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
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • 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
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • 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.

      • 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. SEO Tactics
    3. On-Page Optimization
    4. Can lazy loading of images affect indexing?

    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.

    Can lazy loading of images affect indexing?

    On-Page Optimization
    4
    5
    9055
    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.
    • Gavin.Atkinson
      Gavin.Atkinson last edited by

      I am trying to diagnose a massive drop in Google rankings for my website and noticed that the date of the ranking and traffic drop coincides with Google suddenly only indexing about 10% of my images, whereas previously it was indexing about 95% of them.

      Wondering if addition of lazy load script to images (so they don't load from the server until visible in the browser) could cause this index blocking?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • MickEdwards
        MickEdwards last edited by

        Although Google can now get to js, I would still be nervous on choosing a theme/CMS  that is using lazy loading.

        According to John Muller from Google:

        “Is Googlebot able to trigger lazy loading scripts- lazy loading images for below the fold content” – “This is a tricky thing.”

        On lazy loading images John says  “test this with Fetch as Google in Webmaster Tools” and “imagine those are things that Googlebot might miss out on.”

        http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/john-muellers-seo-advice/

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Gavin.Atkinson
          Gavin.Atkinson @Tymen last edited by

          Option to index images? Or option to index image attachment pages? I've not seen the first, but I have de-indexed attachment pages because I didn't have time to make them all unique. Where do I find the option to not index images? And why would that make SEO scores better?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Mobilio
            Mobilio last edited by

            Yes - could be. You need to use Google SearchConsole Fetch&Render tool to identify are images is loaded at all.

            Also note that some of lazy loading tools used data-src ( https://github.com/dinbror/blazy ), other pagespeed_lazy_src ( https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/module/filter-lazyload-images?hl=en ) and third data-img-src and many others. You need to check what attribute your tool is used and check are images crawlable and indexed.

            You need to check also Qazy - https://github.com/qnimate/Qazy yet-another-lazy-loading tool without negative SEO impact because images are loading from src attribute. And this is explained here: http://qnimate.com/lazy-loading-images-and-its-seo-impact/

            So - yes this negative impact could be caused from images lazy loading too.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
            • Tymen
              Tymen last edited by

              Hi!

              Big images reduce the speed on the page and speed is a(n increasingly important) ranking factor. You could use Page Speed Insights to see your overall  site speed or the speed of a specific page.

              Within Worpress there is also a setting to index images as a search result or not. On my site it was on and once turned off within a few weeks my overall scores increased so maybe that helps aswell.

              Good luck!

              Tymen

              Gavin.Atkinson 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
              • 1 / 1
              • First post
                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

              • vikasnwu

                Logo Image H1 Tag SquareSpace

                We have a site hosted on SquareSpace:  Roomhance.com Going through the on-page optimizaton tool, we noticed that the H1 tags weren't fully optimized. If you click on view source on the page, it shows 2 H1 tags on the home page: id="logoImage"><a <span="" class="html-attribute-name">href</a><a <span="" class="html-attribute-name">="</a>/">src="//static1.squarespace.com/static/5bcca055ab1a62465f5b9ee7/t/5c18feb270a6adf771765799/1588613682225/?format=1500w" alt="Virtual Staging For Real Estate | Roomhance" /> style="text-align:center;white-space:pre-wrap;">Virtual Staging The 2nd one shown above it the H1 tag we want.  I'm wondering if the H1 tag in the logo image is hurting us for SEO?  Can't figure out how to modify it in SquareSpace.

                On-Page Optimization | | vikasnwu
                0
              • Jason-Rogers

                Does blogging with a wysiwyg negatively affect SEO (vs. hand coding)?

                Many bloggers use a wysiwyg editor to write posts. Are there any drawbacks to wysiwyg vs plain text? When I write blogs I prefer to hand code my text to be sure everything is optimized. My feeling is that wysiwyg leads to code bloat and generally fewer optimization opportunities. I have no real evidence. Is there any reason not to use the wysiwyg editor?

                On-Page Optimization | | Jason-Rogers
                0
              • RosemaryB

                Can we change Title and/or Descriptions Dynamically Based on Search Query

                If I recall we used to be able to change our title attributes tag dynamically based on the search query but not sure if it's possible now or if it makes sense to do so. Thoughts? Rosemary

                On-Page Optimization | | RosemaryB
                1
              • BeckyKey

                Alt Tags on multiple product images

                Hi I work on SEO for an ecommerce site and wanted to find out how important it is to optimise all images with alt tags. We have alt tags in place, however have not optimised descriptions for the following example images: Front of cupboard Back of cupboard Side of cupboard etc Is this dangerous for SEO if these images all have the same alt tag? We have thousands of products so it would be a huge job to update these, but if it's crucial for SEO we can work through our priorities. Thank you!

                On-Page Optimization | | BeckyKey
                0
              • tprg

                Does CTR Affect Ranking & Authority? Can PPC Influence That Too?

                Hi everyone, Good CTR and bounce rate seem to affect rankings positively, but what about domain authority? Is that something built entirely on links and semantics, or does CTR play a factor too? Consider a homepage ranking for its brand name. Switching off any brand PPC will increase the natural listing's CTR. Would that have a positive SEO impact on the homepage/domain?

                On-Page Optimization | | tprg
                0
              • John_Francis

                ALT tagging images with keyword. What is too much?

                I was wondering about the best practices of ALT tags in images. Say if you have an eCommerce site and you're on a product page. This product page has 5 images of the same product (different images), should you give every image an Alt tag with the keyword for that page? Or, is that keyword stuffing, and it would actually be best practice be to provide alt tags on just one image?

                On-Page Optimization | | John_Francis
                0
              • Comunicare

                Our sitemap is not indexed well

                Hey there, Hope you guys can help. We get the following error: Nested indexing. Another Sitemap index refers to the index of sitemaps. The thing is that we cant find the error they are talking about. Thanks!!!!

                On-Page Optimization | | Comunicare
                0
              • oneresult

                Do we need to use the canonical tag on non-indexed pages?

                Hi there I have been working in / learning SEO for just over a year, coming from a non dev background, so there are still plenty of the finer points on-page points I am working on. Slowly building up confidence and knowledge with the great SEOMoz as a reference! We are working on this site http://www.preciseuk.co.uk (we are still tweaking the tags and content by the way- not finished yet!) Because a lot of the information is within accordians, a page is generated for each tab of the accordian expanded, for example: http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php is the main page but then you also have: http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=0 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=1 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=2 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=3 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=4 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=5 All of which are in the same file. According to the crawl test, these pages are not indexed. Because it is all in one file, should we add the canonical tag to it, so that this is replicated in all the tab pages that are generated? eg. Thanks in advance for your help! Liz OneResult
                liz@oneresult.co.uk

                On-Page Optimization | | oneresult
                2

              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.