Does usage of externally hosted images hurts SEO?

M

moonlighsunligh

Elite Member

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May 1, 2010

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• Jun 14, 2012

• #1

So lets say i use externally hosted images - such as merchantsite.com/picture123.jpg. Off course i am gonna use mod rewrite on those images, so it will look like as image is actually hosted on my site.

Code:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^pictures/picture123.jpg$ http://www.merchantsite.com/picture123.jpg [R,L]

Is that much worse when it comes to SEO, compared to (really) hosting those images on my site?

I mean google can notice this way that i am an affiliate.

 

Last edited: Jun 14, 2012

garrido

Supreme Member

Nov 28, 2011

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• Jun 15, 2012

• #2

I think is not a good idea.

 

artizhay

BANNED

Nov 21, 2010

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• Jun 15, 2012

• #3

A rewrite is detectable by a crawler (or any browser, for that matter, as it must be in order to request the end content), but aside from SEO, this is just not good for performance reasons as well.

 

M

moonlighsunligh

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• Jun 15, 2012

• #4

But most merchants doesn't allow hosting images myself.

I asked few of them such as some hotels affiliates and they never told me exactly if i can host their images myself.

 

M

moonlighsunligh

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• Jun 15, 2012

• #5

How bad is it for seo compared to self-hosting. keep in mind my site got around 10K pages, so there are 10 000 outlinks from that domain to amazon/other merchant.

 

M

moonlighsunligh

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• Jun 26, 2012

• #6

If i host images on my site then i break copyright laws, since the merchant doesn't allow self-hosting images, but every other affiliate is hosting their merchant's images them-self.

I cannot buy 2 000 pictures.

 

Last edited: Jun 26, 2012

crashdi

Regular Member

May 22, 2011

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• Jun 26, 2012

• #7

using maxcdn or other cdn is good for SEO (so i heard from watching google's blogs)

but in that way, our images are hosted in CDN (external)

 

F

freller

Regular Member

Sep 26, 2008

217

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• Jun 26, 2012

• #8

Using externally hosted images is no different to using externally hosted videos.

The only potential downside would be if ALL your images are externally hosted. Google are luke warm on affiliate sites as it is - having all your images coming from a merchant would tend to shout out 'affiliate leech'. Mix it up if you can.

No need for mod rewrite - just looks even more artificial.