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.
Responsive images srcset
-
Is delivering scaled images using srcset a good idea?
Thinking of delivering one image size to Mobile and another to Desktop. How can I do this for all browsers?
Thanks Mike
-
AFAIK since the way images are used online hasn't 'significantly' changed in decades (as Zohaib says) - there is no factual industry standard. But this technique seems like it could yield faster page-loading speeds for mobile, which we all know Google does stand behind. Google often come up with an error on Page Speed insights which says, you are serving massive resolution images with a tiny viewport. They actually can and do regard that as an error, so surely if Google documents that the technique is acceptable to them and we know it solves certain issues, it is at least 'worth a try' IMO
-
I've always used CSS to scale images between devices. Though this can increase the page loading times, so for better performance there are plugins available for CMSs to improve page rendering speeds,
-
Images are some of the most important pieces of information on the web, but over the web’s 25-year history, they haven’t been very adaptable at all. Everything about them has been stubbornly fixed: their size, format and crop, all set in stone by a single
src
. -
Thanks, yes I had read this article but can't find any websites using this technique. Has it been adopted as an industry standard, or is there another option?
-
Google doesn't seem to have a problem with this:
https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/design-and-ux/responsive/images
"TL;DR
- Use relative sizes for images to prevent them from accidentally overflowing the container.
- Use the
picture
element when you want to specify different images depending on device characteristics (a.k.a. art direction). - Use
srcset
and thex
descriptor in theimg
element to give hints to the browser about the best image to use when choosing from different densities. - If your page only has one or two images and these are not used elsewhere on your site, consider using inline images to reduce file requests.
-
Enhance
img
s withsrcset
for high DPI devicesThe
srcset
attribute enhances the behavior of theimg
element, making it easy to provide multiple image files for different device characteristics. Similar to theimage-set
CSS function native to CSS,srcset
allows the browser to choose the best image depending on the characteristics of the device, for example using a 2x image on a 2x display, and potentially in the future, a 1x image on a 2x device when on a limited bandwidth network."This part seemed most important to me:
"On browsers that don't support
srcset
, the browser simply uses the default image file specified by thesrc
_ attribute. This is why it is important to always include a 1x image that can be displayed on any device, regardless of capabilities._ "... so basically you define your srcset as per Google's documentation, but you must be sure to include a default fallback image that could work on all browsers and devices - that's what gets used if the browser is unable to interpret your srcset (or if your srcset doesn't include anything for the specified browser)
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
-
How to get a mobile thumbnail image next to the search result?
Hey! I noticed the last few months that a lot of google searches now show an image next to your result when on mobile. i managed to get my listing to show an image before but I made some changes to the image and site and can’t seem to get Google to ahow the new image (or any image). I’ve added the image to schema mark up and still no luck. Wouod ahyone have any advice on how to get the image picked up, or st least help increase the odds? The site is https://tourstoniagarafalls.com and you can see it on search (for me it shows on the bottom of page 1) for the keyword “Niagara Falls tours“. Thanks again!
On-Page Optimization | | Originaladam0 -
How to change images of a page without loosing ranking?
Hi, I have two reasons to change some images of a page on a wordpress site: 1.Google speed service advise me to optmize the images size to better spead load times. 2.I want to change images titles (to improve seo optimization for the page keyword), so i need to replace them, since im using wordpress. Now the question is: Can i just change the images without worring about any related seo issues? Or should i follow some best practice to change images in order to not affect the ranking of the page? tx for your support!
On-Page Optimization | | Dreamrealemedia0 -
NOINDEX, FOLLOW on product page - how about images indexing?
Hi, Since we have a lot of similar products with duplicate descriptions, I decided to NOINDEX, FOLLOW most of these different variants which have duplicate content. However, I guess it would be useful in marketing terms if Google image search still listed the images of the products in image search. How does the image search of Google actually work - does it read the NOINDEX on the product page and therefore skip the image also or is the image search completely dependent on the ALT tag of any image found on our site? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | speedbird12290 -
Image naming best practices?
While I have found many good sources of information for naming images for SEO purposes, I'm having trouble finding an up-to-date, exhaustive and authoritative source for image names, alt tags, etc. For instance... Max characters for image name? Max hyphens? How descriptive should you be? "ice-cream-flavors-icon_._jpg" or "ice-cream-flavors.jpg" or simply "ice-cream.jpg" How similar should the image name, alt text and page title be? At what point are you overusing a keyword? Rules to follow? So much more, but you get the idea! Anyone have a good reference or an answer to all things related to images and SEO? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | OSD0 -
Should I watermark my product images
I am in the process of creating new images for my products to use on my website. Are there any advantages or disadvantages of watermarking each image? Is there an SEO impact good or bad? I am aware that filename and Alt tags are important, but am unsure if google dislikes watermarked images.
On-Page Optimization | | BipSum1 -
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_Francis0 -
Image titles and alt tags for multiple images
I'm hoping some of you may be able to help me understand the best way to optimize my image titles and alt tags for a specific situation. I'm working on an interior design website and they have hundreds of pictures. each of their projects has about 10 pictures. Is it best for me to us the key phrase in each title and tag? or is that to repetitive? here is what I mean: A project called "urban interior design" all images are of urban interior design, just different angles and features, so my initial idea is to just have each image title like this: Title: "urban interior design dinning area" Alt: "urban interior design dinning area view" Title: "urban interior design living room" Alt:"urban interior design living room couch view" Is this the best way or will it actually hurt my ranking with too much exact keyword use? Thanks for your help!
On-Page Optimization | | TBSEO0 -
Do images on a CDN affect my Google Ranking?
I have recently switched my images to a CDN (MaxCDN) and all of the images within my post are now get loaded directly from the CDN. Will this affect my Google ranking? Do Google care if the image is hosted physicaly on the domain?
On-Page Optimization | | Amosnet0