Study first
Review the ideas behind the questions
These notes cover the image details that help crawlers discover files and understand why an image belongs on a page.
Help Google find image files
Image SEO starts with making the image available in a format and location that crawlers can understand.
- Use standard HTML image elements so crawlers can find image URLs.
- Keep a real fallback src attribute when using picture or srcset patterns.
- Avoid relying on CSS background images for images that need to be indexed.
- Use image sitemaps when important image URLs may be hard to discover.
Give images clear context
Google uses page context and image metadata signals to understand what an image is about.
- Write alt text that describes the image naturally and helps accessibility.
- Place images near relevant text on pages that match the image subject.
- Use short descriptive filenames instead of generic camera or system filenames.
- Avoid keyword stuffing in alt attributes because it hurts users and trust.
Choose images that work in results
Strong image pages combine useful visuals with fast, representative, crawlable images.
- Use high-quality images that are relevant to the page.
- Use supported image formats and crawlable image URLs.
- Mark a preferred representative image with metadata such as og:image or structured data where appropriate.
- Keep mobile image content and alt text aligned with the desktop version.