Is Base64 encoding images in general better for SEO or worse?
-
We've made a lot of changes to our website (https://refreshcartridges.co.uk/) over the years, with our website developer putting a heavy emphasis on improving page loading times in general.
One of the those changes has been to base64 encode or in-line the majority of images on our site which has reduced our loading times down to under a second for most of our pages for our visitors which are mainly based in the UK.
My question is whether in-lining the images, thus removing the images filenames for index association results in this technique being a net-good or net-bad for our sites SEO in general, particularly on our frontpage.
-
Hi Chris,
To my understanding, my take is that, unless Google Image search is an important channel for your business, the improvements to page speed/UX will be a net gain for SEO.
Using Base64 encoding for images may result in those images falling out of Google Image search, but the pages themselves are not likely be negatively impacted.
Caveat: Google has not communicated on the impact of this specifically, and we've not tested this with Distilled clients - I've based my answer on my understanding of Google's technology, their emphasis on all things page speed and the fact that this approach is growing across the web (so it's likely Google has already solved for this or else will have soon).
Best,
Mike
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 handle SEO redirection after remove www
Recently our https://bestclassifiedsusa.com free classifieds USA website we move from www to non www format. Now old urls still showing in Google SERP. When click they show 404 error pages due to removed old ads.
Technical SEO | | bcuclassifieds
We redirect www to non www version for main domain but still old cache pages affected.
How to dynamically handle this case, all old www version ads pages auto redirect to relevant category pages?0 -
SEO & IFrame problem
Hi All, I will try and keep this as simple as possible. My product page links to a separate page with an IFrame, giving my users the option to upload artwork for the product. The IFrame contains the external file upload site (mail big file). When finished, the user can use a button link to return to the product page to continue with their order. As soon as the page with the IFrame was crawled by Google, the IFrame page started to rank in place of where my product page used to rank, yet there is no content on the page relating to my product (just a file upload). So now users are visiting the IFrame via the same query which must be an absolute headache and not useful at all. I have tried the following: 1. Added a line in body text which contains an internal link pointing to the product page using exact match anchor text for the query. (This didn't work) 2. I applied a no index tag to the IFrame, and now my product page is no longer ranking at all. Can anyone help me solve this puzzle. I believe I might be missing something. Kind regards, Adam
Technical SEO | | SO_UK0 -
AJAX and SEO
Hello team, Need to bounce a question off the group. We have a site that uses the .NET AJAX tool kit to toggle tabs on a page. Each tab has content and the content is drawn on page load. In other words, the content is not from an AJAX call, it is there from the start. The content sits in DIV tags which the javascript toggles - that's all. My customer hired an "SEO Expert" who is telling them that this content is invisible to search engines. I strongly disagree and we're trying to come to a conclusion. I understand that content rendered async via an AJAX call would not be spidered, however just using the AJAX (Javascript) to switch tabs will not affect the spiders finding the content in the markup. Any thoughts?
Technical SEO | | ChrisInColorado0 -
SEO friendly url strategy...
Hi guys i just wanted your expert opinion on keywords in urls. The example i'm giving you is in regards to a ecommerce website: Option 1: www.example.com/shop/coffee/coffee-beans/brand-coffee-beans-500gr Option 2: www.example.com/shop/coffee/beans/brand-coffee-beans-500gr We sell coffee so i'll keep the example relevant 🙂 Does it make a difference on how the keywords are stacked throughout? Would the search engine combine the two keywords eg. .../coffee/beans/... or would i be better of having .../coffee/coffee-beans/... and is there a penalty for having the same phrase more than once in the url? I hope my question makes sense... 😉 Looking forward to your opinions and ideas!
Technical SEO | | Immanuel0 -
Image map crawlability
Hey Mozzer's, I'm reviewing a moving site which utilizes an image map for their service areas. As I'm new to image mapping how should I diagnose them for crawlability, effectiveness, code (which appears correct using HTML & alt text tag), what should I be looking for, etc? I'm trying to determine the effectiveness of the image map links compared to including some regular lateral links on the page. Page: http://bit.ly/KOOtgN Thanks in advance for all advice and insights.
Technical SEO | | Bragg0 -
Pagination and SEO: How do I fix it during search parameters?
Today, I have watched very interesting video on YouTube about Pagination and SEO. I have implemented pagination with rel="next" and rel="prev" on my paginated page. You can get more idea by visit following pages. www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas?p=2 www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas?p=3 I have added NOINDEX FOLLOW attribute to page 2, page 3 and so on. There is simple question from my side. Can I remove NOINDEX FOLLOW attribute from paginated page or not? I have big confusion & issues when paginated URLs contain search parameters. You can get more idea by visiting following URLs. http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas?dir=asc&order=name&p=2 http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas?dir=asc&order=name&p=3 What is best suggestion for this kind of pages?
Technical SEO | | CommercePundit0 -
What are your best tips for SEO on a shopping cart?
So, I am working on a shopping cart platform (X-Cart) and so far don't like it. Also, the web designer is not someone I've worked with before and he is understandably conservative about access--which limits what I can and cannot do from the back end. One of the things I like to do is include text for the search engines. However, based on conversion, etc., I think the product images on a landing page (main brand info with specific products that show up) should show up first to move toward conversion first. I am thinking of adding the text below the product images on the brand pages so the viewer sees the products first while still keeping the content seo. My practice is to use between 300-350 words minimum on a page. Just wondering what best practices you have for a shopping cart. Care to share? Any tips or hints? Thoughts on what I might do that would be most effective? As always, thanks in advance for your sage advice!
Technical SEO | | TheARKlady0 -
Getting to grips with the technical side of SEO
Hi all, I have been working in online marketing for a while, predominantly working on the affiliate marketing and business development side. Over the last year I have decided to focus my energies on getting to understand SEO and have picked up some actionable tips and strategies to put together an SEO strategy for the business I work for whilst at the same time broadening my skillset in online marketing. I would like to think I now have a good understanding on key areas of the SEO framework such as keyword research, on page optimisation and link building and look to put my learinings into practise as well as continue to play around through my personal blog An area that I see as more and more important so to get a full understanding is the technical side, getting a decent understanding on the learnings of HTML and CSS and putting this into practise. Can anyone recommend a detailed tutorial, powerpoint that provides insights and learnings on how to best understand this side of SEO? Thanks Simon
Technical SEO | | simonsw0