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.
Above the Fold Content - Use of large images
-
Hi All,
Our designers have come to the SEO team to ask if have a large image across the top of the page taking up a large majority of the above the fold real estate will impact our SEO.
Our initial thoughts are no as long as we have an optimised H1 visibal to the user landing there which informs them what the page is about.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
-
Touche EGOL... Touche...
-
I am confident that the images make a great impression on visitors. Just, would some assessment done by Google, for example, Panda see them as non-content above the fold.
You never know what google is doing.
-
Go for the user. If you look at seo-browser's reports for pages that have large images or fullscreen sliders, it still renders out to a search engine bot about the same. People like pretty. People share pretty. We use a full screen slider for our home page, and still rank consistantly on page one.
Even better if your large images are conversion-focused. Might actually see an increase if done right, rather than a ranking loss.
-
GentleMozers,
If I may. I think this is when the lines of SEO/Social Media/Marketing become slightly blurred. All of you have touched on a very key point that people simply enjoy it! There are numerous studies, like one by Kissmetrics which show that Facebook posts get 30% more interaction than pure text posts.
I would say it not a stretch to assume the same applies to a website. I personally think there are plenty of other tactics to try and implement before I choose to get rid of the main imagery. Not only that, but with the Parallax/jQuery style of website you technically can have your H1 sit on top of your image, so you get the best of both worlds!
I honestly think that my visitors enjoy these images... but they don't determine the rankings of my pages in search.
EGOL I would be curios to know more about this. I mean yes, happiness unfortunately doesn't directly correlate to SERP's but Google must take into account visits. I know it isn't black and white that one image isn't going to make or break a website completely, but there are many times that I have been to a website and been severely distraught by the pixelated imagery and my trust in the company is diminished immediately, even if it's only a little. I guess I'm "cyber-shallow". That in turn, leads to a chain of self-destruction and questioning why I ever went to the website, severe crying, lot's of rocking back of forth. I'm being sarcastic of course, but I think you get my point. Happiness does correlate to rankings, even indirectly.
Getting people to your website is only half the battle, if they don't stay and do something to benefit your business/service/complete a goal that's potentially a lost opportunity. You only get one chance to make a first impression, make sure it's a good one!
Just my thoughts!
-
We built a site with large images and pushed the H1 below as an experiment. We saw no downsides, and because the site was far more user-friendly and good looking (we didn't change any on page SEO really) we noticed visitors were bouncing less, browsing more, and converting almost 40% more.
Go for the user first!
-
Sometimes I have wonderful images that are relevant to the topic of an article and become part of the article's content.
I have been posting them below the
but above the content of the article. These images are big and beautiful and I am certain that people like them.
But, I honestly have the same question that you have. Is this pushing text content down "TOO FAR FOR GOOGLE"? I honestly think that my visitors enjoy these images... but they don't determine the rankings of my pages in search.
-
you should check out this weeks WBF:
http://moz.com/blog/panda-optimization-whiteboard-friday
It's also about the above the fold content.Regards
Jarno
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
-
Do things like using labels on an element that is not a form input affect how google sees us in regards to accessibility?
Do things like using labels on an element that is not a form input affect how google sees us? It's an accessibility error that our devs have made - using a label element because it looks good, not because it's an actual label on a form field. Just wondering how that affects accessibility in Google's eyes.
Web Design | | GregLB0 -
How to find out that none of the images on my site violates copyrights? Is there any tool that can do this without having to check manually image by image?
We plan to add several thousand images to our site and we outsourced the image search to some freelancers who had instructions to just use royalty free pictures. Is there any easy and quick way to check that in fact none of these images violates copyrights without having to check image by image? In case there are violations we are unaware of, do you think we need to be concerned about a risk of receiving Takedown Notices (DMCA) before owner giving us notification for giving us opportunity to remove the photo?
Web Design | | lcourse1 -
Problems preventing Wordpress attachment pages from being indexed and from being seen as duplicate content.
Hi According to a Moz Crawl, it looks like the Wordpress attachment pages from all image uploads are being indexed and seen as duplicate content..or..is it the Yoast sitemap causing it? I see 2 options in SEO Yoast: Redirect attachment URLs to parent post URL. Media...Meta Robots: noindex, follow I set it to (1) initially which didn't resolve the problem. Then I set it to option (2) so that all images won't be indexed but search engines would still associate those images with their relevant posts and pages. However, I understand what both of these options (1) and (2) mean, but because I chose option 2, will that mean all of the images on the website won't stand a chance of being indexed in search engines and Google Images etc? As far as duplicate content goes, search engines can get confused and there are 2 ways for search engines
Web Design | | SEOguy1
to reach the correct page content destination. But when eg Google makes the wrong choice a portion of traffic drops off (is lost hence errors) which then leaves the searcher frustrated, and this affects the seo and ranking of the site which worsens with time. My goal here is - I would like all of the web images to be indexed by Google, and for all of the image attachment pages to not be indexed at all (Moz shows the image attachment pages as duplicates and the referring site causing this is the sitemap url which Yoast creates) ; that sitemap url has been submitted to the search engines already and I will resubmit once I can resolve the attachment pages issues.. Please can you advise. Thanks.0 -
Duplicate Content Issue: Mobile vs. Desktop View
Setting aside my personal issue with Google's favoritism for Responsive websites, which I believe doesn't always provide the best user experience, I have a question regarding duplicate content... I created a section of a Wordpress web page (using Visual Composer) that shows differently on mobile than it does on desktop view. This section has the same content for both views, but is formatted differently to give a better user experience on mobile devices. I did this by creating two different text elements, formatted differently, but containing the same content. The problem is that both sections appear in the source code of the page. According to Google, does that mean I have duplicate content on this page?
Web Design | | Dino640 -
Anyone using CloudFlare on multiple sites?
We are considering using CloudFlare as a CDN for a large group of sites. The fees are $5 to $200 depending on many factors. We tried the free trial on one site and were impressed with the results. I am wondering if any of you have any longer term experience with this and performance metrics, etc.
Web Design | | RobertFisher1 -
Decreasing Page Load Time with Placeholder Images - Good Idea or Bad Idea?
In an effort to decease our page load time, we are looking at making a change so that all product images on any page past page 1 load with a place holder image. When the user clicks to the next page, it then loads all of the images for that page. Right now, all of the product divs are loaded into a Javascript array and loaded in chunks to the page display div. Product-heavy pages significantly increase load time as the browser loads all of the images from the product HTML before the Javascript can rewrite the display div with page-specific product HTML. In order to get around this, we are looking at loading the product HTML with a small placeholder image and then substituting the appropriate product image URLs when each page is output to the display div. From a user experience, this change will be seamless and they won't be able to tell the difference, plus they will benefit from a potentially a short wait on loading the images for the page in question. However, the source of the page will have all of the product images in a given category page all having the same image. How much of a negative impact will this have on SEO?
Web Design | | airnwater0 -
Should I use the google mod_pagespeed in my apache server?
Anyone already use it? There is some speed benefit? http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/docs/module.html
Web Design | | Naghirniac0 -
Does using Wordpress Multisite have any negative SEO impact?
I manage multiple websites in Wordpress and the idea of managing them all under one Wordpress install is very attractive. Are there any dangers SEO-wise to doing so? I know that all of the sites would live under the same IP address, but that's not something I'm really concerned with anyway because I don't do a lot of inter-linking between the sites. Thanks for your help! -El Juano
Web Design | | JonathanFashbaugh0