A1 Sitemap Generator / Image Sitemap does not list images in correct order

[supertrooper]

Using the 2.3.0 version of A1 Sitemap Generator I am still having problems with the quality of the image sitemap. Altogether I have about 2,000 slide URL's with only 1 jpeg on each URL. As an example there's a family of 3 URL's as follows:

http://kenbillington.ch/photobank/Ducks/Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)/slides/Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)%20(1).html

http://kenbillington.ch/photobank/Ducks/Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)/slides/Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)%20(2).html

http://kenbillington.ch/photobank/Ducks/Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)/slides/Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)%20(3).html

The image sitemap lists the jpegs & htmls' as follows:

- <url>
  <loc>http://kenbillington.ch/photobank/Ducks/Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)/slides/Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)%20(1).html</loc>
  <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
  <priority>0.2</priority>
- <image:image>
  <image:loc>http://kenbillington.ch/photobank/Ducks/Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)/slides/Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)%20(3).JPG</image:loc>
  <image:title>Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)%20(3)</image:title>
  <image:caption>Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)%20(3) - 340697 kilobyte</image:caption>
  </image:image>
  </url>
- <url>
  <loc>http://kenbillington.ch/photobank/Ducks/Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)/slides/Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)%20(2).html</loc>
  <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
  <priority>0.2</priority>
- <image:image>
  <image:loc>http://kenbillington.ch/photobank/Ducks/Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)/slides/Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)%20(1).JPG</image:loc>
  <image:title>Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)%20(1)</image:title>
  <image:caption>Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)%20(1) - 352987 kilobyte</image:caption>
  </image:image>
- <image:image>
  <image:loc>http://kenbillington.ch/photobank/Ducks/Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)/slides/Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)%20(2).JPG</image:loc>
  <image:title>Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)%20(2)</image:title>
  <image:caption>Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)%20(2) - 322082 kilobyte</image:caption>
  </image:image>
  </url>

If you check the image sitemap above you'll see that the jpeg's do not correspond to the html's. Also there should be 3 html's corresponding to the 3 jpeg's, but there are only two. I would imagine that the googlebot will have problems to link the jpeg's to the html's, especially if one of the html's is missing.

I've been trying to get my images indexed for about 4 weeks now using this A1 Sitemap Generator without any success.

Is it possible that the above problem is preventing Google to do a proper job and index my images?

[Webhelpforums]

That problem happens if the same image is linked/used from different pages. A1 Sitemap Generator image sitemaps only lists an image *once* and selects a page for it. Selecting in a generic way which page an image best belongs to is actually not easy.

But I will be happy to take a test scan against your website and see if I can build in some better intelligence?
Any way I can program A1SG to select most appropriate URL for an image is always an improvement in quality.

To my knowledge / opinion, the order of listed URLs does not matter *at all*. But I get that questions once in a while, so I don't mind providing ways to sort URLs in generated XML sitemaps, e.g. after alphabet and priority

[supertrooper]

Thanks for your reply. Please let me know after you have done the test scan on my website. I'll be very interested to know the results as I have been trying to get my images indexed by Google for over half a year.

I'd also be interested to know your opinion on whether there are any obvious problems on my image pages, which might prevent image indexing by Google. Take a look at the following typical slide page and let me know your thoughts: http://kenbillington.ch/photobank/Ducks/Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)/slides/Australian%20Shoveler%20(Anas%20rhynchotis)%20(1).html

If A1 Sitemap Generator can be proved to resolve the frustrations and uncertainties of Google image indexing, then there's no doubt it will be recognised as the best on the market and will be a huge success worldwide.

[Webhelpforums]

What exactly does Google days when you click on the image sitemap in Google Webmaster Tools? At bottom of the image sitemap tutorial, you can see how mine looks like. Can you take a screenshot by any chance?

[supertrooper]

You can access my sitemap and image of webmaster tools using the following links:

http://kenbillington.ch/photobank/photobank_images_sitemap.xml
http://kenbillington.ch/photobank/google_webmaster_tools1.jpg
http://kenbillington.ch/photobank/google_webmaster_tools2.jpg

Look forward to receiving your comments

[Webhelpforums]

Okay, from those two screenshots Google Webmaster Tools:

- Does not show any error or warning (screenshot 2)
- Shows it is an image sitemap (screenshot 2)

Out of 1199 URLs in the image sitemap it states it has 548 in index.
Given Google Webmaster Tools acknowledges it is an image sitemap (and not normal XML sitemap), my take would be it has verified about half the images to be in its index? (Although the indexed numbers in google webmaster tools in general have weird behavior.)

I would wish Google would list "indexed" images separately from URLs since it can be hard to determine what exactly is meant by indexed numbers (which already can be proven flaky in many ways, see link earlier)... But I think Google associates a page URL to an image. Thus if Google verifies an URL to be indexed in an image sitemap it includes the images associated to the URL.

But I will try dig up if there is some clear documentation on this, but I doubt it

[supertrooper]

If you check site:kenbillington.ch/photobank on Google, you'll see that only 18 images have been indexed. Of these only one is from the high-resolution pages corresponding to the sitemap. Please advise what else I can do.

[Webhelpforums]

Hi,

I will work towards implementing the things discussed. However, do please note "site" command is not necessarily the truth:
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/022087.html
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/018832.html
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-site-operator-inaccurate/14519/

All in all, it seems Google Webmaster Tools are handling your image sitemap. I don't see any errors or anything. However, as a general rule of thumb, I am always interested in improving quality and features any way possible!