Wrong image being indexed by Google

Hi,

I am using Newspaper theme and we are a google news website. The issue we are facing is to do with the images that are getting indexed by Google News. Instead of picking up the image that is set a featured image in the story, Google is picking up an entirely different image. We are completely confused as to what is going on.

Please, help!

Regards,

I faced the same problem, try to disable lazy image load

Is it under Theme Panel -> Template Settings -> Image loading – animations (lazyload)?

Also check your open graph tags in your post page meta to make sure it’s showing the correct featured image as the one to be captured.

I have disabled lazyload, but that didn’t help.

Also, I checked the open graph tags. The image displayed in the article is correct one, but the image that is picked up by google is something else.

Any other suggestion? Please.

Here is the example. Below is the way in which google has indexed a particular article: “Brace yourself for wasp invasion in September, garden centre warns”. The image is of marijauna but it should have been of a wasp.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&authuser=0&q=site%3Atechienews.co.uk&oq=site%3Atechienews.co.uk&gs_l=news-cc.3..43j43i53.695974.698893.0.699045.21.6.0.15.0.0.187.685.2j4.6.0…0.0…1ac.1.c14gcHT8Bxo&gws_rd=ssl#q=site:techienews.co.uk&hl=en&gl=us&authuser=0&tbm=nws&start=0

If you go to the article, you will see that the image displayed is correct one:
http://www.techienews.co.uk/9740267/brace-yourself-for-wasp-invasion-in-september-garden-centre-warns/

Hi,

Thanks for the response.

The behaviour of the correct article not getting indexed was random. Sometimes it will index the correct one, sometimes it won’t.

I have deleted the itemprop="image" bit as you asked.

I will update the post as soon as I find something.

Regards,

Ravi

Hi,

Even after getting rid of the code you asked for, Google is indexing another image.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&authuser=0&q=site%3Atechienews.co.uk&oq=site%3Atechienews.co.uk&gs_l=news-cc.3..43j43i53.695974.698893.0.699045.21.6.0.15.0.0.187.685.2j4.6.0…0.0…1ac.1.c14gcHT8Bxo&gws_rd=ssl#q=site:techienews.co.uk&hl=en&gl=us&authuser=0&tbm=nws&start=0

The article which I wrote after the deletion of the code is this:
Lyme disease concern: Canadians likely to get false-positives from some US labs

If you check the indexing, the image is of ‘salt’ while the actual image should be of ‘Lyme disease’ as in the article:
http://www.techienews.co.uk/9740327/lyme-disease-concern-canadians-likely-to-get-false-positives-from-some-us-labs/

I have the same problem, i deactivate the Related articles widget, and every widget that Google news pull the wrong image with, delete the cache if you have any, go to Google Webmaster, re-Send the Google News Sitemap link, you need to have one. if everything goes well, active again the widgets.

Hi Tomawebdev,

That related article bit hasn’t helped me. I tried everything that you suggested.

Hi Alin,

Things have gone from random to regular after I have deleted that code. All three posts that i published after that, the images are wrong.

Regards,

Ravi

Another update. It seems that the removal of the code was messing up the entire thing. So this is what I did:

1. Reinserted the code that i had deleted.
2. Went to theme panel and disabled ‘related articles’
3. cleared the cache
4. posted a story
5. Google indexed the image correctly.

As rightly pointed out by Tomawebdev, the related article seems to be the culprit!

Having said that a careful analysis by tagdiv team is what I am looking forward to.

Thanks

Another update:

Again wrong indexed image. This is really annoying.

The Google bot find the smallest image file to index, your problem is related with speed, i test your article, have a very low score in Google speed test

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.techienews.co.uk%2F9740327%2Flyme-disease-concern-canadians-likely-to-get-false-positives-from-some-us-labs%2F&tab=desktop

You need to install a cache system, Goolge News sitemap, i have many website indexed in Google News, and its important to speed up your website.

Hi tomawebdev,

Thanks for reaching out again.

I am using WPSuperCache with all recommended settings. I have got nginx so compression rules have been set as well in the .conf file. I have also configured browser caching options. I am also using google news sitemap.

What i have observed is that if i delete the cache and then update the story by adding a new image, Google picks up the new image immediately. It seems that when the story is first published, it is not considering the actual image of the story, but when the story is updated, it pulls the correct image. Strange!

Regards,

I complained to google about it and it seems they have done something. [or did you guys do something?]

Since last three days there has been no problem of wrong image being indexed.