Google On Image Filenames & A Surprising SEO Mistake - Search Engine Journal

Google's Lizzi Sassman and John Mueller the relative importance of image filenames and one big mistake to avoid

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Google’s Lizzi Sassman and John Mueller discussed the importance of image filenames in a recent Search Off the Record podcast and at one point discussed a major mistake when it comes to filenames.

Importance of Filenames

Google’s documentation doesn’t say if image filenames are ranking factors.

But they do say that Google takes note of them in order to help figure out what the image is about.

For that reason it’s recommended by Google that images be given meaningful filenames.

Google’s image guidelines documentation states:

“Likewise, the filename can give Google clues about the subject matter of the image.

For example, my-new-black-kitten.jpg is better than IMG00023.JPG.

If you localize your images, make sure you translate the filenames, too.”

It’s also a good practice to give meaningful filenames to images because it makes it easier for organization purposes to be able to see the image filename and know what it’s about.

How Important Are Image Filenames?

Google’s Lizzi Sassman and John Mueller begin their discussion by affirming the importance of filenames then discuss how important they are in general.

“Lizzi Sassman:
So another part where you could...

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