downloading pictures of your cat or snatching your menu icons for use on their own site. If data transfer limits are holding you back, look for a new Web host who offers you more data transfer each month.
Most webmasters see image indexing as another opportunity to promote their Web sites. Site promotion with image files isn't difficult. In fact, you've probably done most of it already:
- Descriptive image file names: A descriptive file name makes your page easier to maintain and also helps your page's keyword density score. Instead of naming the images cat1.jpg or img1.gif, be descriptive and use maine-coon.jpg and pomegranate.gif instead.
- ALT text descriptions: Use descriptive, keyword-rich ALT tags for your images. They make your page more accessible to visitors using assistive technologies like screen readers and help search engines rank your images on their results pages. The ALT description "Maine Coon kittens available for sale" is much more better than "picture of kittens."
- Link TITLE attribute: If your image is also a link, be sure to include a keyword-rich link TITLE attribute to the HREF tag.
- Good surrounding content: Some search engines use the surrounding page content to put the image into context. Google, in particular, uses nearby text to catalog images. Make sure that your images and their descriptive text complement the page text.
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Image search is another way to promote your Web site with search engines without a lot of extra effort or cost. But search engines won't index images unless they've found your site first. Image search is just a small component of a successful search engine promotion strategy.
Far more visitors will find your site through a high search engine page rank than through an image search. NetMechanic's Search Engine Power Pack will help you optimize your pages, pick your keywords, submit your site, and track your rank.
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