How to Index Product Gallery Images

Product images are crucial for e-commerce SEO. When search engines can index your product gallery images, they can appear in Google Image Search results, driving additional traffic to your store.

The Problem

By default, WooCommerce doesn’t automatically include product gallery images in your XML sitemap. This means search engines may not discover and index all your product images, missing out on valuable organic traffic from image searches.

The Solution

The WC SEO plugin automatically includes all product gallery images in your XML sitemap. This ensures search engines can discover and index every product image, including:

Featured product images
Gallery images
Image alt text for better accessibility and SEO

How It Works

WC SEO creates a standalone XML sitemap for your WooCommerce products that works independently without requiring Yoast SEO or other plugins. The sitemap includes:

All published products
Product featured images
Product gallery images
Proper image metadata (alt text, titles)
Configurable priority and change frequency

The plugin uses WordPress’s native sitemap API (WordPress 5.5+) or creates a custom sitemap endpoint for older WordPress versions.

Easy Configuration

Setting up product image indexing is simple:

Install and activate the WC SEO plugin
Go to WooCommerce > SEO Settings
Enable the sitemap (enabled by default)
Enable “Include Images” option (enabled by default)
Save your settings

That’s it! Your product gallery images will now be automatically included in the sitemap and discoverable by search engines.

Benefits

Better SEO: More images indexed means more opportunities to appear in search results
Image Search Traffic: Your products can appear in Google Image Search
No Dependencies: Works independently without requiring other SEO plugins
Automatic: Once configured, images are automatically included for all products
Configurable: Control priority, change frequency, and image inclusion per your needs

Ready to improve your product image SEO? Get the WC SEO plugin and start indexing your product gallery images today.

Get WC SEO Plugin

The plugin includes SEO features beyond just image indexing, including Schema.org structured data, OpenGraph tags, meta descriptions, and more – all working independently without requiring other plugins.