Does size of page matter to Google?

I added a gif image and rankings dropped

[crobb305]

My html size went from 24k to 30k after I added a gif image. Could this have an adverse impact on my rankings in Google?

Anyone else experience this?

Thanks

[Marcia]

It's highly unlikely. Does the GIF have an alt attibute with a lot of words in it, and is it just an image, or used as a link?

[Cyclob]

It shouldn't be a problem with that as long as your page is below 100k, but it's better to keep the max at 75k.

How differences of your ranking before and after? If it's not much, then, it's normal for all of us because my ranking is moving a bit up and down all the time.

[Tomas]

My html size went from 24k to 30k after I added a gif image.

I can't believe that your HTML size went 6k up only for adding gif image. It doesn't mater what is actual image size in kB. What does matter is just HTML code size in kB.

[Yidaki]

>My html size went from 24k to 30k after I added a gif image.

Wow - a 6k image tag? Are you sure you mean the html size and not the overall size of the page (html + images)? A 6k image tag would mean, 6.000 characters used to specify the image.

This is a 0.059k image tag:
<img src="mygif.gif" alt="my gif" width="100" height="100">

Imagine a 6k tag ...

So if you mean the overall size of your page increased by 6k (including image sizes) this wouldn't influence anything at google. Googlebot indexes just code + text.

[crobb305]

So if you mean the overall size of your page increased by 6k (including image sizes)

yes...I mean the overall size of the page increased by 6k. I did add some new text so some of this is included. The gif itself is only 4kb. I didn't mean to say html size. It was the overall page size. Google shows the actual page size in SERPS.

I had read in places that Google prefers smaller pages. I didnt know if this just meant text or overall page size.

C

[Tomas]

I didnt know if this just meant text or overall page size.

Now you know ;)

Googlebot indexes just code + text.

No images, no external css or javascript files.

[crobb305]

Now you know ;)

I do?

I don't think anyone said definitively if Google prefers smaller pages. It seems that even if Google does not index images, they surely affect load time--which could adversely impact rankings.

[Marcia]

If a page is so slow it times out, it could be passed over but the load time would be more likely to affect buyer conversions than rankings.

[Yidaki]

>I don't think anyone said definitively if Google prefers smaller pages.

crobb305, it's allways problematic to say something definitively about google.
The smaller pages issue has been discussed in the past - controversial.

Some discussions:
- Is There A Contradiction In What Google Likes? [webmasterworld.com]
- Content Density Observation [webmasterworld.com]

What i know for sure though is that my visitors prefer smaller pages.

[deejay]

I mean the overall size of the page increased by 6k. I did add some new text so some of this is included. The gif itself is only 4kb.

So you didn't just add an image.

In adding that text you've probably effectively changed the whole balance of your page on a lot of factors.

Density. Prominence. Proximity. Distribution. Code/text ratio. Stop/Key word ratio.

Any number of things.

The image will be the least of it.

[morpheus83]

I do not think so page size is related to ranking. My sitemap size is 140 k. There are no images in my sitemap. Yet my sitemap gets good rankings on Google and MSN.

[olderscot]

Crobb305 (and others),

images are called seperately from the html so they have no effect on search engine spiders, which don't bother with the images.

i.e.a normal browser downloads the html and then downloads the images listed. A spider doesn't call for the images so they're never downloaded and don't affect download times or anything else as far as the spider is concerned.

Mike

[trillianjedi]

Forget the spiders and consider me.

I have a 56k modem. I want to get down to the content I want without having to wait an age for page loads.

I'm your average internet user.

TJ

[kaled]

If I were to create a robot, given limited cpu time and bandwidth constraints, I might well schedule large pages with a lower priorty than small pages. I might also schedule pages with a low visible ratio (e.g. huge amounts of javascript and not much html) with a lower priority.

I am a programmer just like the boys and girls at Google. It is likely that we think much alike.

Kaled.

PS
I am sure many other scheduling priorities also exist such as PR.

[smxcorp]

The size of the page only becomes a problem if the pages is so large that it either takes a long time to load or it times out and nothing is displayed. Google doesnt like pages that randomly vanish however a page size of 30kb is very small. A lot of pages maybe perhaps 200kb or even more than that and Google will index them with no problem at all.