max-image-preview is a robots meta directive that tells Google how large a preview image from your page can appear in search results, including AI Overviews. The three values are none, standard, and large. For any page where you want images to surface in AI features, set it to large.
What Google says
“To limit the information shown from your pages in Search, use nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet, or noindex controls.”
Why this matters for AI Overviews
AI Overviews increasingly surface visual elements. Product cards, hero images on cited sources, video thumbnails. If your page's image-preview setting is none or standard, Google has explicit permission to show only a thumbnail or no image at all. That hurts you twice: you take up less visual real estate in the result, and the click-through dynamics shift toward whoever did set large.
The three values:
| Value | Effect |
|---|---|
none |
No image preview shown |
standard |
Default-size thumbnail allowed |
large |
Large preview allowed (recommended for marketing, blog, ecommerce, news) |
You see max-image-preview:none on quite a few sites accidentally. It is a common artifact of <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow, none, max-image-preview:none"> snippets copy-pasted from 2017 articles that conflated several directives.
If your page contains images that are part of the answer (product photos, screenshots, diagrams, recipes, how-to steps), max-image-preview:large is the right setting.
How to fix it
The recommended directive for any image-heavy page
<meta name="robots" content="max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1">
Combine it with the other two max-* directives for full AI Overview surface (see max-snippet and video and AI Overviews).
Per-image steps that compound the benefit
max-image-preview:large gives Google permission to use a large preview. Google still has to choose your image. Make it easy:
- Descriptive
alttext. Not "image1.jpg" or "product." Describe what is in the image, naturally, like you would to a person who could not see it. AI Overviews lean onalttext for image selection. - High-resolution source. At least 1200 px on the long edge for hero images. Google will not blow up a 400 px thumbnail.
ImageorArticleschema with animageproperty. Helps Google know which image is the canonical hero for the page.- Image sitemap. Optional but helpful for high-value image content. See Google image SEO best practices.
What it looks like in your stack
Laravel Blade:
<meta name="robots" content="max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1">
Next.js (App Router):
export const metadata = {
robots: { "max-image-preview": "large" }
}
Static HTML / Hugo / Jekyll: add it to the base layout's <head>.
Common mistakes when implementing the fix
- Using
max-image-preview:noneaccidentally. Search your codebase for the literal string. We have found it in default site templates from a popular CMS as recently as 2024. - Forgetting that the directive only grants permission. Google still has to choose to surface the image. Combine with strong
alttext and high-resolution source. - Applying
noimageindexnext tomax-image-preview:large.noimageindexremoves the image from Google's image index entirely. The two directives contradict each other; the restrictive one wins. - Assuming the directive applies to social cards. It does not. Open Graph and Twitter Card images are handled separately.
