Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Will background images get indexed?
-
Will images, loaded via css class, get indexed?
For example something like :
style="background-image: url(https://www.mysite.be/content/dam/homepage-mama.jpg/_jcr_content/renditions/cq5dam.web.2000.9999.jpeg);"
-
On my site there is a gallery made by images embedded as background images.
Google doesn't see them.
-
On a sidenote, if you want to prevent indexation of them you can probably add the URLs in to Robots.txt or disallow a specific folder for those images.
On the flipside, if you want to get them indexed, you can manually link to the images and submit an image sitemap to google with just those particular images. Doing both is better than just one.
-
Quick anecdotal reference - for the 1 site I just checked (which allows CSS to be crawled), no they are not indexed.
However, Google crawls CSS and can load those images when you Fetch And Render inside of GWT I believe, so theoretically they can index them.
Next question is what would cause them to do so (eg inbound links to that image file), but I don't have an answer for that.
-
Unfortunately, "can" and "will" are sometimes two different matters. Google is pretty CSS-savvy at this point, and I'm 98% sure they can index those images. If it's a background image, and depending on how it's set up, they may choose not to, but that's a bit trickier.
Weird question, but do you want it indexed, or not?
Asking around to see if there are any image-SEO experts who can provide a more data-driven answer.
-
Nancy,
Although I am saying this all based on my personal speculation I believe that they will be indexed. I do not know 100% if it will but Google has gotten much better at indexing Java/CSS. As far as if you want these to be indexed I would also take a look at Google's image guidelines for best practice and see if there is something of value in there.
-
Hi Nancy,
This article might be of some assistance - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25773047/what-will-be-indexed-better-in-search-engines-img-tags-or-background-images-wit
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Not using alt tags for decorative images?
Hi everyone, My coworker recently stumbled across this article that instructs you to not to alt text for "decorative images" as you might get penalized you for over optimization https://www.shopify.com/blog/7412852-10-must-know-image-optimization-tips Has anyone heard of this or have any thoughts?
Image & Video Optimization | | AliMac260 -
Why are my blog slideshow images not indexed?
I'm managing a design blog hosted on WordPress. Each "design project" article includes a slideshow with additional images (and captions) for the project - these are images and text not found in the article itself. Every slide has the same page path as the article, but a different query param at the end. So if the article is /article the first slide would be /article?slide=1 for example. I'm having two issues: The slideshow images don't seem to be getting indexed. Screaming Frog reports duplicate meta descriptions and title tags for each slideshow page (same meta as article). I want to do what's best overall from an SEO perspective. Having the slideshow images show in Google image search is a must. And having the captions indexed might help too? But I want the Google image results linking to the article and not the individual slideshow pages. And I don't want duplicate meta issues. What's the best thing to do? Submit a sitemap that lists both article and slideshow images? "Rel canonical" the param'd slideshow urls to the base article url (not sure this makes total sense, since slide content is different from the article)? Get rid of slideshow altogether and put images in body? Some combo of these? Hopefully this makes sense. Any thoughts appreciated!
Image & Video Optimization | | theoHP0 -
Would you recommend changing image file names retroactively?
We'll be optimizing file names moving forward, but it hasn't been done in the past. I have probably 1,500 that would need to be changed, so want to make sure it's a valuable use of time/worth the effort. 🙂 Also, has anyone used Media File Renamer for wordpress? Seems this would be a good way to rename files without needing to reupload everything. Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | jennafrye0 -
Optimal Image Size for Website
What is the recommended size for an image on our website? What is the largest image size we can use without being penalised by Google? Thank you.
Image & Video Optimization | | CostumeD0 -
Can i use base64 images (URI) for better SEO performance - faster site loading?
Hi, Do you think the use of image data URI is SEO friendly? I got 20 JPG icons on each site, but use too many HTTP requests. So can i use base64 (URI) images for my small icons? Thank you for answer!
Image & Video Optimization | | Termex0 -
Can you get rich snippets for Youtube hosted videos?
My website has several videos, mostly product reviews and tutorials. I'd like for these videos to show in the SERPs with rich snippets, but I am hosting them through Youtube. What is your experience with Youtube hosted videos? Do they generate rich snippets? Or will Google always rank the Youtube video over your web page?
Image & Video Optimization | | TMI.com1 -
My wistia videos are not being index by Google. Does anyone know what can be happening?
I have the wistia site map on my robots.txt file and I also manually submit the site map to google. It shows that my videos were submitted successfully but they are not being indexed. Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | bedbugsupply0 -
How can I get around creating multiple Gmail accounts with the same phone number?
You know how, when you setup a Gmail account, Google asks you for a phone number to verify the account? I've run into a problem where Google is not letting me create anymore accounts with the same phone number. I set up an account for every new client we take on so that we have complete control of the inbox for verification purposes. Is there a way to get around this verification issue? We tried an app called Burner Phone but found out Google won't call the number because it's not supported by any major providers (e.g. Verizon, AT&T, etc.). Any suggestions? Thanks for your help!
Image & Video Optimization | | copyjack0