Google Search now supports AVIF file formats

Google Search finally supports the AVIF file format in Google Search, Google Images and all locations Google Search shows images such as Google Discover, Google News and so forth. “We’re happy to announce that AVIF is now a supported file type in Google Search, for Google Images as well as any place that uses images in Google Search,” John Mueller, Google Search Advocate, wrote.

What is AVIF. AV1 Image File Format is an open, royalty-free image file format specification for storing images or image sequences compressed with AV1 in the HEIF container format. It competes with HEIC, which uses the same container format built upon ISOBMFF, but HEVC for compression.

Google said it is one of the mostly widely used image formats today. “AVIF is an open image file format based on the AV1 video compression standard,” Google added.

What this means for SEO. Technically nothing. Google said, if you are using AVIF formats, you don’t need to do anything, Google will now process them and use them like they would other image formats. “You don’t need to do anything special to have your AVIF files indexed by Google,” John Mueller wrote.

In March 2024, Google hinted this support was coming soon and now it is here.

You can see the full list of supported image file types over here.

More details. Mueller wrote:

“AVIF is an open image file format based on the AV1 video compression standard. It’s supported by all major web browsers, and images in AVIF image file format are supported by a variety of services and platforms on the web, including WordPress, Joomla, and CloudFlare. It’s not recommended to blindly make sweeping changes to images across a website: take the time you need to evaluate which format works best for your specific needs. If you do choose to change image file formats for some of your images, and if this results in changes to filenames or extensions, make sure to set up server-side redirects.”

Why we care. If you are using workarounds for AVIF files on your sites, you no longer need to. Google now natively supports AVIF file types in Google Search.

Also, any workarounds you have, you can now remove.

Make sure to watch your Search Performance reports for any changes you make around AVIF files, to ensure Google is processing those images properly going forward.