Image pack
What is an image pack?
An image pack is a group of image thumbnails that Google shows within its regular web results when it thinks images would help the searcher. Clicking an image opens a larger preview with a link to the page it came from. Image packs are common for visual queries such as products, designs, places, animals and “ideas” searches.
The images come from Google Images, so the same image SEO factors apply: a relevant page, a descriptive file name, good alt text, nearby text that explains the image, and an image Google can crawl and index.
Why image pack matters for SEO
An image pack is a second route onto page one for visual queries, and often sits above many organic results. For ecommerce, design and travel sites, image search can bring meaningful traffic.
It also tells you something about intent: if Google shows images, searchers want to see things, so your page should show them too.
How to rank in the image pack
- Use original, high-quality images rather than stock photos used everywhere else.
- Give images descriptive file names and alt text that describe what they show.
- Place images near relevant text and headings on a page about the same topic.
- Use standard image formats and the HTML img element, so Google can find them.
- List important images in your sitemap or an image sitemap, and do not block image URLs in robots.txt.
Image pack example
<img src="/images/oak-dining-table-6-seater.jpg" alt="Solid oak six-seater dining table in a bright kitchen" width="1200" height="800">Image pack FAQ
Do image pack clicks show in Search Console?
Clicks from image results in the main web search count under the Web search type. Clicks from Google Images itself are under the Image search type.
Does alt text help images rank?
Yes. Google uses alt text, with computer vision and the page content, to understand what an image shows.
Related SEO terms
Image SEO is optimising images so they load fast, are understood by search engines and can rank in Google Images and image results.
Alt text is a short written description of an image in its HTML alt attribute. It helps screen reader users and tells search engines what the image shows.
SERP features are the results on Google’s results page that are not plain blue links, such as AI Overviews, featured snippets, local packs and videos.
A video carousel is a scrollable row of video results in Google Search, often from YouTube, shown when video suits the query.
An XML sitemap is a file that lists the URLs you want search engines to crawl and index, with optional last-modified dates.