Does this plugin work for me?

Hi,

Please let me explain first my though about image and SEO:
Unlike a lot of people I don’t think image path would change anything to your SEO, it may have been one of the suggested optimization back in 2012, but nowadays nothing tend to prove that it may work anymore.

I do think that image name, alt text, structured data, image quality and optimization is far more important than the image path.
Note that I make a clear distinction between image name and path.
By the way nowhere in Google documentation image path is mentioned
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/114016?hl=en

I would more change uploads/apple/iphone7/1.jpg to 2018/11/iphone7-front.jpg that would fit more the Google recommandations.

From my point of view it doesn’t worth it (please refers to my technical informations at the end of the answer)

Now let me explain exactly what my plugin does.
It allow you to change the attachments path and name.
It has also the integration with WP Media Folder from Joomunited, when a file is moved into any Joomunited’s virtual folder, my plugin will move actual files in the server to reflect the virtual path.

If you have already added all your images to the library and if they are sorted in the folders you want, then you just have to install the plugin, go to the plugin settings page and click on the “Move existing media” button.
It will move all your media which are in the upload/… folders to actual folders based on the virtual ones created by WP Media Folder (from Joomunited)

BUT as you have 50K images, I also assume that you have a lot of pages and posts, it will need a lot of server resources.
As WordPress is not intended to allow moving files like my plugin does, the process is a bit complex.
It will search into every column in every table in your database to replace the old image path by the new one for each image you use.
It means 50k images * 20 tables (for a small website) * 10 (columns) = 10000000 databases update requests.
It requires a lot of CPU and memory.

Also if you use plugins that deals with attachments on a way which is not expected this could lead to broken images links in your database.
You must make a full backup of your website before trying to move all your files.

As I said previously, I don’t think the SEO benefit (if there is one) worth it.
I would suggest to focus on other optimizations that may have a better impact with less possible problems.

Hope my explanations are clear enough.

Best regards

Thank you for you quick answer @dbarre.

The biggest problem we have is that we have already had those images on our uploads folder. They were imported to wordpress database with another plugin that we used before. What I want to do is tag those images according to their ftp folder name. When I click server import on WP media folder, it duplicates the images.

There are 50k images on uploads folder but only around 10k images are matched with 750 products. Other ones are not attached to any products/posts. We did a bulk upload with brand folders and product folders inside them. Is there way to delete everything except for these attached images? I mean that we will keep the used images and delete others and import everything again with WP Media Folder and then move them according folder with your plugin. With this process, we will have only 10k duplicate images instead of 50k.

Your case seems complicated.

You can’t tag the images with my plugin, I don’t think you can either on Joomunited’s plugin.
You may need to make your own script for that.

About the number of images imported, even if the file is not attached or used in the database, my plugin will still have to check in all the tables.
Each file imported and/or moved will generate database queries.

Best regards

You can’t tag the images with my plugin, I don’t think you can either on Joomunited’s plugin.
You may need to make your own script for that.

No I mean categorization. Since it is a virtual folders, I used the word “tagging”. Sorry my bad.

What do you suggest?
Actually all we wanted was to use FTP for media library management. I cannot understand why wordpress makes this so difficult. When we were using opencart, it was super easy. In wordpress, you have to do everyting twice (1- upload ftp, 2- sync it with a plugin. Or 1)change an image file, 2-sync it again).

We are stuck. What would you do if you were in my situation?
1) Categorize existing media manually. (50k)
2) Delete everything and clear database and re-upload images and re-import it with the plugin and replace missing images (which is all) on 780 existing products again.
3) Find a way to restore existing product images and then delete everything else and re-import with the plugin.

I understood tag/categorization don’t worry.

If I was you, I would choose the option with less actions to do, I think the 2 is better, but it’s days of work.

But yes 3 is the best, but I’m a coder, I’d do a script for that, or at least a bunch of sql queries ??

But in any case the ftp file management is not an easy way to manage attachements in a WP website.

Could you help us with the 3rd option if you offer paid support?
I’m ready to pay as this is a painful process for us ??

Hi,

It’s not something I generally do, but you can contact me at damien.barrere [at] gmail [dot] com.

Best regards