Would changing the file name of an image (not the alt attribute) have an effect of on seo / ranking of that image and thus the site?

[Sam-P]

Would changing the file name of image, not the alt attribute nor the image itself (so it would be exactly the same but just a name change) have any effect on :

• a) A sites seo ranking
• b) the individual images seo ranking (although i guess if b) would be true it would have an effect on a) although potentially small.)

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This is the sort of change i would be thinking of making :

![Red ford truck](2554.jpg)

changed to

![Red ford truck](6842.jpg)

[RyanPurkey]

Why not change the file name to 'red-for-truck.jpg'? That would probably have a more positive effect. Much of what dictates image optimization is the same as on page factors, as described here: http://moz.com/blog/is-optimizing-photos-more-important-than-you-think. (On page factors: http://moz.com/learn/seo/on-page-factors) Plus Google has its own guide for image sitemaps here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/178636.  Cheers!

[EGOL]

When I write an article the images always have file names that match the content of the image and an important keyword of the article.  The alt attributes are more detailed because they  provide information to screen readers.

I believe that the names of your image files and the alt attributes are small optimization elements that will help rank a page.  It might be enough to move you up a position or two if you are deep in the SERPs, but if you are in a battle for the top three for a competitive term then authority is going to be far more important than the sum of the small optimization elements.

[DirkC]

Agree with Ryan - if you want to make changes - better make the image name a descriptive one.

Also, take care if you get search traffic from image search - changing the name of your images could cause a big negative impact on your traffic. In my experience the image index is updated slower than the normal index - so if 2554.jpg is indexed and you change it to 6842.jpg or even better red-ford-truck.jpg the image in the result will return a 404 and be replaced by the same image from another site (if it's a stock photo) or dropped from the results. Better to keep the old image in the initial location until the index is updated

rgds

Dirk