Mistake: image sitemap pointing at thumbnails or CDN variants

Mistake: image sitemap pointing at thumbnails or CDN variants

An image sitemap should list the canonical, full-resolution image URL on the page — not a 150px thumbnail, lazy-load placeholder, or a signed CDN URL that expires.

Fix checklist:
— ✅ Each <image:loc> is the full-size, publicly reachable image returning 200
— ✅ No expiring/signed query params, no data-URIs, no placeholder.gif
— Image entries live inside the <url> block of the page that displays them — max 1,000 images per page entry
— Only images you want in Google Images; skip UI icons, spacers, tracking pixels

Definition of done: sample 10 <image:loc> values, open each directly. All must load at full resolution without a session cookie. Any thumbnail or 403 is a fail.