Will image location affect SEO?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

• 
  Devin Peterson: I use one of my websites to host many images and video content which are then sometimes used for my clients webpages... Is there any SEO value (to my own site) in using the original URL path (which is to my site) to post the image on my client's website? I am not trying to "sneak" links or anything and would not do this without permission from the client or if it would adversely affect them for any reason.
  
  To clarify, let's say I have an image url path of mysitedotcom/image and need to post this image on my client's site (clientsitedotcom), but I have 2 options. Either upload the image onto their server (so now the image path becomes clientsitedotcom/image), or just use src="mysitedotcome/image" right on the clients website?
  
  Any pros or cons to either method? I could expand this question to  ;video urls as well and really any component of html that uses a src="" or url('') (like css for example)
  
  Thanks in advance
• 
  Tony McCreath: So they will be hotlinking to your images.
  
  Personal opinion but I think it may help the image rank in images searches. Google seems to have some skill in canonicalising images but having several pages link back to the same image URL would ensure that image gains all ranking signals.
  
  The negative is that your clients pages may not be the page referenced ;in image searches, which is probably the point of trying to rank those images in the first place.
• 
  Devin Peterson: +Tony McCreath ;You just opened my eyes to this concept of "inline linking" which you referred to as "hotlinking". How have I not known about this before?!
  
  Well thank you, I believe I can formulate some ideas now after reading up on the subject. I think you would be right to presume that it wouldn't help the client... but what if the image isn't actually on my site so it's not actually indexed by Google, it's merely on my server and the url path goes through my domain?
  
  I've read that many large websites host most of there images separately from there main domain but usually on a subdomain or something, like Amazon.
• 
  Tony McCreath: +Devin Peterson ;or some host on a CDN. I'd be interested if anyone has any data related to ranking and hosting images off domain. I use a CMS that does this and they say Google told them it is not a problem. I'm sceptical as some users feel their image ranking has suffered.
• 
  Devin Peterson: Just did a little experiment... I image searched an image that's hosted on my site but displayed on clients site... And although the image url is to my site, Google takes you to the client site when you click the image. Guess it works how I wanted. Now the question is, will this provide any value in getting my own site ranked better since Google surely recognizes that other sites are using my site's content. It's like a "vote" in a way :)
• 
  Daniel Lloyd Barrett: You will not see any benefits to hosting images on a separate domain, for yourself or your client. Using a CDN with multiple servers and caching would help to speed up the client site. But simply hosting the images on a separate domain will not speed up the client site. Basically you're making work for yourself for no benefit.
• 
  Devin Peterson: +Daniel Lloyd Barrett ;I know the speed won't be affected, unless I do the CDN and caching strategy, however what I'm looking for is some affirmation that inline links are of no value. My logic dictates it would be worth something, why wouldn't it be?
  
  I am trying to improve the ranking of the site hosting the images by "hotlinking" to them from other sites...
• 
  Daniel Lloyd Barrett: I'm not certain but I doubt you will get any benefit. You are trying to rank based on being the source of the image. If you used a link to credit the source then I would say yes it could help. Would your clients allow you to use links for crediting the source? 
• 
  Devin Peterson: If I asked permission they wouldn't really know any better so I feel I would be taking advantage of that.
  
  I would like to see more information on how SEs handle inline links
• 
  Mark Steenbakkers: One thing I would like to add to this discussion. If you want to have an SSL Certification (https://) for a domain, all images and other content must originate from a trusted domain (https://). It is not a problem if you include the full path https://www.yoursitedotcom