Jan 8, 2023

Googlebot tries to load images from invalid URLs

Googlebot keeps trying to load images by appending the title of the image to the URL of the page it is currently on. The images are lazy loaded where a placeholder image is in the src with the real url in data-src, and through IntersectionObserver the real url is put in the src.

Also the image has schema.org properties among which contentUrl which has the image url.

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Last edited Jan 8, 2023

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Tony McCreath

Platinum Product Expert

Let's fix it 🛠️

Jan 9, 2023

Thank's. I don't see anything obvious that would cause an issue.

What do you mean by "Googlebot keeps trping to load". How are you seeing that?

The title, alt and metadata for the images are the images filename including the extension .jpg. I wonder if Google is picking up it looks like an image URL and testing it out. Anyhow, for usability you should drop the .jpg from those text fields.

Do you have an image sitemap?

An example of one of these strange image URLs would help.

Original Poster Alex 1187 marked this as an answer

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Tony McCreath

Platinum Product Expert

Let's fix it 🛠️

Jan 9, 2023

It would help to have an example page to look at. You can share via a url sortener like https://bitly.com if you want to keep it hidden.

Alex 1187

Original Poster

Jan 10, 2023

Thanks very much Tony, I will drop the .jpg, I think it might help to not see those as something resembling relative paths.

I do not have an images sitemap. I can see the requests Googlebot Image does in my webserver logs, they look like:

"GET /Hamrun--Il-Hamrun--Malta---Imsida--L-Imsida--Malta---Malta---Paola--Paola--Malta---Xaghra--Ix-Xaghra--Malta/Mdina,%20Malta%20-%20panoramio%20(9).jpg HTTP/1.1" 200 47626 "-" "Googlebot-Image/1.0" 443

"GET /Gourbeyre--Guadeloupe--Guadeloupe---Guadeloupe---Le-Moule--Guadeloupe--Guadeloupe---Petit-Canal--Guadeloupe--Guadeloupe/Pointe-%C3%A0-Pitre%20P%C3%A9licans%20(3).JPG HTTP/1.1" 200 38541 "-" "Googlebot-Image/1.0" 443

"GET /archaeology---beach/Amman--Amman--Jordan---Asia---Beirut--Beyrouth--Lebanon---Eilat--Southern-District--Israel---Manama--Manama--Bahrain/Dar-Kulayb--Southern-Governorate--Bahrain---archeological-sites---places/Holon--Tel-Aviv--Israel---gardens---places/Holon--Tel-Aviv--Israel---theatres---places/Holon--Tel-Aviv--Israel---forests---places/DSC%200049-2.jpg HTTP/1.1" 200 51669 "-" "Googlebot-Image/1.0" 443

Tony McCreath

Platinum Product Expert

Let's fix it 🛠️

Jan 10, 2023

That's Google's image bot.

I tested those URLs and it seems your website returns success (200 OK) for URLs like that, including ones ending in .jpg. However the response is HTML.

I suspect these are old image URLs that the image bot is testing and getting confused as they return OK and HTML.

You should have your website return a 404 missing status for invalid URLs.