undefined
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
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • 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.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    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.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • 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

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • 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.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • 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. Digital Marketing
  3. Web Design
  4. SEO Issues From Image Hotlinking?

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.

SEO Issues From Image Hotlinking?

Web Design
3
13
4.7k
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.
  • GeorgiaSEOServices
    GeorgiaSEOServices last edited by Mar 4, 2013, 1:36 PM

    I have a client who is hotlinking their images from one of their domains. I'm assuming the images were originally stored on the first domain (let's call it SiteA.com) and when they were putting together SiteB.com, they decided to just link to the images directly on SiteA.com instead of moving the images to Site B. Essentially hotlinking.

    Site A is not using the images in any way and in essence is just a gateway for their other sites and in this case a storage for their images.  It doesn't use those images at all, so it really doesn't get any benefits of the images being referenced since I read that Google sometimes counts that hotlinking as a "vote" for the original image. But again, since ite A doesn't use the images that are being hotlinked at all, there's no benefit for Site A.

    My concern is that it's affecting their SEO for Site B because it makes it look like Site B is simply scraping data by hotlinking those images from Site A.

    Their programmer suggested creating a virtual directory so that it "looked" like it was coming from Site B. My guess is that Google can see this, so then not only will it look like Site B is scaping/hotlinking images, but also trying to hide it which may send up red flags to Google.

    My suggesstion to them was to just upload the images correctly into their own images directory on Site B. They own the images, so there's not any copyright issue, but that if they want proper SEO credit for that content, it all needs to be housed on the correct server and not hotlinked.

    Am I correct in this or will the virtual directory serve just as well?

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
    • EGOL
      EGOL @GeorgiaSEOServices last edited by Mar 4, 2013, 7:12 PM Mar 4, 2013, 7:12 PM

      thanks for this report

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • MarieHaynes
        MarieHaynes @GeorgiaSEOServices last edited by Mar 4, 2013, 6:56 PM Mar 4, 2013, 6:56 PM

        I was going to guess that there is a small benefit.  But really it's a guess. I would think it would count as a link.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • GeorgiaSEOServices
          GeorgiaSEOServices @EGOL last edited by Mar 4, 2013, 6:47 PM Mar 4, 2013, 6:47 PM

          Actually, that IS the one answer I do know and that it DOES have a benefit to you if your image is being hotlinked to because Google sees it as a "vote" or the equivalent of an inbound link. I saw that on the Google Webmaster Forums.

          I'm just at a quandary about the linker.

          MarieHaynes EGOL 2 Replies Last reply Mar 4, 2013, 7:12 PM Reply Quote 1
          • EGOL
            EGOL @MarieHaynes last edited by Mar 4, 2013, 6:34 PM Mar 4, 2013, 6:34 PM

            How about other people hotlinking images from your domain.  Do you think that google sees them pulling content from you via the image link and gives you a small credit for that?

            I don't know the answer.  I assume that the value is low to nothing.  Do you have any ideas on this?

            GeorgiaSEOServices 1 Reply Last reply Mar 4, 2013, 6:47 PM Reply Quote 0
            • MarieHaynes
              MarieHaynes last edited by Mar 4, 2013, 6:17 PM Mar 4, 2013, 6:17 PM

              Interesting question.  My gut instinct is that there is no SEO drawback to what is happening here.  There is nothing in the quality guidelines that I'm aware of that says you can't hotlink images from another site.  Now, if the content was duplicated then that's another issue.

              EGOL 1 Reply Last reply Mar 4, 2013, 6:34 PM Reply Quote 1
              • EGOL
                EGOL @GeorgiaSEOServices last edited by Mar 4, 2013, 2:53 PM Mar 4, 2013, 2:53 PM

                It loos like nothing bad will happen, but that you lose a lot of SEO benefits from having images stored locally and getting the proper attribution.

                I agree.  I don't know how much SEO benefits come from hot-linked images.  But, in case there is any benefit we have all of our images on our own domain and that requires terrabytes of BW per month.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • GeorgiaSEOServices
                  GeorgiaSEOServices @EGOL last edited by Mar 4, 2013, 2:47 PM Mar 4, 2013, 2:47 PM

                  I think you and I are on the same page and the same school of thought. I was just curious if there was any documented issues with being a "hotlinker" from an SEO perspective.

