The first thing I would check in this situation is to make sure that hosted
images are discoverable, crawlable, indexable, and not being blocked by
SafeSearch. To do this, go to images.google.com/ and do an image site
search i.e. [site:picasa.com]. To check if images might be blocked by
SafeSearch, click the link below the search box to toggle your SafeSearch
settings. Fortunately images are appearing in image search results without
any SafeSearch issues which also means that Google is able to properly access
and index content from that website. Check out how to make Google friendly
sites here:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=40349

So we now know Google can properly reach and index images from the
site, but why aren't all the images also included in image search? We have
to remember that image rankings and inclusions come from many factors beyond alt text and title tags. Image rankings also consider the ranking of the parent or linking page, meaning that if the parent or linking page does not provide enough information or rank well, then Google may not have enough confidence to serve those images as results to our users.

As recommendations for appearing in image search results, I highly
suggest that everyone follow Jim's example in following best practices with
using proper and meaningful alt text, titles, and useful file naming. You
also want to consider how unique and compelling the content is beyond the image itself, with the context and information surrounding it. Be very, very
patient as changes do often take some time, meanwhile continue to provide
relevant content for your users and things should eventually work
out.

Labels: Google image search