Google has begun to promote next-Gen image formats. You can use HTML elements like / to quickly provide more information and easily pass this WCAG criterion. WCAG compliance is important to ensure users can access your site comfortably.įor any moving, blinking or scrolling information that (1) starts automatically, (2) lasts more than five seconds, and (3) is presented in parallel with other content, there is a mechanism for the user to pause, stop, or hide it unless the movement, blinking, or scrolling is part of an activity where it is essential andįor any auto-updating information that (1) starts automatically and (2) is presented in parallel with other content, there is a mechanism for the user to pause…”įor GIFs, they suggest setting animated GIF images to stop blinking after a certain number of times, within 5 seconds.

Accessible GIF IssuesĪccessibility is a hot button issue, and it crosses over with SEO: good SEO practices tend to help accessibility, and vice versa. On the contrary, a web browser would still have to load the original image size before it reloads and resizes the image to the height and width you assigned to it.Įither way, you’re already doing your site and search engines a favor by opting for a GIF format over other larger image formats. The image quality will decrease alongside the image and, as a result, developers have to find the sweet spot between image size and quality.ĭevelopers who rely on HTML to reduce image sizes (i.e., WordPress blogs) don’t actually create more room on the server. You can use this test to see if your site has been“GZipped” by your web host.ĭesktop programs like Photoshop and web programs like can help to reduce image size, using the “Save for Web” feature. This technique has to be implemented by your web host on their servers. Users rely on limited alt descriptions and Google relies on those, file names, and surrounding page-context elements to find out what a GIF is about.

You can get around this by adding descriptive captions. If it adds context, this context is likely to be lost. In addition, following Google’s best practice guidelines to images is encouraged, but conflicts with some of what users have come to love about GIF content.įor example, Google’s best practice guidelines for publishing images including GIF files, says not to include on-image text, since it won’t get indexed. Google wants to know what is playing behind this rich media file with proper alt tags, descriptive file names, relevant image contexts, image captions, and associated links. Your GIFs should be fast, responsive, and should have good URL structures. If you want your GIF to be indexed well in Google Images, you should optimize the GIF’s placement – near relevant text and to the top of the page. GIFs can be good for SEO in the way that all well-crafted images can be good for SEO – they can drive clicks and keep people engaged on a page. Google Image optimization techniques are the way to go to make sure your GIFs get crawled, parsed, and indexed. Google seems to, at this point, read GIFs in the same way it reads all other images – just with a greater focus on being able to search for, and share, them through Google Images.

In 2019, Google added shareable GIFs to search results. Google images came around in 2001, but didn’t get an explicit feature to search for GIFs until 2013. The GIF had a storied history after that Unisys Corp, the company that owned the GIF algorithm, started charging royalties for GIFs in 1995 – and the patent didn’t run out until 2003. Since multiple versions of the image are included in the file, you could string those images together to create a looping video. The algorithm worked by identifying repeating patterns, and it made GIFs great at creating high-performance photorealistic images.

Animated gif director