Best Way To Host Images For Image Optimization
-
I need an image optimization expert to tell me whether or not we are hosting images properly for SEO. Currently, we upload all images to Picasa and then call them out with a webpart in our content management system. See example here - http://www.tennisnow.com/Photos/2011-BNP-Paribas-Open-Day-5.aspx
Here's an example of the url that is attached to each image - http://lh5.ggpht.com/_1Oyc-Zgkrpk/TX5H-Pfyd7I/AAAAAAAARbc/nG3Cw-G5tsY/s400/1215548409_FU9xA-L.jpg
We have a lot of images, and we've hosted them on Picasa for speed purposes based on a recommendation from our developer (makes the pages load faster).
I've read that Google can now factor page load time into its ranking parameters. We are not seeing the images from each photo gallery being indexed on images.google.com. We are torn. What should we do to rank for these images?
-
Hey Guillaume,
Thanks for pointing out the alt tags, can't believe I forgot to mention that (doh!).
Good points with how to address the speed issues.
Cheers,
Josh
-
Hi,
I totaly agree, you should also add content to the alt tag of the images. About the speed optimization, I would not only look into the images, but also look at the code of the page itself.
There are a lot of inline CSS and JavaScript that could be move to external files and you could also combine and minimize your external JavaScript and CSS files.
There is also this 28772 character long token generated by ASPX that take a while to be generated and loaded. You could also replace your menus by
There are a lot of improvement that could be done on your website that would make your website load faster and have greater effect than hosting your images elsewhere.
Best regards,
Guillaume Voyer. -
I will take a stab at it and someone more knowledgeable than me can correct me if I am wrong :).
I would host the pictures on your own server and address the speed issues with caching, compression, etc. As long as the pictures are optimized for the web correctly you can mitigate the cost in speed and gain the opportunity to be able to control your image optimization plan.
Right now your links point out and are not descriptive of the content at all. If they were hosted on your site you are referencing your own domain and can control the URL much easier. Instead of the link you currently have you could have a specific url that describes the picture (www.example.com/photos/Rafael-Nadal-wimbledon-2011.jpg). Please note that I am no tennis expert so this is just an example :). this would give you a descriptive url that points to your site, and by optimizing the alt and title tags you tell the search engines what your image is about. When those picture are indexed and show up in google or bing it is your site that gets the traffic and credit not a 3rd party host.
Hope that helps, personally as searching trends towards more visual cues I want to make sure that any pictures that are found of our products are optimized fully and point to our site.
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
-
What is the best way to rank for variations of your business name?
Our business name is APVelocity. We are ranking when it is typed APVelocity, however we are finding many people are typing it AP Velocity. When it is typed with a space, we are not ranking. What is the best way to ensure we show up either way?
On-Page Optimization | | mbrowntci2 -
Are the prepositions and separate letters in URL bad for website optimization?
Is it ok for website optimization to use prepositions and separate letters in URL ? Examples: -i-series ; -salad-with-avocado etc.
On-Page Optimization | | adrecom0 -
Optimizing for Bing
My keyword ranking many times vary significantly from google to bing. i feel comfortable with my google rankings but many competitors that i am ranking higher than in google are much higher than my site in bing. Any tips? www.hodgesbadge.com
On-Page Optimization | | GaryQ0 -
On Page Optimization Report
Does this tool also guard against an instance of over-optimization or keyword-spamming?
On-Page Optimization | | webfeatus0 -
Which Blog Platform to link to an eCommerce site is best?
I just hired a content writer to blog on my site, but I want to make sure I have the right blog set up properly before doing so. I currently have my blog on my own domain. http://alturl.com/ixd7p It's a pretty crappy blog, to be quite frank. (The link to the blog is in the footer). It doesn't allow me to change category titles so it's throwing duplicate content - not good. I am seriously considering getting a self hosted Wordpress blog and linking that to my site instead at 3dcart- so it will be blog.domainname.comMy CONCERN.... I always heard that it's best to have the blog right right on the eCommerce site (just as I have it now) because it keeps feeding the domain fresh content. If I have a self hosted Wordpress blog and have it linked to my site, will it still feed my site fresh content?
On-Page Optimization | | tutugirl0 -
Making best use of keyword phrase domain url
Hi everyone Our industry has a particular keyword phrase that is very popular. We currently own this as a domain name. How can we make use of this to our main websites advantage?
On-Page Optimization | | LadyApollo0 -
Do images on a CDN affect my Google Ranking?
I have recently switched my images to a CDN (MaxCDN) and all of the images within my post are now get loaded directly from the CDN. Will this affect my Google ranking? Do Google care if the image is hosted physicaly on the domain?
On-Page Optimization | | Amosnet0 -
Creating optimized content: how to standardize the process?
Hello there, we are creating the new content for a website. For each web page we have created a “Pages file” to have the advantage of the spell checker. For each page, in the “Pages file” we have written the title tag (70 characters) and the meta description (155 character), so we have a kind of “template” like this in every page: title tag meta desciption text content (included the alt of the images inside the text) Every page is optimized for a single keyword/keyword phrase. What we wanna know from you guys if does exist a kind of “best practice” to test keyword density to avoid keyword stuffing penalities. In our case we opted to use “Pages” as editor, does exist a “standard Numbers/Excel spreadsheet” to understand if a keyword is over optimized in a page and so might look spammy? And in your opinion guys, what’s the best way to standardize the process of creating optimized content? Take care and thank you in advance for sharing your experience. YESdesign guys.
On-Page Optimization | | YESdesign0