Images
Images are used on websites to provide more engaging experiences for users, while also presenting more information about a topic. While positive for user experience, images can cause issues for a website’s SEO and performance. Our key takeaways from Google’s ongoing SEO Office Hours sessions cover more insights into the impact of unoptimized images, as well as best practice recommendations from Google.
For more on website content best practices for SEO, read our Guide to Optimizing Website Content for Search — or explore our Website Intelligence Academy resources on SEO & Content.
Background Images are Not Indexed
Images as Div background images will not be indexed in Google Images.
Google Ignores Noindex in Image File Headers
Set up Image Redirects when URLs Change
If you change image URLs, set up redirects to help them get picked up more quickly.
Lazy Loaded Images Won’t Be Indexed
Images loaded via lazy load probably won’t get indexed, particularly if they are not showing up in the Fetch and Render tool.
Image Alt Text Adds to the Page Content
Adding alt tags adds content to the overall page.
Search Console Search Analytics Includes Universal Search
The Search Console impression and clicks data includes universal search results like images which might be misleading.
Redirect Image, JavaScript & CSS URLs
When you redevelop or change your website platform, you should also redirect all your images, JavaScript and CSS files as well so the new URLs can be discovered more quickly.
Organisation Schema Logo URL Can Be on External Domain
If you include a logo image URL schema tag for Google, it can be on an external domain.
Image Re-Crawling Takes Longer After a URL Change
Images are not crawled very frequently, so when you migrate them to new URLs/domains, it will take a lot longer than pages, perhaps months.
Creating Separate Landing Pages for Original Images
Create separate landing pages for any original images, which should be linked internally, so these can rank in Google web results.