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SEO Myth or Truth - Naming Photos

Former_Member
‎06-15-2016 05:34 PM
SEO Myth or Truth: Photos should be named before uploading to Etsy or a stand alone website.

Naming photos is good if the name remains with the photo when it is uploaded but Naming photos can be a waste of time . . . . .

On Etsy, this is a myth. Etsy changes the name of every photo that is uploaded into a long string of letters and numbers to store in their giant database of over 30 million photos. The name of the photo that the seller asigns does not remain on Etsy.

On a stand alone website, depending on the web hosting service, the photo name might remain the same or it might be changed by the web hosting service. The name of the photo is kept for stand alone self-hosted websites. There are a few web hosting services that are NOT self hosted, such as Volusion, that change the name of the photo when it is uploaded to a string of letters and numbers for their database.

Google and other major search engines use the image ALT tag to identify what the contents of the photo and uses this information for SEO, images searches and for Accessibility reasons.

For SEO, every photo should have an ALT Tag that includes the keywords for that image. The ALT tag is not visible on the web page but can be seen in the source code for web page..
.
On Etsy, the ALT tag is for each image is created by Etsy from the listing title. Sellers do not have to be concerned about the ALT tag, only the keywords that are added to the listing title.

On stand alone websites, the website owner (YOU), has to add the ALT tag keywords to each photo. Web hosting services, such as Shopify and Weebly, provide a way to add the ALT tag. Wordpress websites can add SEO apps, such as Yoest, that can guide the website owner with SEO including ALT tags.

Name the photo for your own website if you know that name will remain with the photo. Do not name photos used on Etsy since the name does not remain with the photo.

**

Join my active Facebook SEO Salon to learn more about SEO for both Etsy and your own websites - https://www.facebook.com/groups/1686821111533696/
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