Will background images get indexed?
-
Will images, loaded via css class, get indexed?
For example something like :
style="background-image: url(https://www.mysite.be/content/dam/homepage-mama.jpg/_jcr_content/renditions/cq5dam.web.2000.9999.jpeg);"
-
On my site there is a gallery made by images embedded as background images.
Google doesn't see them.
-
On a sidenote, if you want to prevent indexation of them you can probably add the URLs in to Robots.txt or disallow a specific folder for those images.
On the flipside, if you want to get them indexed, you can manually link to the images and submit an image sitemap to google with just those particular images. Doing both is better than just one.
-
Quick anecdotal reference - for the 1 site I just checked (which allows CSS to be crawled), no they are not indexed.
However, Google crawls CSS and can load those images when you Fetch And Render inside of GWT I believe, so theoretically they can index them.
Next question is what would cause them to do so (eg inbound links to that image file), but I don't have an answer for that.
-
Unfortunately, "can" and "will" are sometimes two different matters. Google is pretty CSS-savvy at this point, and I'm 98% sure they can index those images. If it's a background image, and depending on how it's set up, they may choose not to, but that's a bit trickier.
Weird question, but do you want it indexed, or not?
Asking around to see if there are any image-SEO experts who can provide a more data-driven answer.
-
Nancy,
Although I am saying this all based on my personal speculation I believe that they will be indexed. I do not know 100% if it will but Google has gotten much better at indexing Java/CSS. As far as if you want these to be indexed I would also take a look at Google's image guidelines for best practice and see if there is something of value in there.
-
Hi Nancy,
This article might be of some assistance - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25773047/what-will-be-indexed-better-in-search-engines-img-tags-or-background-images-wit
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
-
Indexing images? did something just happen?
did google stop indexing images? we had 563 in sept and now we have 1?
Image & Video Optimization | | bakergraphix_yahoo.com0 -
Would you recommend changing image file names retroactively?
We'll be optimizing file names moving forward, but it hasn't been done in the past. I have probably 1,500 that would need to be changed, so want to make sure it's a valuable use of time/worth the effort. 🙂 Also, has anyone used Media File Renamer for wordpress? Seems this would be a good way to rename files without needing to reupload everything. Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | jennafrye0 -
How long should the Image Alt Text be for SEO?
When it comes to creating the alternate text for images, what is the character length that I need stay under to rank well?
Image & Video Optimization | | Ytellsocial0 -
Getting A Duplicate Listing Removed
I just found a duplicate listing for our business. It's under a different name and address but the phone number is the same. The duplicate listing needs to be deleted, BUT, here's the problem: no one verified the listing (it was our old firm). And now, to delete it, we have to verify it first, but we don't have access to the building to get the letter. Also, we can't ask the current tenants to give us the letter, because it's another law firm and they just aren't going to help us out. So, any ideas? Ruben
Image & Video Optimization | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
WordPress image file names SEO question
I’m using a plugin to upload images directly from Adobe Lightroom to WordPress and while the process is very convenient it adds “wpid-“ to the beginning of every image file name, so my “seo-friendly-image-title.jpg” becomes “wpid-seo-friendly-image-title.jpg”. The plugin author claims that it’s a WordPress thing and there isn’t anything he can do about it, yet it doesn’t happen when using the same plugin to upload to the NextGen Gallery Plugin instead of the built in WordPress media manager. I’m not really a fan of NextGen though so I’d rather use the built in WordPress media management. This is obviously an SEO forum not a WordPress troubleshooting forum, but I wanted to give a bit of background. My question is whether that “wpid-” at the beginning of all my image file names is going to cause any sort of SEO issue. If not, I won’t worry about it, but if it does I’ll have to either find another plugin or just go back to exporting from Lightroom to the desktop and then uploading through WordPress. Thanks in advance for any input.
Image & Video Optimization | | StephenWeigel0 -
Image Duplicates - Does Google Penalize on this?
Hi Mozzers, I have some doubts on the images hosted on my site. I have a single image on the website coming from 3 different locations. The locations are: img.mydomain.com/site/default/serivces.jpg img1.mydomain.com/site/default/serivces.jpg www.mydomain.com/site/default/serivces.jpg Now, these 3 are the same images with the same Title (they currently do not have an Alt Tag). Now, the 2 sub-domains when opened without any internal URL, redirects to the main domain. For instance, if I access img.mydomain.com it 301 redirects to www.mydomain.com but if I access img.mydomain.com/site/default/serivces.jpg I will get the image and it does not redirect. I have checked Google Image search and the full path on the sub-domain of the image is being indexed and crawled by Google Image bot. Now, this is true for both the sub-domains which act as CDN for the images. If Google does crawl all the locations which have the same image, does it cause a duplicate issue for it? I know that if it was content, I would be in trouble but does image also has the same implications. I am planning for image optimization and faced with this situation. Any answers? Cheers,
Image & Video Optimization | | RanjeetP0 -
What is the best way to internally link via images?
What is the best way to internally link via images? I have a website about shoes with all different brands. Let's say I'm trying to rank for "ABC sandals", and on the ABC page I have a "related brands" section with 4 logos of related sandal brands, linking to their respective page. Currently the alt text of the logos is "XYZ Logo" with the link title text "XYZ." Would it be beneficial to have change either the image alt text, or the link title text, or both to "XYZ sandals"?
Image & Video Optimization | | Hakkasan0 -
Image SEO - Does having multiple sites using same image help?
I'd assume that if many websites reference the same image on a server that this image would rank higher in image results than a similar image that is only used on 1 website.I have yet to do any testing with this to be certain, but how important does this factor seem to be in regards to image SEO?
Image & Video Optimization | | art-boy0