How to rename your product images for SEO

Why file names matter

Photos straight out of a camera or phone have names like IMG_4821.jpg or DSC_0093.JPG. That works for the camera, but it says nothing to anyone else.

A descriptive file name helps in three ways:

• Context for search engines. The file name is one of the clues, alongside alt text and the page itself, that search engines use to understand what an image shows. That context matters for image search.

• Cleaner image addresses. The file name usually ends up in the image’s web address. gold-hoop-earrings-front.webp is readable when it’s shared or copied; IMG_4821.jpg isn’t.

• Organization. When you search your files, sort a shoot or send photos to a freelancer, descriptive names save time and prevent mix-ups between similar products.

File names are a small detail. They won’t make up for weak photos or empty product pages, but they cost little to get right, and they are tedious to fix once hundreds of images are online.

The rules of a good file name

• Lowercase only. Some systems treat Ring.jpg and ring.jpg as different files. Lowercase avoids the question.

• Hyphens between words. Write linen-dress, not linen_dress, linendress or linen dress. Hyphens are the usual word separator in web addresses.

• No spaces, accents or special characters. Spaces turn into %20 in addresses, and characters like é, ç, &, # or apostrophes can be encoded or stripped. Write bracelet-dore, not bracelet doré.

• Descriptive words. Name what the photo shows: the product first, then what makes this photo specific.

• No camera or phone names. Drop IMG_, DSC_, PXL_ and other automatic prefixes.

• Keep it short. Three to six words is usually enough. A file name isn’t a sentence.

• Keep the right extension. .jpg, .png or .webp should match the file’s actual format.

A simple naming pattern

One pattern you can apply to every shoot:

product-name-variant-view.extension

• Product name: the words a customer would use, not only your internal reference. Example: woven-straw-tote.

• Variant: colour, material or size, when the photo shows one variant. Example: natural, black, silver.

• View: front, back, side, detail, worn, flat-lay.

Result: woven-straw-tote-natural-front.webp, woven-straw-tote-natural-detail.webp, woven-straw-tote-black-worn.webp.

Two photos of the same product should never share a name. The view keeps them apart; when two views are similar, add a number: woven-straw-tote-black-worn-1.webp, woven-straw-tote-black-worn-2.webp.

If your store is in another language, name the files in that language too, without accents. A French store would use sac-cabas-paille-naturel-face.webp.

Good and bad examples

• Bad: IMG_4821.JPG, good: gold-hoop-earrings-front.jpg

• Bad: DSC_0093 (2).jpg, good: silver-signet-ring-worn.jpg

• Bad: Summer Dress FINAL v3.png, good: navy-linen-shirt-dress-back.png

• Bad: necklace-gold-necklace-women-necklace-gift.jpg, good: layered-gold-chain-necklace-worn.jpg

• Bad: SKU-4471-A.jpg, good: tan-leather-card-holder-open.jpg

The last one deserves a word. A SKU is handy for you: it’s unique and it helps sort a shoot. But it tells search engines nothing about the photo. Keep SKUs in your working folders, and give the files you upload descriptive names.

Rename before you upload

In Shopify, an image’s file name comes from the file you upload. So the reliable way to get clean names is to rename the files on your computer before uploading them.

Fixing names after the fact is more work. The straightforward method is to rename the file, upload it again, redo its alt text and its position in the gallery, then remove the old image. That’s fine for a handful of photos, but not something you want to do across a whole catalogue.

If you already have many images online with camera names, don’t try to fix everything at once. Apply the rules to every new upload, and update older products when you replace their photos anyway, starting with the ones that matter most to your business.

Renaming a whole shoot

Renaming fifty photos one by one is tedious but manageable. Renaming five hundred is where mistakes creep in. A few habits help:

1. Sort first, rename second. Group the photos by product in folders before touching any name.

2. Use batch renaming. Most operating systems and photo editing tools can rename a selection of files with a common base and a number. Rename a product’s folder to navy-linen-shirt-dress-1.jpg, -2, -3, then adjust the views that matter.

3. Watch look-alike products. “Linen dress” and “linen shirt dress” are easy to confuse late in the day.

4. Keep the originals. Rename copies, and keep the untouched files in a backup folder.

A quick check before you upload

Before the files leave your computer, take two minutes to go through this list. It catches most of the problems that are tedious to fix once the images are on your product pages.

• No camera names left. Search the folder for IMG_, DSC_ and PXL_.

• No spaces, capitals or accents. Sort the files by name: anything that breaks the pattern tends to stand out.

• Every name is unique. Two products should never share a file name, and neither should two photos of the same product.

• Each name matches its photo. Open a few files at random and check that “front” really is the front and “black” really is black.

• The extension matches the format. A WebP file renamed to .jpg can cause trouble later.

• The language matches the store. Mixing English and French names in one catalogue makes the files harder to search.

Letting Dropmatch name the files

If naming all your product photos is the task you keep postponing, Dropmatch, a Shopify app published by Aryios, can take care of it. When it sends your photos to your products, each one gets an SEO file name based on what it shows, for example woven-straw-tote-front.webp, in your store’s language, along with its alt text.

You don’t have to rename anything before dropping your product photos. Dropmatch matches photos to products by file name, folder name, SKU or barcode, so camera names are fine as long as a folder or an identifier says which product each photo belongs to.

Nothing is sent to your store until you have reviewed and approved the batch.

Frequently asked questions