I think 'indexed' is the correct terminology. My site features an image section that uses directory viewing. The only description for the images are their filenames, and I'm pretty sure that search engines don't effectively pick up the words in the filenames to associate with my content (example: deer_hit_by_racecar.gif). Are search engines picking up 'deer,' 'hit,' 'by,' and 'racecar' and associating them with my site (example: if i googled "deer hit by racecar," would my site show up at all?)?

Thanks.

(/images/sfw/film/ at gratephul.com for example.)

Maybe you'd better consider also anchor text for your images. That must get indexed faster. IMO

There are several things you can do to get an image to rank. File name is only one thing you can do.

1. Put an alt tag on the img tag
2. Have a link to the image using anchor text
3. Use the Google Image Labeler. It is time intensive kind of like an online game

I was able to get an image ranked on first page for the term business in image search. Google does not seem to geo locate this so I get traffic from all the google international sites as well.

I think 'indexed' is the correct terminology. My site features an image section that uses directory viewing. The only description for the images are their filenames, and I'm pretty sure that search engines don't effectively pick up the words in the filenames to associate with my content (example: deer_hit_by_racecar.gif). Are search engines picking up 'deer,' 'hit,' 'by,' and 'racecar' and associating them with my site (example: if i googled "deer hit by racecar," would my site show up at all?)?

Thanks.

(/images/sfw/film/ at gratephul.com for example.)

Yes Google Image Bot looks at a number of things and one is filename, although you are better off using dashes as word separators like deer-hit-by-racecar.gif

This is an excellent article on Optimizing Images (http://www.tareeinternet.com/forum/seo/236-optimizing-google-image-search.html)

Text is necessary to get indexed, use anchor text and short description of the image to get indexed.

Text on page and theme also plays a factor. If you have a large image right below an H1 tag the h1 tag will affect how that image will rank.

Thank you all for your help. Could I create an 'images.html' file that links to all my images with alt tags and anchor text, not link to it on another page and just let it rest it some directory? Search engine robots should come by and index that file still, no?

Yeah the image.html idea is not bad. If you have a lot of images you want to create a directory page that links to image1.html image2.html. Only put about 80 images per page.

Maybe get a good image names so it can be index easily, such as orange.jpg

I would suggest you to review w3c starndards and then to review how some preconfigured CMS organize or image databases their image tags. You'll be able to compare yours with what they do!

blogstorm.co.uk has a perfect guideline on how to be indexed fast for your images and rank high.

One of my websites get about 70% of traffic from images. I didn't use anchor on my image at all and alt tag is the most important factor. Your alt tag must match with title of your website and that is the key.