Lazy Loading & Image SEO

[_Heiko_]

I wanted to implement lazy loading on my whole domain, but was unsure about the effect on the organic image search. Therefore I implemented it some months ago on 3 selected URLs with medium organic image traffic. Unfortunately all 3 pages dropped significantly (roughly 80%) of image impressions and clicks (seach console data). It seems that just images within the fold, that are not loaded via lazy load are still ranking.

Does anybody have here more positive experiences?

[EGOL]

Did you change the URLs of the images, change their file names, change their alt attribute, change their size (file or pixel), change where they are hosted?

[_Heiko_]

No, everything the same. The only thing what was changed, the loading over lazy load to have a propper testing environment.

[EGOL]

Thanks for the additional information.

I am surprised that your image search traffic dropped.

[gertseoleverage]

I haven't yet seen issues with lazy loading, also you can always separately file them as an image sitemap, but I can't see how this should be related to ranking drops to be honest as long as Google can still read the same attributes under the same URL.

[HeinHaji]

If you are using Wordpress then try to install some lazy load plugins. Learn more about it.