Geotagging adds valuable location data—like latitude, longitude, and more—to your images. This information is stored in the image's EXIF metadata, helping you to organize, find, and optimize your images effectively.

Why should you care? Here are a few key benefits:

• Effortless Organization: Geotagged images are easy to sort and organize based on location. Create beautiful, location-based galleries or quickly find the exact image you need.
• Boosted SEO Performance: Geotags provide search engines with location-specific data, improving your chances of showing up in local search results.

When you upload an image to platforms like Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business) or publish an image on your website, Google likely stores the original image with its geotags and other metadata. However, to enhance page loading speed and for privacy reasons, the images displayed on their platforms are often stripped of this metadata.

Despite this, Google probably retains access to the original metadata, including geotags, which may be used to influence rankings. The exact impact of this data on rankings is part of Google's proprietary search algorithm.

For more information, check out Google's guidelines on Image Metadata Best Practices.

JPG is the recommended format for geotagging images because it has a standardized method for storing geotags in EXIF metadata. This ensures broad compatibility with most tools and platforms, making it easier to manage and utilize geotags.

Other formats, like PNG and WebP, do not have a standardized way of storing geotags, which can lead to issues with readability across different tools and platforms.

Adding keywords and descriptions to the EXIF metadata of your images can significantly improve their searchability and SEO performance.

• Keywords: Should be separated by commas and include relevant search terms. This helps your images rank better in search results. The maximum length for keywords is 6,600 characters.
• Description: Should be clear and concise, describing the image's content. This helps both users and search engines understand the image. The maximum length for descriptions is 1,300 characters.

By properly formatting keywords and descriptions, you can enhance the visibility and accessibility of your images, leading to better performance in search results.