                  It loos like nothing bad will happen, but that you lose a lot of SEO benefits from having images stored locally and getting the proper attribution.

                  My other concern was making sure that it didn't look like their site was scraping from the other since they have thousands of products and ALL of those product images are being pulled from the other domain.

                  EGOL 1 Reply Last reply Mar 4, 2013, 2:53 PM Reply Quote 0
                  • EGOL
                    EGOL @GeorgiaSEOServices last edited by Mar 4, 2013, 2:34 PM Mar 4, 2013, 2:34 PM

                    Right.   That's why I have all of my images on the same server as the domain.

                    GeorgiaSEOServices 1 Reply Last reply Mar 4, 2013, 2:47 PM Reply Quote 0
                    • GeorgiaSEOServices
                      GeorgiaSEOServices last edited by Mar 4, 2013, 2:32 PM Mar 4, 2013, 2:32 PM

                      I can see your view, but the attribution is pretty important in their industry which is retail. I'm just concerned that to give image attribution over to another domain may be viewed as image hotlinking or scraping and that, as you said, they also won't get the benefit of a hotlink is someone else chooses to do the same.

                      EGOL 1 Reply Last reply Mar 4, 2013, 2:34 PM Reply Quote 0
                      • EGOL
                        EGOL @GeorgiaSEOServices last edited by Mar 4, 2013, 2:22 PM Mar 4, 2013, 2:22 PM

                        hmmm....  To me, this sounds like moving your whole office because your trash can is full.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • GeorgiaSEOServices
                          GeorgiaSEOServices last edited by Mar 4, 2013, 2:18 PM Mar 4, 2013, 2:18 PM

                          The programmer just added another piece to this and has added;

                          "What I'm suggesting is like a 'symbolic' link in Unix . There are no different IP involved. Only IP will be Site B for example. We store everything on same server and virtual directory map to another folder on same server and its intranet and no visibility outside server"

                          While I understand what he's saying. Site B won't get the benefit of image hotlinking if it had the same images stored on its own domain and I just this since the coding specifically says "site.com/images", it's just not hiding it correctly and again, even if it does effectively hide it, is it truly invisible to Google that that is going on. And if it's not invisible, will it send off more red flags and look suspicious to Google. I really don't want to risk that. I just wonder if I'm over-reacting to this. I don't think that I am.

                          EGOL 1 Reply Last reply Mar 4, 2013, 2:22 PM Reply Quote 0
                          • EGOL
                            EGOL last edited by Mar 4, 2013, 2:13 PM Mar 4, 2013, 2:13 PM

                            More and more people are placing their images and other large files on cloud servers because they sometimes offer a cost advantage and they sometimes allow a website to load faster.

                            Because of this I don't think that Google is going to give a site a huge penalty if they are pulling content from a second domain.   This is being done by some of the highest quality and most popular sites on the web.

                            However, I think like you and have all of my images on my own domain.  Then if people are hotlinking them they will be coming from my site and I will get any credit for that - if google smiles about it, which I am not sure that they do.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • 1 / 1
                            1 out of 13
                            • First post
                              1/13
                              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

                            • alan-shultis

                              Is managed wordpress hosting bad for seo?

                              hi, i would like to create my own website, but I am confused either to choose cpanel hosting or managed wordpress

                              Web Design | Apr 13, 2024, 4:40 PM | alan-shultis
                              0
                            • CalicoKitty2000

                              Migration from HTML to Wordpress - SEO Implications?

                              I am in the process of having a wordpress site developed to replace my current HTML site. (I currently have my website in html and a blog in wordpress in a sub directory).  I am doing this in phases to try and preserve as much of my good rankings as possible.  My first phase is to replicate my site with the exact same pages, meta data, and site structure.  I'm hoping that google will see this as not much change and not change my rankings for the worse.  I also made it a goal that my site speed tests be at least equal to what they are now. We will have to 301 all of the URLs however since it will be going from /example.html to /example.  I believe my blog will also need to move into the root directory as well, so I need to 301 all of those pages. I plan to wait a couple months for Phase 2.  Phase 2 involves replacing old content (photo galleries), and introducing new content (virtual tours, videos, new pages, etc.) One of my reasons for moving to wordpress is to keep up with current trends a little easier since I have very little time.  (I am owner, website maintainer, SEO - all on my own). My question here is three parts.  1. Do you think this strategy will work to preserve my current rankings? 2. Do you have any lessons learned or advice to share with me to make this as smooth as possible? 3. Do I really need to wait to add new content?  I might get antsy and want to do it sooner!  🙂 Thank you in advance!

