The Hidden SEO Ranking Factor You’re Probably Deleting

I wanted to test a hidden ranking signal that not many people talk about.

So last year I built a series of sites to see if embedding hidden image exif data into images affects rankings…

…and I’ve been able to answer that question with quite some success-

Are You Deleting This Data Accidentally?

If you’ve being following traditional image SEO advice and tools like Google’s page speed insights that tell you to compress your images…

…it’s likely you’ve installed a plugin like WP Smush, Shortpixel or Imagify.

The problem with that, is these plugins often strip this valuable hidden exif data when optimizing images to reduce image size-

So if you have being following traditional image SEO & site speed advice.

You might want to take a closer look to make sure you’re not stripping out this hidden image SEO benefit accidentally.

How To Add Exif Data To Your Images

Luckily for us adding exif data to images is both quick and free!

All you have to do is go to thexifer.net and upload an image-

Then click on the little blue “Exif.me” button.

That will open a popup that allows you to edit all of the image exif data to your hearts content-

I like to play around with the following fields-

Once you are done:

You can just click the blue Go.eXifing button here-

It will take a little moment to process the image…

…then you should see a green message like this one at the top of the page-

Now just close the editor…

…and download the final image-

Then upload it to your site and insert it into a piece of content.

BUT!

You should also double check that the hidden image exif data you just added isn’t getting stripped out automatically.

How To Check For Hidden Image Exif Data

If you are following this process for the first time, I highly recommend you double check everything.

First get the current public facing live URL of your image and save a copy of it.
(or save this sample image)

Then head over to metadata2go.com and upload the image.

This will reveal all of the embedded exif data-

If you do not see the data you added here, then it’s likely the data is being stripped out.

Double check the settings of plugins like Shortpixel, Imagify or WPSmush and even some CDN‘s like CloudFlare Polish will strip this data out.

Fix whatever the problem is then re-upload the image again and repeat the test.

Wrapping It Up

So, does embedded image exif data influence rankings?

Yeah it seems so!

But if you’ve being following most traditional SEO advice, it’s likely you are stripping out this hidden image SEO advantage unknowingly.

So make sure you are paying close attention!

What do you think about using hidden image exif data as a ranking factor?