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.
Hosting images externally
-
In these days of CDNs does it matter for SEO whether images (and PDFs etc.) are hosted off-site?
Does it make a difference if images hosted on Flickr, photobucket etc.
Thanks
-
When it comes to hosting images off site, keep in mind that there may be connectivity and image load speed issues associated with these images. I typically wouldn't rely on an image being pulled from someone else's site, even if it was something like Flickr or Photobucket. I don't think those particular services intend for you to use their service like that.
Rather, we typically will set up a CDN for hosting the images or PDFs, and use a subdomain of the main site in order to host the images. For example, we would set up images.domain.com and pdf.domain.com and put the images and PDFs on the CDN.
-
As long as they still have ALT tags and such I don't think it would make any difference.
The only thing to consider would be the loading speed. As if it has to go off to another server/site to retrieve the image it may take longer to load and affect your page load speed (slow speed is bad for SEO).
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
-
Google Showing wrong image in the SERPS
Hi Guys, In organic SERPS Google pulling incorrect product image, instead of product image its showing image from relevant products, Checked the structured data, og:image everything is set to the product image, not sure why google showing images from relevant product sidebar, any help, please?
Technical SEO | | SpartMoz0 -
What's the best way for users to upload their images to my wordpress site to promote UGC
I have looked at lots of different plugins and wanted a recommendation for an easy way for patients of ours to upload pictures of them out partying and having fun and looking beautiful so future users can see the final results instead of sometimes gory or difficult to understand before and after images. I'd like to give them the opportunity to write captions (like facebook or insta posts and would offer them incentives to do so. I don't want it to be too complicated for them or have too many steps or barriers but I do want it to look nice and slick and modern. Also do you think this would have a positive impact on SEO? I was also thinking of a Q&A app where dentists could get Q&A emails and respond - i've been doing AMA sessions and they've been really successful and I would like to bring it into out site and make it native. Thanks in advance 🙂
Technical SEO | | Smileworks_Liverpool1 -
Images, CSS and Javascript on subdomain or external website
Hi guy's, I came across webshops that put images, CSS and Javascript on different websites or subdomains. Does this boost SEO results? On our Wordpress webshop all the sourcescodes are placed after our own domainname: www.ourdomainname.com/wp-includes/js/jquery/jquery.js?ver=1.11.3'
Technical SEO | | Happy-SEO
www.ourdomainname.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/example.jpg Examples of other website: Website 1:
https://www.zalando.nl/heren-home/ Sourcecode:
https://secure-i3.ztat.net//camp/03/d5/1a0168ac81f2ffb010803d108221.jpg
https://secure-media.ztat.net/media/cms/adproduct/ad-product.min.css?_=1447764579000 Website 2:
https://www.bol.com/nl/index.html Sourcecode:
https://s.s-bol.com/nl/static/css/main/webselfservice.1358897755.css
//s.s-bol.com/nl/upload/images/logos/bol-logo-500500.jpg Website 3:
http://www.wehkamp.nl/ Sourcecode:
https://static.wehkamp.nl/assets/styles/themes/wehkamp.color.min.css?v=f47bf1
http://assets.wehkamp.com/i/wehkamp/350-450-layer-SDD-wk51-v3.jpg0 -
Is it important to include image files in your sitemap?
I run an ecommerce business that has over 4000 product pages which, as you can imagine, branches off into thousands of image files. Is it necessary to include those in my sitemap for faster indexing? Thanks for you help! -Reed
Technical SEO | | IceIcebaby0 -
Removing images from site and Image Sitemap SEO advice
Hello again, I have received an update request where they want me to remove images from this site (as of now its a bunch of thumbnails) current page design: http://1stimpressions.com/portfolio/car-wraps/ and turn it into a new design which utilized a slider (such as this): http://1stimpressions.com/portfolio/ They don't want the thumbnails on the page anymore. My question is since my site has a image sitemap that has been indexed will removing all the images hurt my SEO greatly? What would the recommended steps to take to reduce any SEO damage be, if so? Thank you again for your help, always great and very helpful feedback! 🙂 cheers!
Technical SEO | | allstatetransmission0 -
Changing images on site without losing ranking
A number of images on my site rank very well under google image search but need to be replaced with updated versions. If I keep the file name and pixel dimensions identical will switching the image effect my rankings? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Justin450 -
Google rankings dropped dramatically after 24 hrs of hosting suspension
Hi, One of my websites ( http://www.traveldestinationsearch.com/ ) dropped most of its Google rankings after 24 hours of hosting suspension (from April 26 until April 27, 2012). The hosting company suspended my website after exceeding the bandwidth limit: there was no unusual activity on my website, it just exceeded its bandwidth limit by 20-30MB for the previous month. Anyway, the website is back online since April 27 but the problem is that, following these 24 hrs of no service, I see a dramatic decrease of my website's Google rankings for its main keywords. Even today, April 29, I can't find my website anywhere in the first 100 results for most of its targeted keywords. Before the suspension, the website ranked #1 for its main keyword and somewhere in the first 2-3 pages of Google search results for other two main keywords. My question is: is it the hosting suspension the reason for the Google ranking drop, and (assuming this is a temporary problem) when do you think I should expect my website to regain the rankings it had before the hosting suspension? Thanks for your support. Regards, Adrian
Technical SEO | | AdrianBanu0 -
Image search and CDNs
Hi, Our site has a very high domain strength. Although our site ranks well for general search phrases, we rank poorly for image search (even though our site has very high quality images). Our images are hosted on a separate CDN with a different domain. Although there are a number of benefits to doing this, since they are on a different domain, are we not able to capitalize on our my site's domain strength? Is there any way to associate our CDN to our main site via Google webmaster tools? Has anyone researched the search ranking impacts due to storing your images on a CDN, given that your domain strength is very high? Curious on people's thoughts?
Technical SEO | | NicB10