What is Image Sitemap?
You have a website with images.The images are attached to web pages.Each page on your website have a unique URL.Every image on your webpage also have unique URL.You should make search engines aware about your page and images.
For this purpose you create list of your pages and images you have on pages.Since URL are used to identify content you have to include URL of your pages in the list.Now lets say you have one page with two images.Then you need to include URL of your page and your images in the list.
You also have to inform search engines that these two images are part of the page.This list is known as image sitemap.
Does your site needs image sitemap?
This post is about image sitemap and my plugin for WordPress.But I will not say you to just download it and install.Rather you should first check whether your website needs image sitemap.There is no point installing one more plugin for sack of it.
Image sitemap is required if your plan includes one of below points
- you have images for Google Image Search and Bing Image search keywords and you are expecting traffic from these searches
- you have image centralized posts on your blog
- you have lots of images on your website
Why is image sitemap important for your blog?
Google image search (Bing image search as well) might be outperforming Google web search traffic for your website for some keywords.Usually people do not give much importance to image search and focus lot more to web search.
XML sitemap for content (or sitemaps in general) help you rank better (or better discovery of your content).Similarly image sitemap helps your image search ranking.You can check performance of your website in different Google property using Google Analytics for more detail read this post.
This site gets healthy amount of traffic from Google Image search.I discovered this fact few months back.So if you want to rank better in image search then use image sitemap.
Udinra Image Sitemap plugin
Udinra Image Sitemap is best WordPress Image Sitemap plugin.It automates the process of sitemap generation and pinging the search engine giants like Google, Bing, Ask.com.There are couple other image sitemap generation plugins but this plugin stands out.Below is feature list and comparison with other plugins
Features and Comparison
- Pings Google,Bing and Ask.com — This plugin pings Google,Bing and Ask.com automatically.You can configure this feature.You can also select which if the three should be pinged.But it is recommended to ping all three of them.No other image sitemap comes with this feature.You will be informed about the ping status.
- Creates Image Sitemap automatically — It creates image sitemap automatically if you publish either page or post containing image.This feature is absent in some of the image sitemap plugins currently.You can also control and switch off this feature.
- Supports Featured Images — The sitemap contains featured images which are not part of post content.This is absent in some of image sitemap plugins currently.
- Creates all major Image sitemap tags — It creates all major image sitemap tags like image title,image caption,image location defined by Google Image sitemap standards.Some image sitemap plugins do not create sitemaps using all three tags.
- gzip version — Creates gziped version of the image sitemap.This makes your sitemap size small.Pings gzipped version to search engines if created.
- Readable image sitemap — XSL makes your image sitemap easily viewable and also gives you count of posts and images.
- Fast and Simple — It is very fast.The plugin is re written and optimized for performance.The interface is simple and information.The query and code is optimized for less server resource usage.The MySQL database query is written to fetch the information needed (optimal query so less database load,good feature for shared hosting websites).
Installation
Follow the same steps as other plugins.
- Download it from WordPress Download Udinra Image sitemap plugin
- Extract the zip file in wp-content –> plugins folder.
- Activate it from WordPress Dashboard.
- Create a sitemap-image.xml file in your WordPress root directory.Make the file writable (644) file permissions.
- If you want to create gziped version of your sitemap then create sitemap-image.xml.gz file in your WordPress root directory.Make the file writable (644) file permissions.
- You can also install it from WordPress dashboard by searching Udinra All Image Sitemap ( Plugins –> Add New)
FAQ
Should I use Image sitemap?
Already answered above.
Should I ping Google and Bing?
Yes you should ping Google and Ping.It is very important to make them aware of your fresh contents.So I would suggest you to check all the three check boxes (in plugin configuration section there are check boxes for pinging Google,Bing and Ask.com). The plugin will take care of rest.
How to create blank sitemap-image.xml file?
Log into your Cpanel account and go to File Manager option of Cpanel.Browse to your WordPress root directory.Click on create new file and name the file as sitemap-image.xml.Make the file writable.You can make it writable by changing permission of the file.The permissions to use depends from server to server you can use 600 and if it does not work then use 660 (but never use 666).
Which Google image sitemap tags are supported?
Image location,Image title,Image caption are currently supported.
