Google never stops surprising me, looking through Webmaster Tools I stumbled across the fact that the Blueclaw site is No 1 in Google’s image search for ‘Monte Carlo’. We’ve had over 100 hits for the keyword ‘Monte Carlo’ during the last few days.

Why are we ranking so highly in Google for this random image? To be frank I’m not too sure, my guess is Google has applied weight to the image due to the fact we’ve used ‘Monte-Carlo’ in the image file name, title attribute and caption text (obvious factors really). Our blog does hold some authority in Google, so perhaps this is another reason why the image ranks. The text surrounding the image also mentions ‘Monte Carlo’. We haven’t added backlinks to the page or the image so direct off-page factors can’t be the reason for the image ranking so well. See the Monte Carlo image on our blog - http://www.blueclaw.co.uk/seo-blog/seo-leeds/623/

What it does show is if you optimise an image in Google and get it to number one it can significantly boost traffic so it’s worth giving it a go. Share your comments below regarding optimising images in Google.

Look number 1 for ‘Monte Carlo’:

Send us your quirky Google rankings and we’ll display the top 10 in our blog.