Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track your brand’s footprint in AI search
      Moz Pro

      Track your brand’s footprint in AI search

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      Let your business shine with Listings AI

      Let your business shine with Listings AI

      Get found
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing
      Moz API

      Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. On-Page Optimization
    4. How important are image file names

    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.

    How important are image file names

    On-Page Optimization
    4
    4
    2537
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • jjtech
      jjtech last edited by

      Hi,

      How important do you think the image file names are for image search?
      I know it used to be the best practice a while ago but is it still important?

      Thanks in advance,

      JJ

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • jjtech
        jjtech last edited by

        Thanks guys - I really appreciate your quick responses to my silly question:)

        JJ

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • simon_realbuzz
          simon_realbuzz last edited by

          From my own experience, I would say the images that send us the most search traffic are those where the file names have been labelled correctly rather than autogenerated such as 33456789.jpg. I would certainly suggest there is some correlation between filename and search performance, although of course there are other factors to considered. As a recommendation, I'd certainly suggest file names are important although I couldn't put a measure of quite how important. There's certainly no reason I can see for us to stop labelling filenames correctly.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
          • KevinBudzynski
            KevinBudzynski last edited by

            Extremely important (and will continue to be).  Also, continue to use alt names and meta info.

            It's also good to have good naming convention for image files on your site.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
            • 1 / 1
            • First post
              Last post

            Got a burning SEO question?

            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


            Start my free trial


            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.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • JakeWarren

              SEO Implications of using Images for Article Titles

              Hi guys! New to Moz Pro. I just recently completed an online course with Moz... I have a client who is writing some new content for their site, and we are approaching it with SEO in mind. I was wondering about using an image with text on it as the article title, instead of an actual "text on the page" title. Wondering if that's going to "cost" us anything, SEO wise. I guess we could use alt-text/title/description fields to make sure the keywords are crawlable for our article title but do they have less "weight" than a standard title? How does that work? Hope my question makes sense. Article header attached mB0PXsA.jpg

              On-Page Optimization | | JakeWarren
              1
            • leadforms

              301 Redirects - Large .htaccess file question

              We are moving about 5000 pages from root into different folders. We need to individually 301 each page because the are sitting at root level now: mysite.com/page.com We want to move them to: mysite.com/folder/page.html etc I dont think redirect match can works because of the different files names and folders they are being moved in to. Will 5000 entries in .htacess slow site loading? Any other suggestions how to handle?

              On-Page Optimization | | leadforms
              0
            • SeobyKP

              How many hyphens are allowed in page titles or image names?

              When I was going through certification, I was told it should be limited to one or two. I was curious if there is a change.

              On-Page Optimization | | SeobyKP
              0
            • bbuildingbusiness

              Yoast SEO doesn't recognize images

              Hi, I'm currently adding alt tags to my images but the Yoast SEO plug in in Wordpress states on all my pages “No images appear in this page, consider adding some as appropriate.“ while I do have images on my pages. What could be the problem? Best, Rik

              On-Page Optimization | | bbuildingbusiness
              0
            • AliMac26

              Is it OK to shorten your brand name in your title tags

              If your title tag is over 55 characters, is it generally OK or good practice to abbreviate your brand name (at the end of the title tag) for the sake of the other keywords in the tag?

              On-Page Optimization | | AliMac26
              1
            • speedbird1229

              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 | | speedbird1229
              0
            • bubblymaiko

              [HELP!] File Name and ALT Tags

              Hi, please answer my questions: 1. Is it okay to use the same keyword on both file name and alt tags when inserting an image? Example: File Name: buy-lego-online.jpg ALT tag: buy-lego-online Will it trigger Google Panda? Will I be penalized for that? Or the file name and alt tags should be different from each other? Because when inserting an image on Wordpress, the alt tags are always the same as the file name by default. 2. For example, I have 2 images in a page (same topic/niche) and I will put "cheap-lego-for-kids" and "best-lego-for-sale" as alt tags. Considering that I repeat the word "lego", is it considered keyword stuffing? Will I be penalized for that? Thanks in advance!

              On-Page Optimization | | bubblymaiko
              0
            • VebianWebandMobileDevelopment

              My Domain Name - short vs relevant

              I'm creating a website for my new web design company in Vancouver. I'm looking to target such keywords as "Web Design Vancouver", etc. I have another company with a hyphenated domain name which is terrible when I'm on the phone and my client asks me for my domain (hard to say, always spelling it out). Also I wanted to have a good snappy name for my new business so I found a 6 letter .com and matching .ca for my company. My question is: is it best to use a short domain name or is it better have my keywords in the domain name? eg. xyz.com vs xyzvancouverwebdesign.com Thanks

              On-Page Optimization | | VebianWebandMobileDevelopment
              0

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            • Digital Marketers
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter
            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2026 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.