Fail

Hi webwitnl,

Thanks for taking the time to write a review. To be honest, we’d have appreciated it if you had opened a support thread so we could help you understand why these things happen instead of immediately writing a 1-star rating, which we find a bit harsh ??

Addressing your questions/observations:

1. The first time an image is accessed?(each new image size is considered a “new” image), it’s registered for processing by ShortPixel. However, so that the customer doesn’t have to wait a few seconds, the original image is immediately returned via an HTTP 307 redirect. After a few seconds, or even minutes in extreme cases, the image hosted on the CDN should be displayed when the page is refreshed. Please note that the time it takes for the image to become available often depends on your browser’s cache.
   This is most likely what is happening on your site, but don’t worry, while the images are being read by https://cdn.shortpixel.ai, we indicate their origin to the search engines via HTTP headers, so there is no penalty from Google.
2. This is to be expected, and it is not because the images in the CDN have expired. Each device uses a different viewport, and that means a new image size, which leads us to the first point above. So it’s not an expiration issue, it’s a temporary redirect until the new image size is processed and stored on the CDN. If you don’t have a lot of traffic, you can use the “Size Breakpoints” setting, which will help you increase the number of hits.
3. I’m not sure what you mean by closest WebP or AVIF, but by default the exact size is served. If you want a close size, then the “Size Breakpoints” setting is for you.

I would send you links to our documentation, but the WordPress forum guidelines don’t allow that.

Please take another look at the plugin and our documentation and let us know if you have any questions. We will be happy to help you and make you reconsider the rating of this review ??

Cheers!

You seem to lack awareness of the issues, while painfully redirecting me to the docs.

1. If you go to google search console, grab a page and check the analysis, it shows multiple 307’s per image even if the image was already processed. To save energy while crawling, Google gives up external resources such as images, css and javascript after some point, in this case the point being an avalanche of 307 redirects. When you check the screenshot of how Google sees such a page, it’s incomplete. Have you ever tried it? It doesn’t seem to, it seems you don’t know this process and your SEO claims are void.
2. I know how it is supposed to work. Images which have long been processed and served from the CDN for a certain viewport, are later redirected to the origin again as they no longer exist on the CDN. Even for my viewport, and as the creator all the images have already been seen on my viewport and have been processed, but later I get the originals again. Are you denying processed images are being expired after some time to save storage space? It breaks the whole premise. Why does your plugin not mention this expiry?
3. Come on, if I have an original jpg of 2000×2000, the client wants a 1000×1000 avif and it isn’t there yet, but there is a previously processed 1500×1500 avif, it should use the last one, not the original jpg.

Hi webwitnl,

Allow me please to explain everything to you so that there are no misunderstandings and I can clear up your doubts.

1. We know that the Google Search Console analysis shows 307 redirects. But this analysis doesn’t reflect real life, just like a score on PageSpeed Insights doesn’t reflect the actual loading speed of a website. Even if you see 307 redirects, Google is smart enough to understand where the redirects are going, and like I said, we give the search engines their origin via HTTP headers, so there’s no penalty from Google. To be clear: The live test can have these kinds of issues. The real indexing uses other methods so that it can more reliably capture everything and see your site as it is. The proof of this is that our plugin is used by hundreds of thousands of users and we have never received a complaint like yours.
2. No, we do not deny that processed images get expired after some time. This does indeed happen, but the expiration time is in the order of weeks.
3. Thank you for your feedback. We will definitely take it into account for future versions of our plugin.

I would like to add that this is a review and not a support thread. So I would appreciate it if you could email us at [email protected] if you would like to discuss this matter further.

Thank you.

1. You don’t get it, our research was in response to Google search index errors. Yet you make blanket claims about SEO again. Perhaps you should do actual research before making claims.
2. Expiration time is less than a couple of weeks, yesterday it threw everything out again after barely surviving one week. Tests with various viewports at various times show that more than 50% of the images are not optimized even after images should have been processed. It breaks your product. You break it to save on storage costs at the expense of your customers.

We don’t need support, we will no longer use your product.

Hi webwitnl,

Thank you for your feedback. We’re sorry to hear that our plugin did not meet your expectations. We understand your concerns and will look into them further to improve our product.

If you ever reconsider or have any other questions, feel free to reach out to us.