EXIF Data: What They Are, How You Use Them, and How You Read Them

1. What is EXIF data?
2. What does EXIF mean?
3. What information is in EXIF data?
4. What is metadata in images?
5. What is IPTC data?
6. Importance of EXIF data and IPTC data for SEO
7. Interim conclusion
8. How can EXIF data be read, changed and deleted?
9. What SEO tools help you with EXIF data?
10. Conclusion

Apart from the rudimentary image information (resolution, image format, file size etc.) displayed to you by the operating system, there are a number of other data related to images. These include, among others, EXIF data. This data provides up to 100 image information, from the camera model with which the image was taken to the location of the shot.

What is EXIF data?

EXIF data contains technical information about digital images. Examples of such information are the location of the image and the settings of the camera. The data is stored in the image file immediately after a photo is taken. Both professional cameras and smartphones store EXIF data. It is important here that the images are in JPEG or TIFF format or in another compatible format, as EXIF does not support all file formats.

EXIF is only standard in the PNG format since 2017, which is why many tools for reading and modifying EXIF data do not work with PNG images.

EXIF data goes far beyond the regular image information that is known from the Windows operating system. There are over 100 EXIF tags for storage in digital images. EXIF data plays a very important role in online marketing, among other things with a view to Local SEO (local search engine optimization).

What does EXIF mean?

The abbreviation "EXIF" stands for "Exchangeable Image File Format". It is an image format for compressed storage of data. The information is stored in the header of the image file for images in JPEG and TIFF format for instance. It is not possible to store EXIF data for images in the RAW format - a format often preferred by professional photographers - or with the GIF format.

What information is in EXIF data?

EXIF data contains a wealth of information regarding the camera, the recording parameters and other aspects. These details complement the regular data of an image.

Some examples of EXIF data are:

• Aperture number
• Exposure index
• Exposure time
• Focal length
• Flashlight
• Camera model
• Lens
• Recording time
• White balance
• Date and time of recording
• Location of recording

In addition, regular image information (image format, resolution etc.) is also part of the EXIF data.

What is metadata in images?

"Metadata or meta-information are structured data that contains information about the characteristics or content of other data. Simply put, metadata is data about other data." (Security Insider, 2023)

Following this general definition, it is clear that the source file for EXIF data is the image. Therefore, metadata in images is data that reveals information about characteristics or content of the images.

In addition to the EXIF data standard, there are other metadata standards that provide detailed information about images. One of these standards is "IPTC", which stands for "International Press Telecommunications Council". The IPTC standard was developed by this council. IPTC makes it possible to manually add more metadata to the image, which, for example, describes the content of the image.

What is IPTC data?

Examples of IPTC data are copyright notices, information about the content of the image, keywords and the name of the creator. IPTC data is highly valued in journalism and in the maintenance of database archives. By storing keywords in the meta-data, images can be better filtered and thus found more quickly in comprehensive databases.

Importance of EXIF data and IPTC data for SEO

In a video from 2014, the then senior Google employee Matt Cutts discussed the influence of EXIF data on Google's ranking. He stated that the search engine was capable of reading this data. In addition, Google reserves the right to include EXIF data as a ranking factor in the evaluation of websites and web pages.

Here's the video with Matt Cutts' statement:

Despite Matt Cutts' statements, there is still disagreement among SEO experts today as to the extent to which EXIF data is relevant for image SEO. In my opinion - based on experience from daily professional practice - the role of EXIF data in image SEO is completely underestimated. Especially in Local SEO, the EXIF geo-data proves to be an important ranking factor.

We recommend that you first adhere to our recommendations in the blog posts about Image SEO and SEO image optimization, in which we give hints on the image name, title and ALT text among other things. In addition, you should definitely take care of the integration of EXIF data and IPTC data, because meta-information about copyright and local search engine optimization are of great importance for image SEO in our opinion.

There are two reasons for this:

1. As part of an international agreement, Google has committed to only displaying images with copyright information in search results, which is why storing the appropriate IPTC metadata is a must for your image SEO.
2. In addition, for search requests with a local reference, Google prefers to display locally relevant images, so you should inform in the EXIF data about the location of the image. Use the geo-coordinates for local SEO, describe the images accurately, use suitable keywords and mention the name of the author; if the author is a locally based company, local SEO will also benefit from it.

Other reasons for using image metadata for search engine optimization can be speculated. For example, images that show a most recent recording date in the EXIF data could be preferred to older images, as Google generally uses the topicality of web content as a ranking criterion.

Furthermore, deleting EXIF data from AI-generated images and stock photos makes sense, as these images contain clues to their origin - an origin that is potentially disadvantageous for SEO, as Google prefers unique and individual images to AI-generated images and stock photos. Therefore, delete the EXIF data of the origin and do not reveal to Google that you are using AI-generated images or stock photos.

Interim conclusion

Despite some uncertainty about the influence of EXIF data on SEO, it stands to reason: The indications and our professional experiences suggest that the metadata in images are already now being used by Google and other search engines as ranking factors.

