Hello, I am currently working on a website. This website has been developped by a company using some sort of CMS and an external cart. Now, the problem is that the images are all hosted on the server of the company that developped the website. So basically, when viewing the source all the images are being called from externalsource.com I am wondering the impact this can have in terms of SEO. Will SE take this factor into consideration? Thank a lot for your input
Do this company still update and host the site? If not then they may suddenly move some of the images and your site will look pretty bad! I always like to control the images on my sites and the only way to do this is to host the images yourself. Whether it affects your rankings or not is impossible to say although google may not like it as not many good sites will hotlink.
Thanks for your answer. Yes, the company still hosts and maintain the site. It's a big company, so this is not a problem. I think like you that Google may not like it, because hotlinking diminishes the credibility of the website / company...However if someone has a tangible proof?