Changelog
The plugin is stable and bug free.
Support
You can use comment form below for any new feature requests or bug fixes.
Screenshot
You can visit http://udinra.com/sitemap-image.xml to see the image sitemap generated using this plugin.
New Feature
Parameter to control automatic generation of sitemap.XSL support makes the sitemap human readable and you also get count of posts and images.
Create gziped version of your image sitemap.This helps in decreasing sitemap file size.You can submit this sitemap to search engines.
Udinra image sitemap pro
The pro version of plugin is in process.It will be available shortly for download so stay tuned.
Hi, Is it correct that I have to move the sitemap from root/wordpress/sitemap to root/sitemap manually every time?
Also In my the sitemap there is only 400 images but in my media library there is 700 does that make sens?
All the best.
Rasmus
Also I can see
If your images are part of gallery plugin then it would not recognize them..The sitemap is created in wordpress root directory not root directory of web server..as more users have wordpress installed in their root directory..will see possibility of adding this feature in next release
First of all, I tested youyr plugin and saw that it doesn’t scan posts, it simply reads the data from the DB so it only finds images that have been uploaded via WP Media. If you add images manually to a post, your plugin doesn’t find anything at all.
(Adding images manually is much more flexible: you can define location of image on server, dimensions, exact placement in post and lots of other things).
Of course I understand that creating such a plugin is much more complicated than simply read what WP has already in his database and put it in an xml file. Do you have plans to do that in your PRO version?
Second remark: your plugin puts the xml file in the WP root. As you certainly know, Google is unable to read these files unless the WP root is also the website root. Can you add a function to (a) rename and copy all these sitemap files to the website root (sitemap-image01.xml, sitemap-image02.xml, sitemap-image03.xml, etc…) and (b) then create an index sitemap so that google can read all of them? Of course, I can do it myself with a little batch file, but it would be nice to have it in the plugin itself because the ping is useless if it points google to a subdirectory.
I have tried your plugin with some images that I uploaded via WP Media and in that situation it works very well and extremely fast.
I have plugin version which scan posts and creates sitemap…Since not much users use this version I have not made it public..
I am using this version of plugin on my site currently…
Why it is showing 9 errors , 300 + warnings……can I know the reason
Can you tell me where this error is shown??
webmaster tool>>sitemap>>issues
currently 9 errors,194 warnings
Error:This is not a valid URL. Please correct it and resubmit.
Warning:Sitemap contains urls which are blocked by robots.txt.
(I updated robots.txt after this warning,still showing the same warning)
This is not plugin issue..The URLs in sitemap are getting blocked by your robots.txt file..and in addition there might be some invalid URL as well..test the sitemap again and you will get line number (of sitemap) with error..right click on generated sitemap and search for the line number this way you can figure out problematic url’s
I din’t attach images to posts,thatz the reason of errors now itz solved,even after updating the robots.txt still showing warnings…I think it will take time to solve
compared to remaining image sitemap plugins this one impressed
very quick and neat response…thank you very much Esha !
Glad to know your problem was solved…
Thanks a lot for your quick reply. Ok, I am trying both of them. I am going to use it in one of my blog thetopblogger com. Thanks once again.
Thanks Esha for your reply. In that case do I need to deactivate “Google Sitemap Generator” plugin while using your one or I can continue both 2 plugins together?
You can continue using both.Duplicate URL in sitemaps is not an issue.Image sitemap only lists URL with images and Google sitemap generator lists all URL
Hi I like your plugin very much. I just have a confusion. I have already installed Google Sitemap Generator plugin and submitted to Google Webmaster Tool long ago and working since then.
Now after installing your plugin when I am submitting sitemap-image.xml it is showing “pending” which is normal, but the problem is that it is showing both “Web” and “Images” in the list. I have already web sitemap approved using another plugin which I have mentioned above.
So I am not sure why it is showing both “web” and “images” instead of only “images”. I just want to show up images, not web with this plugin.
Thank you.
Each image is attached with a URL so Google treats URL as web part and images as image part.This is not an issue.