                              Web Design | Sep 27, 2022, 8:29 AM | CalicoKitty2000
                              1
                            • LauraFalls

                              Have an eBook. What is best practice for SEO?

                              Hello We have a free eBook - its a great resource and great piece of content. It is available to download on our website here - http://re-timer.com/the-product/how-to-sleep-better/ The book is available as a whole or as individual chapters (i.e. http://re-timer.com/app/uploads/2015/07/Chapter8.pdf?b0df38). The PDF chapters appear to be doing well in Google search for certain keywords. I can't measure this in GA though. I would like the eBook to assist the SEO of my website overall. If I create a web page and 'embedded' the PDF into it will Google still crawl this page? At the moment we are also using this to collect email addresses, this is a nice to have and it is OK if people get the eBook without doing this (if they find a chapter in Google they currently don't have to enter their email address). I'm sure lots of people have eBooks now. What is best practice and the best way to use this as a tool to maximise SEO for the whole website (http://re-timer.com)? Thank you! Laura

                              Web Design | Dec 10, 2015, 9:57 PM | LauraFalls
                              1
                            • ArcherMalmo

                              Prismic.io CMS and SEO?

                              Looking for community feedback: Some of our In house developers want to use Prismic.io over Wordpress for it's alleged ease of organizing and "deploying" content. It's essentially a repository for content from which you make API calls to. It's a rather new platform. There a few posts in Quora around SEO but looking to see if anyone has had experience with platform. My concern is around  page load times, excessive server requests, and content viewed as code. Any thoughts/ experiences would be much appreciated!

                              Web Design | Aug 20, 2015, 7:20 PM | ArcherMalmo
                              0
                            • stradiji

                              Website Redesign SEO Checklist

                              I am looking for a comprehensive Website Redesign SEO Checklist. One of my customers is changing its website design (including URL structure) and I need all kinds of suggestions for a smooth SEO operation. Thanks in advance!

                              Web Design | Aug 18, 2013, 8:04 AM | stradiji
                              0
                            • Bromtec

                              White Text / Black Background & SEO Impact

                              Does anyone know of any testing / studies with evidence that Google prefers dark text on a light background vs. light text on a dark background? I have a website that currently has light text on a black background, and really like the way it looks, but am concerned that the style may be hurting SEO. Moreover, redesigning something inverse with the same quality would be a large project and fairly costly, so I'd like to make sure the benefit will really be worth the cost before moving forward.

                              Web Design | May 3, 2013, 12:02 PM | Bromtec
                              0
                            • Martin_S

                              Implementing a new Nav Bar: Best practice, SEO benefit, your suggestions?

                              Hi Mozland, We are going to have a new Nav Bar for our site built from the horror that we currently have to up with. We want to make it a simple affair, similar to The Guardian two-tier Nav Bar - main menu which will drop down to the 2nd tier according to what you clicked on in tier one. Regular stuff, I think. Any suggestions, from your experience, about how best to implement this, what to include, what not to do, what can be included and done to make it as best it can be to get people to peruse our site as easily as possible? Thanks

                              Web Design | Jan 12, 2012, 11:14 AM | Martin_S
                              0
                            • iAnalyst.com

                              Custom URL's with Bigcommerce Issue (Is it worth it?)

                              We're building out a store in Bigcommerce, who for all intensive purposes is perfect for SEO besides the fact that you can not change the URL's to be custom. My question is, does this kill the SEO value of bigcommerce, despite everything else being great? So for example the URL's for a category page would be something like this www.mysite.com/categories/keyword and the product URL's are pulled in by product name, so product URL's could be something like www.mysite.com/products/Product-Description-Long-223.html (notice the words will be capitalized and their is no way to remove the trailing .html) I could go with Interspire (the liscenced version of Bigcommerce) or Magento so I can custom edit this stuff. But then its a lot more work for my employee's on the buildout.

                              Web Design | May 3, 2011, 3:54 PM | iAnalyst.com
                              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
                            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 - 2025 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.