Too many images?

Does a large number of images on a webpage have a negative effect i serps?

[glue]

I have a highly optimized website (in danish). I have a lots of inbound links, but still my website is listed lower than my competitors. Even though some of them don't work with SEO.

My website is designed with alot small <img>'s (for instance <img src="/pics/blank.gif" width="1" height="3">). Are these small images having a negative effect in serps?

[jk3210]

No. Lots of #1 ranked sites use the same spacer image design style.

[Patrick Taylor]

Are these small images having a negative effect in serps?

Using invisible image spacers is not a good way to lay out a page, if that's what those images are for. A "highly-optimized" page would separate content from style/layout to minimize code-bloat and place important content where it sits better: towards the top of the source code. Even a small negative effect is worth correcting, whilst making the page more accessible, faster loading, and standards-compliant into the bargain.

[glue]

Thank you for your answers.

I have now reduced the number of small images almost 60%. Afterwords I jumped from #10 to #9 in SERPS.
Is this improvement achieved because of the reduced number of images or because of the other things I have done to optimize my website?

My website (at least my frontpage) is spidered every day or every seccond day. I can see that in Googles cache. But my rankings don't seem to improve much (only from #10 to #9).
Do the changes take effect immideately or how long does it take?

[instand1]

"Jumping" up or down by a few ranks is just normal fluctuation. It happens even without any changes made by the webmaster. Sometimes several times a day.

[glue]

Ok, but how long for the changes to take effect? My website is spidered by google on a daily basis.

[suggy]

Hi Glue

See this post about when you can expect your changes to have been figured into your SERPS.

[webmasterworld.com...]

Google Guy gave a semi definitive answer!

Suggy

[Patrick Taylor]

Unless you've radically altered the structure of your pages so that important content is placed more favourably than it was before (higher in the code), and there is a significantly higher proportion of written content to markup, I don't think you will see much effect. Simply reducing spacer images by 60% most likely won't have an effect greater than normal fluctuations in SERPS.

I would like to believe that structurally efficient pages enjoy somewhat better rankings, but I can't demonstrate this to be a fact. In any case, cause and effect can be hard to connect when movements are only minor, even when pages are frequently crawled, especially if you've implemented a number of different measures at the same time.

Having said that, reducing your spacer images is worth doing for several reasons, not all connected to SERPS.