Hi. When I try to activate the plugin give me this fatal error
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘}’ in /home2/booster4/public_html/bionotizie/wp-content/plugins/udinra-image-sitemap/udinra-image-sitemap.php on line 163
This sounds weird as this problem never reported.The exact reason of the problem should be something else…please give more info about the issue
hello all,
i’m using your Udinra All Image Sitemap its awesome but when my site url 100k, Udinra All Image Sitemap give me the error please check this and update ASAP. i hope you will reply me.
error is = “Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 268435456 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 29880568 bytes) in /home/hdwallpa/public_html/wp-content/plugins/udinra-all-image-sitemap/udinra-all-image-sitemap.php on line 186″
Read this post for quick fix.I will look into plugin code (am bit busy nowadays and see possible optimization opportunities).
Hi, I really want to use your plugin, but when I’m trying to turn it on I’ve go error “Fatal error: Cannot redeclare IsImageSitemapWritable() (previously
declared in
/var/www/clients/client4/web9/web/wp-content/plugins/google-image-sitemap/image-sitemap.php:19)
in
/var/www/clients/client4/web9/web/wp-content/plugins/udinra-all-image-sitemap/udinra-all-image-sitemap.php
on line 261″
My WP version is 3.4.2
I will update you soon…let me check the reason..
Thank you for your fast reply :)
OMG. I’m so sorry – I didn’t read carefully whole error – I’ve turn off other sitemap plug-in, and now your plug-in works! :)
Good to know it worked.. :-)…But I do need to make it compatible even if other sitemap plugin in use..Will do that in next update
Esha I have installed your sitemap plugin 4-5 weeks ago, still the images have not been indexed, its indexed the non-image parts. Here is a link to sitemap http://objectiveli.com/sitemap-image.xml… am I doing something wrong…
I have seen the sitemap.I can see images corresponding to posts there..can you please tell me what do you mean by not indexed..and indexed non image parts
Hi Esha,
Looks like in case user’s images are located not in ‘Uploads’ folder your plugin does not work. Even in this case it – logically – should scan all website pages and combine all found images with their full paths into sitemap sections corresponding to related pages – but not in my case.
Any chance to fix that?
Alex.
Yes that version is available but is paid one..for $30
yes there is..the problem is every user has different requirement..earlier it was getting created in root only few users requested for wordpress installation directory so i changed…
Why not provide both options? ;)
yes it can be..it will consider it in next release..may be late as I am busy with other stuff now
Hi Esha in my blog this plugin can’t automatically generate Sitemap after a post is published… I had to wait a day after I published the article but apparently recent articles have also entered in the sitemap … Can you explain why this could happen?
In order for the latest article entry in the sitemap I have to press the button create sitemap after publish article… Thank you for your answer
Thanks for pointing out the defect.
Please help me understand
I had to wait a day after I published the article but apparently recent articles have also entered in the sitemap
What do you mean by recent articles have also entered in sitemap?
I will try to look into the issue and make changes in next release.
oh I am sorry, I made a typo… I mean a recent articles not insert in the sitemap…. thank’s
oh I am sorry, I made a typo… I mean a recent articles not insert in the sitemap…. thank’s
Error loading stylesheet: An unknown error has occurred (805303f4)
can you provide more details..this is strange..none of the users received this error message
The problem is probably that your plugin creates the sitemap also from drafts post that has no postname yet.
I had the same problem like Eve, I have found errors like this:
http://www.domain.com/?post_type=event&p=14044 Flower Festival – Castellaro Lagusello
then i cancelled in the .xml sitemap all the references to post that has
?post_type=event
in it, then I resubmit to Google Webmaster Tool and it works.
So please update your nice plugin to fix this bug also for the zipped file.
Thank you,
Fabrizio
Hi Esha!
Thanks for the plugin! This is exactly what I was looking for, a sitemap that grabs all my images + metadata!
I’m having trouble submitting it to Google’s Webmaster Tools though. I’m getting the following parsing error:
We were unable to read your Sitemap. It may contain an entry we are unable to recognize. Please validate your Sitemap before resubmitting.
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35738 says:
Often, this is because of an unescaped character in a listed URL. As with all XML files, any data values (including URLs) must use entity escape codes for certain characters such as ampersands, single and double quotes, and “greater than / less than” symbols.
I tried validating the sitemap via http://validator.w3.org/, but the content type application/x-gzip is not currently supported.
