An image file name is the name of the image file on the server, such as red-running-shoe.jpg. It becomes part of the image URL and gives search engines a small additional hint about what the image shows.
What does Google recommend for image file names?
Google’s image documentation says to use file names that are short but descriptive, and gives my-new-black-kitten.jpg as better than IMG00023.JPG. It also advises against generic names such as image1.jpg or pic.gif.
The file name is secondary to the alt text, which Google calls the most important attribute for providing metadata about an image. Google does not document how much weight a file name carries in ranking.
Because the file name is part of the URL, renaming an image changes the URL. If the same image appears on several pages, referencing one URL everywhere lets browsers and crawlers reuse it.
The search results for this term mostly cover operating-system file naming and photo software, so the SEO meaning is easy to miss.
Example
| Before | After |
|---|---|
IMG_0042.JPG |
red-running-shoe-womens.jpg |
Photo 2 (final).png |
running-shoe-size-8.png |
The page then adds alt text such as “Red women’s running shoe, side view”.
Common mistakes
- Keeping camera or export names like
DSC_1234.jpg - Uploading the same image under several names, so crawlers fetch several URLs
- Spaces and special characters in the name, which produce encoded URLs with
%20
FAQ
How should image files be named for SEO? Short, descriptive, and readable by people. Separate words with hyphens, as in Google’s own example. Google recommends hyphens over underscores as word separators in URLs.
Sources
- Google Image SEO best practices – Google Search Centraldevelopers.google.com
- Image file type and format guide – MDNdeveloper.mozilla.org
- URL structure best practices for Google Search – Google Search Centraldevelopers.google.com
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