Google Sitemap Now with Images

Google has just released support for images within its sitemap xml document.  Don’t know what an XML sitemap is? What it does is once submitted to Google Webmasters Tools it can help Google understand what pages you have on your website and can, in some cases, get your site indexed more quickly and more regularly.

This new attribute can easily be implemented into your sitemap and you can see an example of this below.

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<urlset xmlns=”http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9″
xmlns:image=”http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1″>
<url>
<loc>http://www.cozy-digital.co.uk/</loc>
<image:image>
<image:loc>http://www.cozy-digital.co.uk/images/awesone_image.jpg</image:loc>
</image:image>
</url>
</urlset>

Why has Google done this? Well my guess would be that they are maybe planning to include an image next to their search results and doing this would help them determine which image to use. If you haven’t done so already I would head over to Google webmaster Tools for further help.

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About Graham Lyons

Graham is the SEO and Social Media Marketing Manager at Cozy Digital and the editor of the Cozy Digital Blog as well as contributing content for most of our social outlets like Facebook, Twitter and G+. Graham has been working in, and writing for the SEO / SMM industry since 2001 and is still as dedicated and passionate today as he was when he opened his first Website Design, Ecommerce and SEO company in 2004. You can connect with Graham and Cozy Digital via the social media links below:

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