Any idea what the problem could be? My sitemap is located at antoniocabral.com.pt/sitemap-image.xml.gz
Many thanks!
Hi Esha!
Thanks for the plugin! This is exactly what I was looking for, a sitemap that grabs all my images + metadata!
I’m having trouble submitting it to Google’s Webmaster Tools though. I’m getting the following parsing error:
We were unable to read your Sitemap. It may contain an entry we are unable to recognize. Please validate your Sitemap before resubmitting.
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35738 says:
Often, this is because of an unescaped character in a listed URL. As with all XML files, any data values (including URLs) must use entity escape codes for certain characters such as ampersands, single and double quotes, and “greater than / less than” symbols.
I tried validating the sitemap via http://validator.w3.org/, but the content type application/x-gzip is not currently supported.
Any idea what the problem could be? My sitemap is located at antoniocabral.com.pt/sitemap-image.xml.gz
Many thanks!
The problem is in second URL of sitemap.It does not exist.Please download your sitemap and open it is text editor you will be able to see the URL.The image poemas_durienses_favicon.jpg is attached to ?post_type=wooframework&p=2338 which does not exist.I will be updating plugin to handle this kind of situations as well in next release
Thanks! Is there anything I can/should do in the meanwhile? That URL you mention is generated by my theme upon upload of the favicon.
You can regenerate the sitemap and see if that entry exist…if it does then delete it (url to url)and re submit the sitemap..else wait for 1 or 2 days I will be uploading next version with this handling.
Decided to delete the favicon image, regenerate the sitemap, resubmit it and then upload the favicon again. It worked for now…
Last question: I see only 19 images in my image sitemap, out of ~160 i’ve uploaded to the site so far. Isn’t this tool supposed to get *all* images? Cause that’s what I’m having problems with, my images don’t seem to be indexed properly.
Thanks and keep up the good work!
is all images attached to posts or pages published? if they are then only they will get included
I see… So I guess that excludes images used in other plugins (eg, NextGEN Gallery and MF-Timeline as in . :(
Hi Esha!
Thanks for the plugin! This is exactly what I was looking for, a sitemap that grabs all my images + metadata!
I’m having trouble submitting it to Google’s Webmaster Tools though. I’m getting the following parsing error:
We were unable to read your Sitemap. It may contain an entry we are unable to recognize. Please validate your Sitemap before resubmitting.
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35738 says:
Often, this is because of an unescaped character in a listed URL. As with all XML files, any data values (including URLs) must use entity escape codes for certain characters such as ampersands, single and double quotes, and “greater than / less than” symbols.
I tried validating the sitemap via http://validator.w3.org/, but the content type application/x-gzip is not currently supported.
Any idea what the problem could be? My sitemap is located at antoniocabral.com.pt/sitemap-image.xml.gz
Many thanks!
When I activate this plugin I get the error ”
Sorry, Watermark RELOADED requires PHP 5.0 or higher. Please deactivate Watermark RELOADED”
it does not seem to be plugin related as nothing like this is used in plugin….please check and let me know in case of any issues further
- wrong detection of the root for hosting via GoDaddy.
- missing option to disable automatic creation of xml… last very long, I want maualy.
- I want both version, xml and gz… not only one at a time.
- title is not formatted correctly, punctuation, lines, points, commas must be replaced with space.
1.Root detection has nothing to do with hosting provider.It takes wordpress installation directory.
2.This feature will be in next release.
3 it is creating both
4.not sure if this should be in feature list…title is used as it is if not then sitemap will have different title then you provided
There really should be a way to place the file in the site root if WP has been installed in a different directory.
-plugin has nothing to do hosting provider.It generates sitemap in wordpress root installation directory
-this will be taken care in next releases
-it is generating both if you select generate gz file
-title should not be formatted as it should be same as image title
Definitely does not work on GoDaddy shared hosting … like i say: wrong detection of the root !!! Detects the root for hosting acount not for domain.
Get absolute root for wordpress via ABSPATH !!! … I am an expert in wp, believe me :)
And image file name is not image title … so from my point of view, the title must be clar in text, why else would be an extra field in xml?
New version solves the hosting issue and parameter can be used to control automatic generation and manual generation of sitemap.If WordPress upload method is used for uploading image files then by default image title is image file name