Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : SEO / SEM Discussions : Google Images Search Rankings

[SI-Chris]

Does anyone know if file names are taken into account by Google in serving up image search results? For example, let's say I have a picture of San Francisco. Would a file named sanfrancisco.jpg score higher than one named (for example) gallery40.jpg? Or do filenames not count? I am using descriptive alt tags and text in the Web page, I'm just wondering if file names count too.

[HighVoltage123]

i actually don't know... but i think it's more important the site where the picture is to have higher PR and "title" and "alt" are important too

[HostGreen]

The names of files do contribute quite a lot to SEO, but I'm unsure about google images.. try a few keywords and see how many of the results are related to them, it should give you an idea about how much they're worth.

[ubersmith_boo]

I'm not sure if it definitely makes a difference, but I can't see how gallery40.jpg would ever be better than sanfrancisco.jpg. I'd say better safe than sorry.

[markov]

I'm not sure of this, but in my site i've changed the file name of an antispyware product from spysweeper.jpg to spysweeper-anti-spyware-download.jpg.

When GOOGLE crawled the site the SERP dropped. I'm not aware of the reason but it may be a reason in SERP drop.

[Fixago]

How long ago did you make the changes? Sometimes changes result in a drop and then they pick back up. What about your ALT and TITLE attributes, do you have content/keywords in there?