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        4. Is it important to include image files in your sitemap?

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        Is it important to include image files in your sitemap?

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        • IceIcebaby
          IceIcebaby last edited by

          I run an ecommerce business that has over 4000 product pages which, as you can imagine, branches off into thousands of image files. Is it necessary to include those in my sitemap for faster indexing?

          Thanks for you help!

          -Reed

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • IceIcebaby
            IceIcebaby @gfiorelli1 last edited by

            Thanks Gianluca, very helpful.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • gfiorelli1
              gfiorelli1 @Andy.Drinkwater last edited by

              I'd add one condition:

              we do really want our images to rank in Google Images? Maybe we don't want that, especially since Google Images is not anymore that great source of traffic it was before its layout changed (we can see photos directly inside Google without clicking the "see the page" link). If it is so, I would prioritizes the image sitemaps.

              But if you want your images indexed, picked up (and hotlinked) by other site or directly stolen but with you being able to find who used them without credit, then the image sitemap is needed:

              here an example directly by Google: http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1/sitemap-image.xsd.

              I don't know what CMS are you using, but if it WordPress, the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin automatically generates the image sitemaps.

              IceIcebaby 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
              • Andy.Drinkwater
                Andy.Drinkwater @IceIcebaby last edited by

                Yes, this will help Google when crawling them as it will give them additional info.

                -Andy

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • IceIcebaby
                  IceIcebaby @Andy.Drinkwater last edited by

                  Thanks Andy,

                  Would it be best to have all the img alt tags set up before adding site-map?

                  Andy.Drinkwater 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • Andy.Drinkwater
                    Andy.Drinkwater last edited by

                    Hi,

                    It isn't necessary, but if you really want to ensure that every image is indexed by Google, then it will be beneficial to do this otherwise you might not have them all discovered simply by crawling.

                    -Andy

                    IceIcebaby gfiorelli1 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
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