Aliexpress images vs Server images

[kenta5d]

Hi,

Do you all store images on servers or leave aliexpress image link? I asked for advice is because I don't want my server to be heavily loaded with images, but at the same time, I wanted good site speed. Having aliexpress url image links slow down site, do you see that happening to you?

Thanks!

 

[Direct Webstore]

I store the featured image only. This is enough for SEO purposes.

For the images left stored on Aliexpress (On their CDN), I also block the search-bots access to them via the robots.txt file by adding the following code ...

User-agent: *
Disallow: /https://ae01.alicdn.com/*.jpg$
Disallow: /https://ae01.alicdn.com/*.jpeg$
Disallow: /https://ae01.alicdn.com/*.png$
Disallow: /https://ae01.alicdn.com/*.gif$

This is so the remotely stored images with their Aliexpress CDN URLs don't get indexed and added to my store's sitemap or appear in Google Image searches. I'm basically stopping my store from being publicly associated or linked with Aliexpress and/or it's CDN.

Sure, a customer can right-click an image and "Open in another tab" or similar and see the alicdn.com image URL, but really, how many people would bother doing that? It would be extremely rare in my opinion. And even in the "once in a blue moon" occasion, someone DID do that, the URL "alicdn.com" would be meaningless to them. Or, they may even presume it's your CDN if they are website development savvy. (Unlikely).

Having aliexpress url image links slow down site

No, it doesn't. It makes no difference to the customer's browser where the images are being served from. Many people use CDNs and their images are served from them. The Aliexpress images are actually served from their own CDN as you can see from the robots.txt code above. (alicdn.com)

do you see that happening to you?

No. I don't. There are other factors involved in page loading speed, and there are many threads on it in this forum already.

I don't want my server to be heavily loaded with images

That's the main benefit. After Wordpress has made multiple image sizes and thumbnails of your images, they can start taking up a lot of space. But if you have unlimited storage and inode limits, you may as well store ALL the images on your server. BUT, it won't necessarily make your site faster. That's an old myth.

BUT, if you have limited storage or limited Inodes, you'd be better off storing/serving most of the images (Except for the Featured one) on Aliexpress's CDN server.

 

[kenta5d]

thank you for the reply! I am also using CDN. Do you know if my CDN will cache those external links as well by any chance?

 

[Direct Webstore]

NOTE: Obviously, you can't edit pics stored on Aliexpress, so keep that in mind. There are strategies to deal with that, but that's a problem for another thread.

 

[Direct Webstore]

Do you know if my CDN will cache those external links as well by any chance?

Offhand, and without a quick Google search, I'd say no. (I may be wrong, check it yourself) But seeing as those images are already being served from a CDN (alicdn.com), what would be the point, anyway?

Bottom line, I do all the above and have an average page loading speed of 2-3 seconds. And that has hardly anything to do with where my images are being served from. It's a combination of having a reasonably fast hosting/server speed, reducing the size of all the images on my site, my basic site/theme setup and a good cache plugin. (WP Rocket).

 

[Direct Webstore]

Actually, I guess if you hosted ALL the images on your server you would be able to optimize and reduce the size of them all and that would help a bit towards page loading speed. But the tradeoffs don't make in worthwhile in my case. (Limited inode allowance).

 

[Mar]

NOTE: Obviously, you can't edit pics stored on Aliexpress, so keep that in mind. There are strategies to deal with that, but that's a problem for another thread.

All pics can be edited, stored in AliExpress or not. But once it is edited, it will be automatically stored in your server.

 

[Direct Webstore]

you can't edit pics stored on Aliexpress,

But once it is edited, it will be automatically stored in your server.

That's right. They will be stored on your own server if you edit them. That's more or less what I meant.
I should have said, "you can't edit pics stored on Aliexpress and continue to store them there".

What about you @Mar ? Do you initially store the Featured image only on your server or store all the images? Interserver has a file limit (inode limit) of 600,000 and I host 4 sites, so I have to be careful.

 

[Mar]

What about you @Mar ? Do you initially store the Featured image only on your server or store all the images? Interserver has a file limit (inode limit) of 600,000 and I host 4 sites, so I have to be careful.

I only store featured and gallery images on the server.

Having aliexpress url image links slow down site

You are right, this statement don't make sense at all.

 

[kenta5d]

I only store featured and gallery images on the server.

You are right, this statement don't make sense at all.

Thanks. What I initial assume was http requests by reaching out to these cdn links externally, so by having too many remote requests, I assume there is a potential to slow down site.

 

[Direct Webstore]

What really slows down your site as far as images go is having too many images on a page and/or images with too large size. (Use an image optimizer like the "Ewww" plugin) Where they are served from has lesser impact. Unless they are being served from a really slow, crap server.

Considering that my page load speeds are pretty good, I'll have to assume that Aliexpress's alicdn.com is OK, speed-wise as it's not having any negative impact as far as I can see.

 

[kenta5d]

What really slows down your site as far as images go is having too many images on a page and/or images with too large size. (Use an image optimizer like the "Ewww" plugin) Where they are served from has lesser impact. Unless they are being served from a really slow, crap server.

Considering that my page load speeds are pretty good, I'll have to assume that Aliexpress's alicdn.com is OK, speed-wise as it's not having any negative impact as far as I can see.

For EWWW plugin, do you have an estimated expenses usage in recent year for optimize your images? Just want to see the estimate for my budgeting. Thanks again for the help!

 

[Direct Webstore]

For EWWW plugin, do you have an estimated expenses usage

I use the free version.