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
-
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 -
Indexed Link Removal request in GWT, good idea?
Hello, I used a plugin to no-index a lot of pages on my website, and its been couple months and they never disappeared from serps, so i used the google webmaster tool "remove urls" to ask google to remove them. Is that a good idea? Or does it look bad in googles eyes? any thoughts would help a lot. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Rank-and-Grow0 -
Google Indexing Wrong Title
Hey guys ! I have a wordpress website and also yoast seo plugin . I've set up a meta title which is : TV Online | Assistir Filmes| Notícias | Futebol |GogsTV . (I checked on some free tools to see , and they also show up this) but .... google is showing this : GogsTV: TV Online | Assistir Filmes| Notícias | Futebol . Seems they are trying to show my brand name first instead of my main keyword . I'm not sure why it doesnt indexes as i want ... Does anybody know how can i fix this . Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | tiagosimk0 -
How can I drive organic traffic to a specific landing page?
HI, I have a site which is attracting traffic for my target keywords but to the wrong pages. I usually create a series of articles on the topic (10-15) an start getting organic traffic, but I have not been able to drive the traffic to the main page for that topic. How can I get the main page rank over sub pages? Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | Rajaindiain0 -
How Can I Fix Adobe Bridge Photo Galleries and Duplicate Content?
I have used the Adobe bridge program for a number of photo galleries on a remodeling site and it is showing a large amount of duplicate titles, etc. Is there an easy fix to this? anyone?
On-Page Optimization | | DaveBrown3330 -
Our sitemap is not indexed well
Hey there, Hope you guys can help. We get the following error: Nested indexing. Another Sitemap index refers to the index of sitemaps. The thing is that we cant find the error they are talking about. Thanks!!!!
On-Page Optimization | | Comunicare0 -
Rename index.php or keyword in URL?
It is important for me to get good search results for keyword + city name For instance: tulips amsterdam What would be better: renaming index.php or adding the cityname to the URL? www.example.com/amsterdam/tulips OR www.example.com/pages/tulips-amsterdam
On-Page Optimization | | svdg0 -
Can Other Websites You Own Affect Your Rankings?
Let's say you own three websites. One is low quality and Google frowns upon it, another is moderate and a third has stellar unique content. Would Google penalize the third website because you own the first website? On a related note - If you were banned from Google AdWords, would registering a site in your name potentially harm your rankings?
On-Page Optimization | | DerekP0