That’s Time/Date And Possibly Geolocation Embedded Within Your Photos

[responsive_youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMf6FmRus2M]

So, Google reserves the right to use the metadata which gets automatically embedded in our photos from our digital cameras and phones.

Depending upon your views on SEO, metadata, and privacy – this is a non-issue, a good thing for future rankings, or time to get an EXIF data eraser.

The Business Side

Knowing this, maybe it’s an SEO opportunity to take business photos with all available EXIF data fully embedded. Digital cameras will typically embed this data automatically but usually provide an option to disable geolocation. A few carefully considered photos might be a good thing for your site’s rankings in the future.

On The Personal Side

From the iPhone – it’s found in Settings > Privacy > Location Services > Disable Completely or Per App (Enable or disable per each camera app).

I confirmed that those were my settings today.

There are also various apps that allow you to remove EXIF data. I’m personally using a free one called TrashExif on the mobile side.

From the desktop, programs like Photoshop will allow you to remove this data too.

On OS X, a nice little utility app called ImageOptim not only optimizes photos for the web but in the process removes the EXIF data too.

Why Care?

Well from the business side, carefully considered photos might help with rankings down the road and that’s usually a good thing – any little thing helps, right?

From the personal side, yes of course Google would encourage us to use EXIF (well at least not worry about the data that gets automatically embedded in our selfies) – all the more to index.

Today though, we’ve learned that metadata is not always a good thing. Maybe that selfie could come back to harm us when it includes a time stamp and location. The Internet after all is not always the safest place to store our photos which is why we have to carefully weigh out the statements from companies who want more and more of our metadata.

It’s always good to stay informed about how companies use what many of us might not normally think too much about. EXIF data is just one more term to learn in today’s meta-privacy-we-want-your-data world.

Happy selfie taking …

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