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Image maps and search engine visibility

I heard I shouldn't use image maps in my web site if I want high search engine positions. Is this true?

One of the biggest misconceptions about search-engine friendly site navigation is the use of image maps. At numerous web site design, search engine optimization, and online marketing conferences, I constantly hear so-called "experts" vehemently stating to never use image maps when designing search-engine friendly sites. Well, folks, I would like to dispel any misconceptions you might have heard.

First, it is true that many search engines cannot or will not follow the links inside of an image map. One of the main reasons for this is the potential for spam abuse, which I completely understand. (When over 90% of submissions to the Add URL forms at the search engines is spam, I tend to side with the search engines.)

But does that mean that you should never use image maps in your site designs? Absolutely not.

Image maps serve a valuable purpose for your site visitors. Quite often, a single image map will download much more quickly than a large set of navigation buttons. And since all web designers should design for their site visitors FIRST, not the search engines, decreasing a page's download time by using image maps is often a good design strategy.

Solution

If you choose to use image maps in your site design, it is very important to use text links, or other small graphic images elsewhere on your web pages, to link to important sections of your site. I always create a corresponding set of text links at the bottom of my web pages for each image map I use. That is the best workaround.

Another workaround I read about is creating a single site map that links to all of your pages. Granted, creating site maps and section indices (the plural of "index") is a great idea for any site. By itself, it's not an optimal solution. When used in combination with effective cross linking, it is an excellent solution.

Example

I practice what I preach. If you go to our professional web site, Grantastic Designs (in the About section, for example) you can see that the secondary navigation in the purple side bar are image maps.

Since the Grantastic Designs site utilizes navigation buttons with JavaScript rollovers, two sets of navigation buttons must be downloaded in order for the design and effects to work. That's a total of 24 navigation buttons. Since that seemed like a lot of buttons to me, I decided to make the secondary navigation into image maps. The corresponding text links are in the far right column on each page.

Now site visitors have a choice of what to click on "above the fold." They can either click on the image maps on the left, the text links on the right, or any embedded text links in the main body.

Conclusion

So don't be afraid to use image maps in your site design if you find that they are appropriate. If you hear a search engine marketer making blanket statements not to use image maps, run the other way. That person is only thinking about the search engines, not your target audience.

So go ahead and create image maps. Just remember to have multiple, alternative means of navigation for both your target audience and the search engines.

Related resources:

For details about image maps, we wrote an article about them at Image maps and web site design

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