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.
How important are image file names
-
Hi,
How important do you think the image file names are for image search?
I know it used to be the best practice a while ago but is it still important?Thanks in advance,
JJ
-
Thanks guys - I really appreciate your quick responses to my silly question:)
JJ
-
From my own experience, I would say the images that send us the most search traffic are those where the file names have been labelled correctly rather than autogenerated such as 33456789.jpg. I would certainly suggest there is some correlation between filename and search performance, although of course there are other factors to considered. As a recommendation, I'd certainly suggest file names are important although I couldn't put a measure of quite how important. There's certainly no reason I can see for us to stop labelling filenames correctly.
-
Extremely important (and will continue to be). Also, continue to use alt names and meta info.
It's also good to have good naming convention for image files on your site.
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 can I outrank a website whose brand is named specifically after a product / service (and mine is not!) ?
Hi everyone, I've been working hard on my on-page SEO lately so I can gain visibility for my website. The results have been great and I am now on top of the SERP for the services I propose. I think that my content is almost fully optimize and** I've respected all the best practices (both on-page and technical SEO)**. However, there is one problem I just can't deal with for I don't have the knowledge, hence this post. I'm pretty sure that this issue is quite common for SEO experts. Here the thing: I offer dental emergency services, which is my core business. I'm ranked 4th for that request in my area, which is good, but I'd like to rank 1st as** I have a better DA and content than the 3 websites outranking me**. Also, I'm the first result for any other related services such as "dental services" or "dentist". However, when it comes to the theme "dental emergency", I'm constantly outranked by the same 3 websites. I ran an audit on their website but **my content and technical SEO is way better **than theirs. I suppose that the only reason I'm behind them is because they used "dental emergency" in their **Brand name **and, therefore, in the Home page URL. Every time someone is looking up online for "dental emergency", these websites will be on top of the SERP as I think that Google is unable to know whether the users are specifically looking for their websites (aka Brand) or for "dental emergency" services. Here is an example of a competitor: https://www.urgencedentairedemontreal.com/ (urgence meaning emergency in French). His whole Brand name and URL have been built after the "dental emergency." service. On the contrary, **my Brand name does not mention "urgence". ** I see that as a trick that is confusing Google. The fact that my competitors named their Brand after a specific service I also offer is real pain for my SEO. I also think it's really unfair as I've put a lot of effort in designing a nice website with great UX and content. This is the kind of practice that should be penalized in my opinion. Please, does anyone know any way to resolve this issue?
On-Page Optimization | | AlexTL0 -
Brand name in title?
Hi all, I have noticed that a lot of companies put there brand/company name at the end of their page title. To me, that seems like a huge sacrifice of your limited 60 characters. Wouldn't it be better to use characters for words that people might actually be searching for?
On-Page Optimization | | RaoulWB0 -
Is it OK to shorten your brand name in your title tags
If your title tag is over 55 characters, is it generally OK or good practice to abbreviate your brand name (at the end of the title tag) for the sake of the other keywords in the tag?
On-Page Optimization | | AliMac261 -
"translation" of code in htaccess file
Hi everyone! I am a newbie to the whole SEO and html thing and I am trying to get a better understanding of the "behind the scenes" part of my website. I hope I can find someone here who can translate a piece of code for me that I have in my htaccess file: Options -Multiviews
On-Page Optimization | | momof4
Options +FollowSymLinks
rewritecond $1 !^(index.php|public|tmp|robots.txt|template.html|favicon.ico|images|css|uploads)
rewritecond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
rewritecond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
rewriterule ^(.*)$ index.php?link=$1 [NC,L,QSA] I know that something is getting redirected to the index file, but what (or when) exactly? Does the word "robots"mean that search engine crawlers are getting redirected here? And is this good or bad (in terms of SEO)? Or is this redirecting people who try to get to my robots/ template or image files?? Thanks in advance for any answers!0 -
CSS family names and whitespace
A CSS validation notes the following: Family names containing whitespace should be quoted. If quoting is omitted, any whitespace characters before and after the name are ignored and any sequence of whitespace characters inside the name is converted to a single space. Not sure what this means or how to fix. Help. thanks
On-Page Optimization | | casper4340 -
Best Domain Name for Life Coaching Site
Hello, I am an NLP health coach. I am starting to work with both life threatening illnesses and minor diagnoses. NLP is a type of personal development. I'm wondering what your opinion of the best domain would be, keeping in mind branding, SEO, and usability/rememberability. The term "NLP" is not well known. I will be doing both phone coaching and in-person coaching. My other website (BobWeikel.com) is not very strong because of the lack of keywords in the domain, but it's easy to remember. Options are: NLPTrained.com BobWeikelHealthCoach.com BoiseHealthCoach.com (I'm in Boise Idaho) RobertWeikel.com or whatever you suggest.
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Generic domain for SEO versus Brand name
I am currently building a retail e-commerce site in a highly competitive area. We have a generic brand name; e.g. kitchen-knives.com and we also have another brand name, e.g. 'slycers.com' We have 3 options that I can see and I would like to know which is better for SEO. Build generic.com as a blog site. Link to brand.com 301 redirect from generic.com to brand.com. Use generic.com as anchor text in all links 301 redirect from brand.com to generic.com . Use generic.com as anchor text in all links Also, if there are other better options, then I would appreciate the input! thanks
On-Page Optimization | | cestor0 -
Image Optimization - File Name Important?
I am currently working on a site with 100+ recipes that all have image file names that are relevant, but not optimized for keyword purposes. I'm wondering - from an SEO perspective - would it be worth my time to go back through all of the images and rename them with keywords in mind? On my own site I have always done this as a "best practice" but I'm curious - does it make a difference to search engines? Does anyone have any recent research/experiences that they would like to share? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | EssEEmily0