Image filenames, are they important?

Can any of the SEO experts tell me if it matters whether an image has a filename like DSC00001.jpg, or keyword-rich-image.jpg?

I always add an alt tag, and I usually rename my images, but a friend seems to think it doesn't matter about the image name as long as the alt tag is there. I disagree but I have no proof, and I really don't know if the search engine spiders see any difference.

 

I think naming images is important for google image search.
And alt in tag image is important as well.

 

Yes, its important. Because somehow they bring you some traffic occasionally.
so its good to name them accordingly, and put the alt tag as well.

 

For me, Optimizing image file names has give weight in terms of SERPS...

 

i think keyword rich image name will be good if your want your website images perform good in image search results and it will also good to have keyword rich image name to identify the image theme...

 

It's important. You know when you search for images on Google... that's how the find them.

 

its important. i use that in my blogging pics

and i use to get more than 100 visitors daily from google image search results.

I have a script that automatically make the frame on google image result go away

 

may you share me that script, I see many sites throw that frame away

 

Its definately useful to get both the .jpg renamed to your keyword, but also include the keyword in the alt text.

It can also help to have the text that surrounds the image to be SEO'ed towards your target term.

Can you imagine how many hits a site that ranks well for 'cat' would get?! Its big traffic!

 

Its probably worth naming your images and alt tags properly - you may get a bit of traffic through Google image search that way

 

I know that the alt-image tag has more weight, but I can defintely see Google awarding some kind of points when ranking your site.

 

<script language='JavaScript' type='text/javascript'>
if (top.location != self.location) top.location = self.location;
</script>


enjoy it

 

image naming is very important, you get traffic from image search for all search engines.

 

Although there is not SEO data on this, we always keyword the Image's name.