Image submission sites are websites where you upload a picture, add a title and description, and keep a link back to your own site. They give you referral traffic, a brand mention and sometimes a backlink. Most links are nofollow. The real value is discovery, image search visibility and reach, not raw link power.
This list only holds image submission sites that actually loaded when we tested them. We fetched every candidate one by one and dropped anything that failed, went paid only, or stopped taking uploads. The result is 60 live sites, sorted with the most useful first.
What is image submission in SEO?
Image submission means uploading a picture to a third party site that lets the public see it. You fill in a title, a description and tags. Most sites also let you add a source link, a profile link or a destination URL. That link is how people find you after they see the image.
It sits inside off page SEO, next to free social bookmarking sites and directory work. The job is not to trick a search engine. The job is to put your visual asset where more people and more crawlers can reach it. A chart, a product photo or a process diagram can travel much further than a block of text.
Quick answer: Image submission is uploading a picture to a public photo or image sharing site with a title, a description and a link back to your site.
60 free image submission sites that are live right now
Every site below loaded when we checked it, and every one still takes uploads from a free or no cost account. Where a site asks for review before publishing, the Approval column says so.
Domain Rating is a 0 to 100 score from Domain Rating by Ahrefs, pulled on 13 October 2026. A higher number means the domain carries more link authority. It is not a Google score and it is not the same as Moz Domain Authority.
All links checked on 13 October 2026.
Two more notes on the table. The stock photo platforms in the list, such as Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay, PxHere, Stockvault and Skitterphoto, run a review step and usually want original photography, not promotional graphics. The plain hosts, such as ImgBB, Postimages and Catbox, publish straight away but give you a file page rather than a profile.
How to submit to image submission sites step by step
- Pick the image that deserves the effort. Choose one asset people would want to save or share. A data chart, a labelled diagram, a before and after shot or a real product photo all work. A stock image of a handshake does not.
- Optimise the file before you upload. Rename it, compress it, and decide the exact landing page it should point to. The next section covers this in detail.
- Create the account and finish the profile. Add your real brand name, a logo, a short bio and your website URL. A half empty profile looks like spam and gets removed faster.
- Upload one image and write a real description. Say what the image shows in plain words. Two or three sentences beats a line of keywords.
- Add the source link in the right field. Pinterest uses a destination URL. Flickr and Behance use a profile or project field. Plain hosts often only give you a description field. Use what the site offers and do not force a link where it does not belong.
- Tag with the words a human would search. Five to ten specific tags work better than thirty vague ones.
- Record the live URL in a sheet. Note the site, the date, the image and the page URL. You cannot audit what you did not log.
- Check back after two weeks. See which pages still exist and which sent any visits. Drop the sites that did neither and spend that time on the ones that worked.
How to optimise an image before you upload it
Most people lose the value of image submission at this step. They upload a file called IMG_4471.jpg with no description and wonder why nothing happens. Fix these five things first.
File name
Rename the file to describe what it shows, using hyphens between words. Use steel-door-frame-installation.jpg, not IMG_4471.jpg. Google says descriptive file names give it a clue about the subject. Keep it to a few real words and skip the keyword stuffing.
Alt text
Alt text is the written description of the image in your page code. It helps screen reader users first, and search engines second. Write what you would say to someone who cannot see the picture. “Technician fitting a steel door frame in a hospital corridor” is good alt text. “door frame door frames steel door frame price” is not.
Caption and description
The caption sits near the image and the description sits in the upload form. Both are read by people deciding whether to click. Give the context the picture cannot: who, where, what is happening, and why it matters. This field is also what most image sites use to rank your upload inside their own search.
Size and format
Upload a file that is large enough to look sharp and small enough to load fast. For most blog and submission use, 1,200 to 2,000 pixels on the long edge is plenty. Save as WebP or a compressed JPEG for photos, and PNG only when you need transparency. A 6 MB file helps nobody.
What EXIF data does and does not do
Exchangeable image file format (EXIF) data is the information your camera or phone writes into the file. It holds the camera model, the date, the shutter and aperture settings, and sometimes GPS coordinates. Photo communities read it and show it next to your shot, which is genuinely useful there.
Here is the part people get wrong. EXIF data is not a ranking shortcut. Stuffing keywords into an EXIF field will not lift your page in Google, and Google’s own image guidance tells you to use descriptive file names and alt text instead. Many platforms also strip EXIF on upload, so anything you hid there disappears. One real warning: GPS coordinates in a phone photo can expose your home address, so remove location data before you upload personal shots.
Quick answer: Optimise an image by renaming the file in plain words, writing honest alt text, adding a real caption, compressing it to a sensible size, and clearing GPS data from the EXIF before upload.
What makes a submission stick
- An asset worth saving. Original charts, diagrams and real photographs get saved and reshared. Generic graphics get ignored and often deleted.
- A finished profile. Logo, bio, one website link, consistent brand name. Moderators judge the account before they judge the upload.
