Updating product pages with new images - should I redirect old images ?

[ninjahippo]

Hello, 
We have approx 900 products on our website. Over the coming months we will be replacing the product images. At the moment they have file names like

'green_widget_54eb3a78620be.jpg'
the random jumble at the end of the filename was apparently to keep file names unique.

We have removed the jumble part and will have file names like:
'black_widget_with_stripe_001.jpg'

The CMS removes the old main image when a new main image is uploaded. But we could change this to leave the old image, but not use it.

My question is should we:

1. redirect the old file name to the new file name?
2. upload the new image, and leave the old image in place
3. Or do we just ignore.

[evolvingSEO]

Hi There

I agree with Peter. You can 301 redirect your old images to the new ones. Leaving the old images won't hurt anything, but would be good to delete them to free space up on he server (why not).

[Mobilio]

1. Yes
2. No
3. No

I'm doing same on mine own site but with renaming files. And i found that if i rename file w/o 301 then i suddenly get lot of 404 traffic. When i proper 301 i keep traffic normal. Because i get good positions in Bing images and Google images.