What is WebP? Smaller images open faster

1. What exactly is WebP?

WebP It is an image format introduced by Google. Its benefits are simple: the images look almost as clear, but the files are smaller. When websites use this kind of image, the pages usually open faster, and it's especially noticeable on cell phones.

In the past, many websites used to use JPEG and PNG, but the images in these two formats were often much larger, and after WebP came out, many webmasters started to use it to reduce the size of images and improve the speed of web pages.

2. Why it is becoming more common

2.1 Lighter images, faster web pages

Website open slow, many times it is not the code is too bad, but too many pictures, too big. Home page banners, product images, articles with pictures, thumbnails of categorized pages, add up to easily become a "burden".WebPThe biggest attraction is that it relieves that burden.

With smaller images, page load times are usually shorter. For the visitor, the page won't spin around for a long time; for the webmaster, the server can be less stressed.

2.2 More balanced picture quality and size

When many people hear "compression", their first thought is "will it paste". This is one of the reasons why WebP is so popular. It is not compressed to distortion, but to find a more appropriate balance between clarity and volume.

This is useful when doing blog tie-ins, main product images, and banner images. The difference doesn't look like much to the naked eye and the file can be a fraction smaller, which is really attractive.

2.3 Support for transparent backgrounds and animations

WebP is not just a "smaller JPEG", it also supports transparent backgrounds, much like PNG; it also supports animation, which is a bit like GIF. It also supports transparent backgrounds, much like PNG, and animation, which is a bit like GIF, meaning that one format can cover a wide range of common scenarios.

For example:

Product Keying
Website Icons
Decorative picture with transparent background
Simple Motion Pictures

This will result in more unified image management and less site maintenance.

3. What are the practical benefits to the site?

3.1 Mobile accesskinder

A lot of traffic comes from cell phones these days. Cell phone networks are not always stable and devices have high and low performance. With lighter images, pages tend to be smoother on cell phones and bounce rates are easier to control.

3.2 Positively helps SEO

Search engines have always valued page speed. The lighter a page is, the smoother it tends to crawl and load, and WebP is not a "ranking switch" per se, but it can help make a page faster, which is important forSEOIt's a plus.

Simply put, WebP is not a panacea, but a very practical piece of basic optimization.

3.3 More suitable for websites with lots of images

The following sites are well suited for WebP:

E-commerce website
News Station
blogsite
Portfolio Showcase
Travel Gallery Station

This type of website has a large number of images that add up to a high value for optimization. A picture saves a little, the whole site stacks up considerably.

4. Are there any disadvantages to WebP?

Of course there is.

First, the old browser or individual old system may have compatibility problems, but now the mainstream environment has basically been able to display normally. Second, if the compression parameters are set too aggressively, the picture may also be false. Third, some sites in the plug-in,CDNIf you don't handle the caching configuration properly, you may get "uploaded but not displayed".

So, WebP is good to use, but also with the site environment to set up, do not have a brain all change but do not check the effect.

5. Which scenarios are most suitable for switching to WebP?

These categories are more recommended:

5.1 Article Graphics

With the number of blog posts and the number of accompanying images, switching to WebP will make the whole thing a lot lighter.

5.2 Product Pictures

Merchandise pages often have a main image, a detail image, a scene image thatWebPGreat for this type of page.

5.3 Banner Big Picture

Banner images are often large in size and are a common cause of slowing down the first page, which is highly valuable to optimize.

5.4 Thumbnails and Category Page Images

This type of image is dense in number, and the individual changes are not spectacular, but the cumulative effect is significant.

6. Why webmasters increasingly prefer it

In the end, the reason is very realistic: save traffic, save space, lighter pages, smoother access. Webmasters do site, not just the pursuit of good-looking, but also to take into account the speed, inclusion, conversion and maintenance costs. WebP just stuck in this balance, so more and more people began to use it.

It's not as over-the-top as the myths, and not all sites have to be replaced site-wide right away, but as long as the site has a lot of images, WebP is almost always worth serious consideration.

7. Conclusion

WebPEssentially a more modern image format. It caught fire, not because of the new name, but because it really solves a lot of the pain points that the old format had in the website scenario. When web pages want to run lighter, images are often the most important part of the process that should be done first.

For webmasters, WebP is not a complex technology or a high threshold operation, but a very grounded optimization action. Get this step of the picture right, the overall performance of the site tends to be more stable.

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