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
-
SEO benefits of terms used in Alt-tag, image name, page title
On our website, we have products that come in different colours, and we have created a different SKU for each one .e.g. our Acacia Evening Dress comes in 3 different colours (black, blue and red) - Acacia Evening Dress Black (J7048BLK), Acacia Evening Dress Blue (J7048RB), Acacia Evening Dress Red (J7048R). Would it be beneficial for SEO if on the image Alt-tag we used the terms 'Jadore J7048 Red Acacia dress', 'Jadore J7048 Black Acacia dress' and 'Jadore J7048 Blue Acacia dress', because 'Acacia' is the internal name we have given to this dress, not the name provided by the label, Jadore, as more customers would search for terms such as 'black dress' or 'Jadore J7048'? Can we use the same terms in the Alt-tag on the image and the page title? How important is the Alt-tag in searching?
Image & Video Optimization | | CostumeD0 -
How to embed a video in our product image
Hi We use bigcommerce and want to add a video to each product . We want to add a video link in the corner of the product image and have the video play when this tab is clicked. Can anyone tell us how to do this Regards
Image & Video Optimization | | CostumeD0 -
Moving Images to Subdomain: SEO Impacts
For sever work- load enhancements we are planning to move our images to a sub-domain. so the files would be located at something like images.domain.com Rather than domain.com/images/ We are a large Ecommerce site so we have a lot of images. These will be self hosted so we are not using a CDN. I'm hoping someone has done the same and if there were any steps they had wished they had taken before making the move/ if they noticed any traffic impacts things like that.
Image & Video Optimization | | RMATVMC0 -
Google images not showing on SERP
Hi, I recently noticed that after a specific name search, Google images on the 'Web' SERP are no longer showing up. About a month ago, there were atleast 4-5 headshots of this particular person showing up whenever his name was searched. Now no images are showing, just the ten organic links and two links from adwords campaign we have going. The images are still optimized and some are even from editorial sites. Does anyone know what may have caused the images to disappear and what we can do to bring them back to the main SERP? (Not sure if it matters but we are in Canada) Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | Lorne_Marr0 -
Why Google doesn't want to show our images?
Our website http://www.fiberscope.net has a good positions in search for the most of important keywords, but for some reason store's images are not visible in search results. All images have ALT attributes but represented in Google Images very poor. Any ideas and suggestions regarding this issue?
Image & Video Optimization | | Meditinc.com0 -
Is a website with no images really a good idea?
I have a client who doesn't want to use any images at all on her website. It's a local hvac service provider. This thought has never even crossed my mind before. Who wouldn't want pictures? I know image optimization is important, and my mind keeps telling me that images are important for a good site and good user experience, but are they really necessary? I want a second opinion before I advise against not using any images.
Image & Video Optimization | | denarathbun0 -
Will putting images in a light box or photo gallery affect my image SEO?
A website that is very image heavy and would like to enhance the user experience with a photo gallery. How will this affect the indexing of these photos? Can I still add alt. tags and title tags to these images?
Image & Video Optimization | | Unidev0
