Getting More From Google Images Traffic
Ok, so most people who have optimized their sites for google images (not that hard, basically naming your image files with the keywords, setting alt tags, and putting them near text with your keyword) will probably know that google images traffic generally blows. Most of the time, people searching google images will click the image, and then immediately click the “view full sized image” link, but your goal is to keep people on your page and get them to actually read your content or something, right?
So what can you do to remedy this? Well there are a couple pretty easy ways to do it:
- Break the Iframe
This one’s pretty simple, you put some simple javascript in that breaks your page out of an iframe. This can get you banned from google images apparently, so it may not be the best choice, but it’ll work for a while, and has the added bonus of breaking you out of any other retarded iframe your site may be displayed in. Here’s some code: - Force Download
If you’ve ever gotten a google images result from blogspot and tried to click the “view full sized image” link, you’ll know that it’ll force an image download on you. Basically instead of displaying the image, it’ll ask you to download it instead, which most users will decline (way too much hassle). This pseudo-forces them to actually scroll through your content to see the image. Just add these lines to your .htaccess:AddType application/octet-stream jpg
AddType application/octet-stream png
AddType application/octet-stream gifAnd here’s the result:
<script type="text/javascript">
<!–
if (top.location!= self.location) {
top.location = self.location.href
}
//–>
</script>
Another awesome post…with practical advice. Keep up the good work. iframe illustrates yet another Google hypocriticism: how we are forbidden from using it in AdWords, yet it somehow becomes acceptable with their Google Images.
Google images is great for some types of sites, like celebrity or music sites for one. A lot of people who search for britney spears images want to hotlink them on their myspace page or whatever, so generate watermarked versions of the photos plastered with your logo and url, then write some rules to serve the watermarked version to any site other than your own, which obviously includes google images.
Now how do you monetize this?!
http://images.google.com/images?q=nickycakes
I’ve been using Java Script to bust out of Google Image Search iframes for quite a while now. Luckily have not been banned yet…. you could always obfuscate the code.
Just in time for the Miley Ray Cyrus pics!
On a side note, I also advocate adding the TITLE tag to your images to provide a bit more information for your readers. I’ve assumed that this may also give Google et al more to chew on as well – do you know if there’s any merit to this (in terms of SEO)?
Nice tips there. Been meaning to test this out. First to go is my goatse wallpaper library
yikes
Excellent tip, this is what i have been looking for as much of my traffic comes from google images.
My websites 60% traffic comes from Google images. I think breaking frames could help me monetize this traffic. But what about the search engines? are they ok with this?
Sweet!!! I've always thought of google image traffic to be nonsense traffic but this can definitely change the way I look at it, now. Bookmarked for future use!!
I just wish I didn't sell my previous image host sites for so cheap =(