(Entry was posted by Koenjah D on this post in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 05/29/2016).

Why not load all images in css sprites?

Why not load all images in css sprites? Since speed is an important SEO factor. I do not care if people can find my images. I care about being ranked high for KEYWORDS with buy intentions.

I have h1, h2, h3 and 1 optimalised image. The other images I load in css sprites to increase loading time. Do you guys think that image optimalisation actually help rank content in WEB SERP or that its more intended for IMAGE SERP? Does speed have more influence on a high SERP ranking or image optimalisation?

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Koenjah D: Why not load all images in css sprites? Since speed is an important SEO factor. I do not care if people can find my images. I care about being ranked high for KEYWORDS with buy intentions.

I have h1, h2, h3 and 1 optimalised image. The other images I load in css sprites to increase loading time. Do you guys think that image optimalisation actually help rank content in WEB SERP or that its more intended for IMAGE SERP? Does speed have more influence on a high SERP ranking or image optimalisation?
This answer was selected as Best Community Answer by the Expert Panel
Edwin Jonk: I use css sprites for (image) icons. I do not use them for images, since you cannot use the alt attribute.

So for images using css backgrounds as a way to load the images is sub-optimal for search engines.
Koenjah D: Thank you for your response. So yeah thats kind of my dilemma. How much does the alt attribute contributes to the serp ranking of a website? I dont have the knowledge for this but isnt this maybe mostly used for image search instead of web serp rank of the full page? I like speed and im loading jpg sprites as well now. I keep at least one image with the alt attribute on the page but other then that I focus on speed. Im just curious if this could be more effective.