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.
Can lazy loading of images affect indexing?
-
I am trying to diagnose a massive drop in Google rankings for my website and noticed that the date of the ranking and traffic drop coincides with Google suddenly only indexing about 10% of my images, whereas previously it was indexing about 95% of them.
Wondering if addition of lazy load script to images (so they don't load from the server until visible in the browser) could cause this index blocking?
-
Although Google can now get to js, I would still be nervous on choosing a theme/CMS that is using lazy loading.
According to John Muller from Google:
“Is Googlebot able to trigger lazy loading scripts- lazy loading images for below the fold content” – “This is a tricky thing.”
On lazy loading images John says “test this with Fetch as Google in Webmaster Tools” and “imagine those are things that Googlebot might miss out on.”
-
Option to index images? Or option to index image attachment pages? I've not seen the first, but I have de-indexed attachment pages because I didn't have time to make them all unique. Where do I find the option to not index images? And why would that make SEO scores better?
-
Yes - could be. You need to use Google SearchConsole Fetch&Render tool to identify are images is loaded at all.
Also note that some of lazy loading tools used data-src ( https://github.com/dinbror/blazy ), other pagespeed_lazy_src ( https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/module/filter-lazyload-images?hl=en ) and third data-img-src and many others. You need to check what attribute your tool is used and check are images crawlable and indexed.
You need to check also Qazy - https://github.com/qnimate/Qazy yet-another-lazy-loading tool without negative SEO impact because images are loading from src attribute. And this is explained here: http://qnimate.com/lazy-loading-images-and-its-seo-impact/
So - yes this negative impact could be caused from images lazy loading too.
-
Hi!
Big images reduce the speed on the page and speed is a(n increasingly important) ranking factor. You could use Page Speed Insights to see your overall site speed or the speed of a specific page.
Within Worpress there is also a setting to index images as a search result or not. On my site it was on and once turned off within a few weeks my overall scores increased so maybe that helps aswell.
Good luck!
Tymen
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
-
How to fix duplicate content for homepage and index.html
Hello, I know this probably gets asked quite a lot but I haven't found a recent post about this in 2018 on Moz Q&A, so I thought I would check in and see what the best route/solution for this issue might be. I'm always really worried about making any (potentially bad/wrong) changes to the site, as it's my livelihood, so I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. Moz, SEMRush and several other SEO tools are all reporting that I have duplicate content for my homepage and index.html (same identical page). According to Moz, my homepage (without index.html) has PA 29 and index.html has PA 15. They are both showing Status 200. I read that you can either do a 301 redirect or add rel=canonical I currently have a 301 setup for my http to https page and don't have any rel=canonical added to the site/page. What is the best and safest way to get rid of duplicate content and merge the my non index and index.html homepages together these days? I read that both 301 and canonical pass on link juice but I don't know what the best route for me is given what I said above. Thank you for reading, any input is greatly appreciated!
On-Page Optimization | | dreservices0 -
Will changing a URL negatively affect ranking?
Hello Mozzers, We would like to change the URL for a page on our website which ranks well for some our keyphrases/words. We are hoping the change of URL, through the addition of an additional keyword would help boost the rank of that URL further. At the moment out page gets 2 x A and 2 x B 1xF on the MOZ page rank tool using 5 keyphrase/word variations . One phrase ranks 4, one ranks 3 and the other 3 are 'not in the top 50' Our plan was to change the URL, using SHF404, and use 'Fetch' in the Google search console to re-submit the page to Google. Appreciate you can't give any guarantees how Google will behave, just wondered what your thoughts were on the wisdom of changing the URL in the first place? Thanks Ian
On-Page Optimization | | Substance-create0 -
NOINDEX, FOLLOW on product page - how about images indexing?
Hi, Since we have a lot of similar products with duplicate descriptions, I decided to NOINDEX, FOLLOW most of these different variants which have duplicate content. However, I guess it would be useful in marketing terms if Google image search still listed the images of the products in image search. How does the image search of Google actually work - does it read the NOINDEX on the product page and therefore skip the image also or is the image search completely dependent on the ALT tag of any image found on our site? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | speedbird12290 -
Stolen Content reposted on other sites. How does this affect ranking?
Visitors often copy and paste my content and post it elsewhere... on Facebook, on Tumblr, on forums and sometimes on competing websites... but they don't link to me. How does Google treat this duplicated content? What is the best way to handle it? File DCMA claims or ask them for a link?
On-Page Optimization | | brianflannery0 -
Can I use Same Keyword for Multi pages Title Tags?
Hello All, I am working on client website and currently they are targeting One Keywords for multi pages. As I have search with Allintitle: Search query and Google display around 37 pages of website which carry same keyword in "Title Tags". I have told to client to change the "Title Tags" but they want that keyword for all relevant pages. So I want to know is that harm in Search Engine Ranking? Note: They have not done the link building activities for multi pages with same Keyword, they are using only in "Title Tags" only
On-Page Optimization | | jemindesai0 -
How many keywords max can I optimize each page for?
I don't want to over optimize by doing 1 keyword per 1 page, but then if I do more, seomoz on-page tool report doesn't give an A grade for each keyword I optimize. I usually optimize for max 3 keywords that are very closely related, meaning they use the same words. Ex. dentist los angeles, los angeles dentist, dentist in los angeles Am I on the right track or what's your recommendation? Should I create different landing pages for each keyword?
On-Page Optimization | | sub90900 -
Wordpress: Should I NO INDEX Categories & Archives Pages?
I am new to SEOmoz & trying to work my way through the ca-trillion errors that have been found on my site, but for each one I want to ensure that I am helping rather than harming my site. The tool has (as a "notice") said that my category pages & Archives are NO-INDEX, is this how these pages should be dealt with? In addition, the crawler has also (as a "warning error) discovered that my categories, and Archives do not have a meta description..is this of great importance for non indexed pages of this type? Thanks so much to the SEOmoz forum members, you have so far been of invaluable help to me.
On-Page Optimization | | KMack2 -
Image file name, is it important
If I use the same image all over my site, do I need to change the file name to avoid duplicate? Different alt text will be use on those images
On-Page Optimization | | BigBlaze2050