Optimising image names for SE

Does this have any effect?

[limbo]

Hello all.

I am in the process of exporting a load of PNG's to GIFs ready for launch of a new site. I have got to thinking that maybe I should be placing longer more desriptive names for images.

E.G. instead of: widget1.gif

use

: big blue widget from the south.gif

or(another question really - underscore the spaces?)

: big_blue_widget_from_the_south.gif

or no spaces at all

: bigbluewidgetfromthesouth.gif

Do search engines place any emphasis on images names at all?

or should I just name them as I see fit. Two other points on this that I have been considering - Does it matter if a file name is too long? and do Accessibility users prefer more descriptive file names for their screen enhancment software.

Thanks

Liam

[grahamstewart]

If you use descriptive image names then you'll certainly get better hits from Google Image Search [images.google.com]

The question is.. are these hits likely to be traffic you want?

If you are selling your pictures then the answer will probably be yes.

But otherwise you might find that you simply get people who are looking for a picture to 'steal'.

[limbo]

Thanks Graham

Good point about the G image search :) I am not selling images but at the same time I am not really concerned if users right click em'.

[korkus2000]

There is weight given to file names including image names. How much weight I don't know. I know it is not huge, but there is some weight AFAIK.

[limbo]

Cheers Korkus, you have confirmed what I suspected.

Articles about SEO & Images here [promotiondata.com] and here [zestcity.com]

These don't exactly answer my questions but go some way to explaining the best method for Image SE optimisation.

Both articles make it clear that the use of spaces in filenames should be avoided and to use either hyphens or underscores. would it make any difference which were used?

[rossH]

limbo, there have been some posts recently suggesting not to use the underscores, go with hyphens instead. The reasoning is, an underscore is actually a character, so blue_widget becomes all one incomprehensible word.

[albert]

Since underscores are seen as charakters I would go with hyphens - assumed you want your keywords be found in image names.

[limbo]

Thanks Ross :)

<added>

(& Albert)

[edited by: limbo at 2:58 pm (utc) on May 19, 2003]

[korkus2000]

I use hyphens, but don't use too many. I usually stop with 2. I have heard of SE filters penalizing domains that have more than 2 hyphens. I would try to keep file names under 3 just in case SE in the future use hyphens as a scoring filter.

[limbo]

I think I have this right - the ideal would be a descriptive file name that uses hyphens not underscores has 2-3 keyword description and is placed in a shallow/concise file directory.

I know I have put this simply but I tend to remember SEO processes this way.

Thanks all.

Liam