Why doesn’t Google Search Engine SEO display images in search results pages (SERPs)?

Hello everyone,This is Rapheal from Funion Digital. Many people ask: Why is Google different from Baidu? Why are all the search results on Google’s search engine pages text-based with very few image and text combinations? Today, I will reveal why Google search engine SEO search result pages (SERPs) do not display images.

Before figuring out this problem, I query Google official document, which has records: in search engine optimisation (SEO), Google’s search results page (SERP) will usually be text-based, not in all cases will show pictures.

That conclusion is not fully established, there are also out of the picture, just relatively few. Then why most of them do not come out of the picture it, the reasons for this situation are the following aspects:

Search intent (Search Intent)

Google will be based on the user’s search intent to determine what type of results to display. If the user’s search query is more inclined to find information (such as access to knowledge, news, etc.), then Google is more likely to prioritise the display of plain text results, rather than images. If a user’s query clearly indicates that they are looking for visual content, Google will only include images in the search results or display an ‘image search’ option.

Inadequate image optimisation

If images on a web page are not properly optimised, they may not show up in Google’s search results. Optimising images usually involves the following:

Image filenames: Naming files with keywords related to the image, rather than the default meaningless names (e.g. IMG123.jpg).
Alt tags: Each image should have an Alt tag related to the content, which helps search engines understand the content of the image.
File Size and Format: Images should be in as high quality but compressed a format as possible to minimise loading time.
Relevance of images to content: Google needs to confirm that there is a high degree of relevance between the images on a web page and the text content of the page before it can be displayed.

Image type suitability

Certain types of content are not suitable to be displayed as images directly on the search results page.Google pays more attention to the quality of the content and the completeness of the information, so if the query is based on information-intensive (e.g., technical documents, research reports, etc.), the search results page usually prefers to display plain text, especially on the web side.

Ranking and weighting

Search engines usually determine the chances of displaying images based on the overall weight and ranking of the page. Typically, image display will give preference to pages that are highly weighted, well optimised and highly relevant to the search term. Therefore, if your page is ranked low or not highly weighted, it may not be displayed in the search results even if it has images.

Search Environment and Devices

Google’s search results vary depending on the user’s device (mobile or desktop), the geographic region they are in and the language they speak. On mobile, a higher percentage of images are usually displayed, while on desktop it may be dominated by text, especially if the user is querying for specific information rather than visual content.

Google Updates and Strategy

Google is constantly adjusting the layout and strategy of its search results pages. If you notice a decrease in images during certain periods of time, it may be related to Google tweaking the SERP layout or an algorithm update. These updates are usually made to improve the user experience and ensure that users are provided with the most relevant and useful results.

Special search types

Some search result pages (e.g. news search, shopping search) come with images or icons to display, but regular text queries (e.g. searches with questions, declarative sentences) may not display images. If you want images to be displayed more frequently, you can choose to look specifically through the image search feature.

In Conclusion

Whether or not images are displayed on Google search results pages is influenced by a number of factors, including search intent, on-page optimisation, content suitability, weighting, and device type. Image optimisation for SEO is a very important part of the process if you want images to be displayed better in search results.

The above is about google search engine seo search results page (SERP) why not out of the picture to show the results of the relevant content, want to know more about Google SEO content may wish to add the author of WeChat to exchange.