Page images set to noimageindex
What it is
The page’s robots meta tag includes noimageindex, for example <meta name="robots" content="noimageindex">. It asks Google not to index the images that appear on this page. The page itself can still be indexed and shown in results; only its images are affected.
Why it matters
Google documents the rule as: do not index images on this page. Without it, those images may be indexed and shown in search results. For visual content such as products, recipes, diagrams, charts or screenshots, image search can be a real source of visitors, and the rule gives it up for everything on the page. For photos you license but may not redistribute, that is exactly the point.
How Asky checks it
Asky reads every robots and googlebot meta tag in the page’s raw HTML, with the name in any letter case, splits their combined content at commas and spaces and reports the page when one value is noimageindex, in any letter case. It is reported as an opportunity because the rule is often intended. Tags for other crawlers and the X-Robots-Tag HTTP header are not read, and Asky does not check whether the image files are blocked in robots.txt. Other rules in the same tag, such as noindex, raise their own issues.
Reported as an opportunity with low severity.
How to fix it
- Decide whether this page’s images should be findable in image search.
- To leave it as it is: if the images are licensed stock, client work you may not redistribute, or otherwise not meant to be found, mark the issue resolved.
- Otherwise remove
noimageindexfrom the tag and keep the other rules. If nothing remains, delete the tag. - If the rule comes from a template or a site-wide setting, change it there, so every page of that type is fixed at once.
- Check the
X-Robots-Tagresponse header and the robots.txt rules for your image folder too, since either can also keep images out. - Give the images a descriptive
alttext and file name, so image search can tell what they show once they are indexed.
Example
https://example.com/blog/pricing-guide has original charts that could appear in image search:
<!-- Before -->
<meta name="robots" content="max-snippet:-1, noimageindex">
<!-- After -->
<meta name="robots" content="max-snippet:-1">