- A matching landing page. Send the click to the page that explains the image, not the homepage. The visit is wasted if the visitor has to hunt.
- Normal human activity. Follow a few accounts, leave a real comment, upload over weeks instead of dumping fifty files in one hour.
- Variety across platforms. A few uploads on fifteen suitable sites beats forty uploads on one. The same logic applies to infographic submission sites, where placement quality decides everything.
Mistakes that get your submission rejected
- Uploading an image you do not own. Stock photos and screenshots of other people’s work get removed and can get the account banned.
- Putting a sales link in every field the form offers. One clear link is fine. Five is a spam signal.
- Posting promotional graphics to a photography platform. Sites like Unsplash and 1x want photographs, and a banner with your logo on it will fail review.
- Using the same title and description on every site. Duplicate text across fifty uploads reads as automated.
- Creating twenty accounts from one address to get twenty links. Platforms detect this and purge the lot.
- Uploading a watermarked file to a free photo library. Most libraries reject watermarks outright.
- Leaving the file name and description empty. The upload survives, but nobody will ever find it.
Do image submission sites give dofollow links?
Mostly no, and it is better to know that upfront. Large platforms like Pinterest, Flickr, Behance and Tumblr normally mark outbound user links as nofollow. A nofollow link is still a real link that a person can click. It just is not passing the same endorsement a dofollow editorial link does.
Some smaller photo communities and hosts do leave profile or source links as dofollow, and the setting changes whenever a site updates its templates. That is exactly why this post writes “not checked” instead of guessing. If the link type matters for a specific campaign, open the page and look at the markup yourself. Our wider roundup of image sharing sites for SEO covers the same platforms from the sharing and audience angle.
Quick answer: Most image submission sites use nofollow links, so treat them as traffic and brand reach rather than link authority.
Do image submission links still work in 2026?
They work, but not in the way old SEO posts promise. Here is the honest split.
What they do. They get your visual assets indexed in more places. They send referral traffic from people browsing Pinterest, Flickr, Behance and photo communities. They build brand mentions that make your name appear alongside your topic. They create pages you fully control on domains search engines crawl often. They also give AI assistants and image search more material to find when someone looks up your subject.
What they do not do. They do not move rankings on their own. Fifty nofollow image pages will not outrank a competitor with strong editorial links. They do not replace content, technical fixes or real outreach. They also do not survive neglect, since hosts shut down and free tiers turn paid, which is why a list like this needs rechecking every few months.
The sensible way to use them is as one small part of a wider plan. Build the visual asset once, submit it to a sensible handful of platforms, and let it support the page it points to. If you want that asset doing heavier lifting inside a planned content programme, our SEO content strategy service plans the assets and the pages together. For the rules Google itself publishes, read the official Google image SEO best practices documentation.
Frequently asked questions
what is image submission in seo
Image submission in SEO means uploading your picture to a public image sharing site with a title, description and link back to your site. It is part of off page SEO. The aim is extra visibility in image search, referral clicks from that platform, and a brand mention on a domain that search engines crawl regularly.
do image sites give dofollow links
Most do not. Big platforms such as Pinterest, Flickr and Tumblr usually apply nofollow to links users add. A handful of smaller photo communities leave profile links dofollow, but the setting changes without notice. Check the page markup yourself before you count on a link type.
how do i optimise an image for search
Rename the file in plain descriptive words with hyphens. Write alt text that describes what the picture shows. Add a caption with real context. Compress the file so it loads fast, around 1,200 to 2,000 pixels wide for most uses. Strip GPS data from the EXIF before uploading personal photos.
how many image submission sites should i use
Start with ten to fifteen that genuinely fit your subject. A design studio belongs on Behance and Dribbble. A photographer belongs on Flickr and 500px. Quality of fit beats volume. Submitting one asset to sixty unrelated hosts creates a footprint that looks automated and returns almost nothing.
are image submission sites safe for seo
Normal use is safe. Uploading real images you own, with honest descriptions and one link, is the same behaviour as any other user. Risk comes from bulk account creation, duplicate descriptions and stuffing links into every field. That pattern can get accounts banned and wastes the effort entirely.
does exif data help my images rank
No. EXIF holds camera settings, dates and sometimes GPS coordinates. Photo communities display it, which is useful to photographers. Google’s image guidance points to file names, alt text and page context instead. Many sites strip EXIF on upload anyway, so keywords placed there usually vanish.
which image submission sites send the most traffic
Pinterest sends the most for visual and product topics, because people search it directly with buying intent. Flickr, Behance and Dribbble send steady niche traffic for photography and design. Plain hosts like ImgBB and Postimages send almost no traffic, since they host a file rather than build an audience around it.
Final Thoughts
For stronger long-term results, combine image submissions with other off-page SEO techniques, such as infographic submissions, image sharing, quality content creation, and relevant link-building activities. You can also explore more practical SEO guides and digital marketing resources on Digital Soules to build a more effective online visibility strategy.
