Google’s Search Relations team has reiterated that images delivered as CSS backgrounds are invisible to Google Image Search. In the 19 March 2024 episode of its “Search Off the Record” podcast, the team urged developers to render any image that carries information with standard HTML elements instead.
Why CSS background images are not indexed
- Background images do not appear in the Document Object Model, so Google’s crawler treats them as styling, not content.
- Developer advocate Martin Splitt advised using
<img>or<picture>tags for every image that needs to rank or convey meaning. - John Mueller added that background styling remains fine for purely decorative graphics.
- The guidance applies across all site types, including news, retail and property listings, and reflects current indexing behaviour rather than a new algorithm update.
Impact on search visibility and accessibility
Images excluded from the DOM cannot be stored in Google’s image index or associated with relevant queries. Publishers, e-commerce stores and travel sites may lose impressions, rich-result eligibility and referral traffic if key visuals reside only in CSS. Correct markup also improves accessibility, allowing screen readers to announce alt text and captions.
Best practices
The team recommends keeping the visual and presentation layers separate:
- Use HTML elements with descriptive
altattributes for any picture referenced by on-page text or expected to rank. - Reserve CSS backgrounds for patterns, gradients or other purely decorative assets.
- Include structured data where appropriate to enhance eligibility for rich results.
Source
Listen to the full discussion on the official Search Off the Record podcast.
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