SEO friendly filenames

SEO keywords in filename URL titles

[millercia]

Working on an image database and developing a script to rename image files and html filenames with SEO friendly and human-undrstandable filenames. How long can I let the filenames get before they become problematic?

I have an image database with custom fields containing descriptive information about the subject of each image. I plan to rename camera generated files by replacing the original filenames with custom field data and a key which identifies the subject and unique view. So a file named CRW_194235.jpg might be renamed to silk_tie_brown_1_13245.jpg. A close up of the fabric's pattern might be renamed to silk_tie_brown_2_13245.jpg.

Will this help with SEO? Seems it would be good for Google Images.

I would do the same for html filename and page title. My question is how long can I get with URLs, html filenames and image names? Am I correct in thinking the constraints on html image source filenames are completely independent of the html page filename lengths and URL lengths?

Seems to me that the more human understandable info in the names the better, up to maximum practical lengths. Will this actually help and if so what are the maximum lengths I should use for html image filenames, html page filenames and html page titles.

Thanks for any insights.

[phranque]

welcome to WebmasterWorld, millercia!

last i heard google will crawl and index urls well over 1000 characters.
http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/webmasters/crawling-indexing--ranking/h0aeO2_kpac

... but that doesn't mean that it's a good practice :-).

i would limit it to a url length that is readable in a search result which would probably give you better click-through.
make all the filenames lower case.
lose the underscores and use hyphens for word separators.

[g1smd]

In general I would use hyphens rather than underscores, especially for page URLs. See also the recent discussion about having the ID number at the beginning rather than the end of the URL.

You don't need to rename the actual image file. URLs are a reference system used on the web. Filenames exist only inside the server. It is your server configuration that finds the right file when a particular URL is requested.