How WordPress mangles your IPTC metadata on upload (and how to keep it)

You export a product shot with a full IPTC block — title, caption, keywords, creator, copyright — upload it to WordPress, and the version that actually gets served has none of it. This isn’t a plugin conflict; it’s how WordPress handles images by default.

The regeneration problem

On upload, WordPress creates several derivative sizes (thumbnail, medium, large, plus your theme’s custom sizes) using its image editor. Those derivatives are what your pages embed — and the editor copies the pixels, not the metadata. Your original in the uploads folder may keep its IPTC; the -768x512.jpg the page actually loads does not.

What WordPress does keep

WordPress reads a little metadata into the database on upload (it maps IPTC caption to the attachment’s description and title, sometimes). But it doesn’t write metadata back into the generated files, so downstream consumers — Google Images, a CDN transform, a stock validator — see blank files.

Keeping the metadata

Two approaches work. Either regenerate the derivative sizes with a tool that preserves and re-embeds the metadata, or process the images before they reach WordPress so every size carries the block. The Image SEO King WordPress plugin does the latter: it optimizes and writes EXIF/IPTC/XMP straight into your media library’s files, so the version WordPress serves is the version with your metadata intact.

Takeaway: assume WordPress will strip metadata from the sizes it serves, and design around it — either re-embed after regeneration, or embed before upload. Don’t trust the original in the uploads folder to represent what visitors get.