There are two broad compression approaches: lossless (reduces file size with zero quality loss, but more limited gains) and lossy (achieves much larger size reductions by discarding some image data, with quality loss that's usually imperceptible at reasonable settings). Modern image formats like WebP and AVIF offer meaningfully better compression than older JPEG and PNG formats at equivalent visual quality, and serving them (with a fallback for older browsers) is a standard Core Web Vitals recommendation, since uncompressed or poorly optimized images are one of the most common causes of a slow Largest Contentful Paint score. Compression should happen automatically as part of a publishing pipeline rather than relying on manual optimization before every upload, since manual steps get skipped under deadline pressure.
Example
A blog switches its image pipeline to auto-generate WebP versions of every uploaded image, cutting average page weight by 60% and improving its Largest Contentful Paint score from 'Needs Improvement' to 'Good.'
Related terms
Related terms
Related Reading
404 Error
A 404 error is the standard HTTP status code returned when a requested page doesn't exist on the server — the classic 'page not found' response.
A/B Testing (SEO)
A/B testing in SEO is the practice of showing two versions of a page element — usually a title tag, meta description, or on-page element — to see which one earns a better click-through rate or ranking outcome.
AI Citation
An AI citation happens when an AI assistant like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, or Gemini references or links to a specific page as the source for part of its answer.