The following metadata have the most impact on the ranking:

• Keywords describing the content of images
• Information about copyright
• Name of the company as the author (important for local SEO)
• Place of recording (especially important for local SEO)
• Recording date

EXIF influences image size

The influence of meta-information on the storage size of images and websites should not be underestimated. In a study by Dexecure it became clear that a technically deficient integration of metadata increases the file size of images considerably. Therefore, when using EXIF data as well as when using other metadata, care must be taken to professionally integrate the data.

How can EXIF data be read, changed and deleted?

EXIF data can be read in the browser, by software and through the operating system. If you want to read EXIF data through the operating system, proceed as follows.

• Read EXIF data in Windows 10: Right click on the image file. Then left click on "Properties" and finally another left click on "Details".
• Read EXIF data on Mac: Right click on the image file. Then left click on "Information" and finally another left click on "More Information".

Reading EXIF data in Windows 10 and older versions of Windows gives you comparatively little information. To read all the metadata of an image, you would be better off using the browser or special software. We will go into more detail about these two methods for reading EXIF data below.

First, let's talk about reading EXIF data on the Mac: Here, you benefit from the fact that Apple has equipped its Photos app with an EXIF reader. With all newer Apple devices that store images, you can therefore read the EXIF data under "More Information" without additional software.

Reading EXIF data in the browser

You read EXIF data in the browser using add-ons. Add-ons are auxiliary programs that expand application programs; in this case, they expand the browser with the feature to read EXIF data.

Examples of add-ons for reading EXIF data are:

• Exif Viewer
• Exify
• FxIF

Exif Viewer is available in versions compatible with both Google Chrome and Firefox. On the other hand, Exify is an add-on specifically for Firefox, while FxIF is tailored for use in Chrome. For Internet Explorer, there is no reliable add-on for reading EXIF data; the add-on Opanda IExif works with some Explorer versions.

You can find the add-ons in the menus of the respective browsers under the menu item "Add-on". However, you do not need to go to the menu to read the EXIF data. Instead, you just right-click on the image and open the image details.

Not all images on the internet contain EXIF data. Therefore, do not be surprised if sometimes you do not get any data displayed when using the browser extensions. Also important: thumbnail images generally do not have EXIF data.

Reading EXIF data by software

Image editing programs like Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop, the Apple Photos app and GIMP allow you to read EXIF data. So if you edit your images, you already have everything on your device that you need to read the EXIF data with your image editing program.

Special software you can use to read EXIF data are the following tools:

EXIFPro

AnalogExif

ExifTool

Exif Pilot

The following screenshots are from the ExifTool software and give an impression of how the EXIF data is displayed.

In addition to the free tools from the list, there are also paid tools for reading EXIF data. One of these tools is Copytrans. In addition to reading EXIF data, Copytrans also offers functions for transferring images between different devices.

We recommend you use free tools to read EXIF data. If you also want to edit your images, it is best to choose a comprehensive image editing program like Lightroom or Photoshop from Adobe right from the start, as it combines various tools for image editing and functions for reading EXIF data in one.

If you do not want to download and install a program on your device, you can read EXIF data online. At metadata2go you upload the image whose EXIF data you want to know. However, we advise against having EXIF data read online for data protection reasons.

People with programming skills are also able to read EXIF data with Python. However, this process is extremely complex, so we will not go into detail about this topic in this blog post.

How can EXIF data be changed?

EXIF data can be changed with a few clicks. Browser extensions like Exif Viewer and Exify do not allow you to make changes to EXIF data, but with image editing programs and software like ExifTool or Exifer this is certainly possible. At the places where the individual meta-information is displayed, there is the opportunity to change the data.

If you are only interested in adding new geodata for local SEO, you can use the online service Geolmgr to store a location of your choice.

Deleting EXIF data can make sense if images reveal too much private information about you, about the location of the shot or about your special photography methods. The option to delete the data is usually located near the place where the EXIF data is changed.

Before deleting the EXIF data, you should create backup copies of your images with the metadata, because once EXIF data is deleted, you will never get it back. Also remember to save the images in a format that supports EXIF data after each edit.

What SEO tools help you with EXIF data?

On our website we have published our own EXIF WordPress tool. With this tool, you can individually edit individual or all images on your website with regard to EXIF data, author, description, keywords and geo-coordinates. Here you can download and get more information.

In addition to our WordPress tool, also use the classic SEO tools (e.g. Sistrix , Seobility , Ryte), which among other things help you with the evaluation of missing image data (e.g. Alt tags) and the analysis of keyword strategies for your image SEO. This way, you always have the most important aspects of image SEO in view and can make optimizations at any time.

Conclusion

In a few years, EXIF and IPTC data could play an important role in image SEO. EXIF data such as the recording date and the recording location are probably already relevant for Local SEO now.

Add-ons for the browser, software for download and online services are available for reading EXIF data. With the exception of the add-ons for the browser, all the tools introduced in this post not only allow you to read EXIF data, but also to edit and delete it, to positively influence the SEO through changes to the EXIF data.