Can I have Google crawl my images again using the product feed?

In order to have Google re-crawl your product images immediately, we can append "?v=1" to each image URL. Google sees these as new images because the URL is different, and re-crawls them immediately, usually within a few hours.

The re-crawl may take up to 1-2 business days for stores with tens or hundreds of thousands of products in their feed.

Adding a URL parameter like "?v=1" to the image URL has no effect on the image itself, and the feed in general has no effect on organic search results.

If nothing is done, Google re-crawls images according to a slower schedule, presumably every three days based on their error messages.

This technique is helpful after you have made mass changes to images. It is also helpful when you encounter missing or invalid image errors, and the issue no longer exists.

After the re-crawl is completed, the "?v=1" can be removed or left in place. If another re-crawl is needed, then it can be changed to "?v=2", "?v=3", etc.

To add the URL parameter, you can contact us or follow these steps:

1. Go to My Account > Manage Feed > Define Fields
2. Click Edit for the image_link field
3. Append "?v=1" to the Display URL value
4. Click the Update button
5. Go to Manage Feed > Submit a Task, and click the Quick Submit button