Use flickr or self-host images?

[nberke]

Hello all,

I've been blogging for a little over a year now. During that time we've largely been using Flickr to host our images - unaware of the 200 photo limit. Now we're switching over our main blogging platform (from b2evo to wordpress), and while I originally had planned to continue using Flickr, I'm reconsidering it. What do you kind souls think the benefit of using Flickr is over self-hosting my own images? Is it worth the $25/year? Will self-hosting slow down my site? Is Flickr better for SEO, or is self-hosting? Your thoughts are appreciated.

Kind regards,
NB

[stephen todd]

Originally Posted by nberke

Hello all,

What do you kind souls think the benefit of using Flickr is over self-hosting my own images? Is it worth the $25/year? Will self-hosting slow down my site? Is Flickr better for SEO, or is self-hosting? Your thoughts are appreciated.

Kind regards,
NB

I'm sure you've got it backwards - hosting your images off-site will slow your blog down compared to hosting the images in your Wordpress wp-content directory

I can't see any difference regarding SEO - just make sure you add alt image keywords to your images

[Indyan]

I think it may make more sense to host images with Amazon S3. Its not free, but its pretty cheap. And its known to be fast and reliable.
If you want to host it with photosharing websites, you can opt for Photobucket also. I prefer to host images myself. Not because it will be faster, but because it kind of makes me feel good knowing that I am in full control. I always have an offline backup of all my images along with my database.

Self hosting images is better for SEO, but if your images are interesting enough you flickr can help you grab eyeballs and even get a few hits.

[trailofpen]

I use photobucket with a pro account myself. The max image size allowed on my account is 2240x1680 pixels which is huge and also good for background images, storage capacity of 10 gb, unlimited bandwith, can keep albums private or make public, people can leave comments on them through photobucket, can also scramble file names if wanted. I signed up using a promo with netflix for a free pro account. It works great and I use it for more than just my blog.

[Captured Ink]

I would always self-host, as google images has indexed my pictures and then people go directly to my blog rather then flickr.

Just my two cents

[Ferox]

I'm with the poster above. Hosting my own images brings me traffic, and a significant quantitiy of it.

[PPPAKE]

One benefit to using Flickr is the ability to add tags and names to photos, so if someone's searching for a particular term or looking for an individual they are more likely to come up in the search results.

[QuirkyJessi]

Flickr is 'not' good for SEO purposes. Self-hosting is better, but even if you choose to go with a free host, Flickr isn't the one to go with because any traffic generated by your image keywords will point people to Flickr instead of your own site.

[Piratejon]

I go for self-hosting. Full control and I don't have to worry about anything outside messing up.

[ThePiper]

flickr is a pretty worthy photo solution, I think.