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I have a website that allows user to upload and display images.

Currently, I am not using a database to track these user images. A folder having the user id as the folder name is created for each user and under each folder, the image files are labelled numerically with filenames ranging from 01.jpg to 20.jpg. Up to 20 such images can be displayed on each user page.

I am using javascript to hide these images in case of any of them is absent. I have seen many websites having user images with unique random filenames and possibly tracking these files with a database

Since obscurity is not something that I need for these web accessible images, is there any reason why I should track them with a DB?

I am not sure if a reduction of 404 errors is a good enough reason to justify the added complexity of maintaining a database or can anyone enlighten me?

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  • I don't see how a database has anything to do with 404 errors? The two are unrelated. Also, a database itself does not necessarily introduce any more obscurity.
    – MrWhite
    Commented Sep 19, 2012 at 11:42

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If your system works as it is now, I don't think it will be a good idea to move on. Since you will need lots of migration, script update, etc ..

From my point of view, the only reason you should store an image in DB (store only the path, not as binary) is to easily retrieve them. That's all. If you write your code depending on id as image filename, that's fine. On an other side, you're saving query from the DB. You don't have to query the DB to retrieve filename.

From a SEO point of view, it will be better if the image isn't only an id. Google (or what ever search engine) won't really know what 18.jpg is. It will have a better idea if you use an alt attribute, of course. But it will be better for him if you use slug instead and id (to retrieve them easily), like user-avatar-question-overflow-18.jpg. But this can also be done without a DB.

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  • +1 Commercially, if you have a working system and don't require any additional functionality then don't "upgrade". If you aren't storing any additional 'data' (tracking stats, image data, etc.) then is there any need at all for a database? The filesystem is the database. (Although on a system where you have multiple users uploading content, then it's hard to imagine that you don't require more 'data' to be stored, in which case a database would probably be mandatory.) - basically what j0k says. :)
    – MrWhite
    Commented Sep 19, 2012 at 12:10
  • Can you clarify your last point? Does adding a constant prefix to 20 images help improve SEO? I thought it is useful if only the description is unique for each file. But that would require DB. I haven't launch the site yet. So would you still recommend keeping same? @w3d is right. I do have database, it is just whether I want to allocate resources for this purpose. Thanks and +1 :)
    – Question Overflow
    Commented Sep 19, 2012 at 13:54
  • @QuestionOverflow I'm not a seo expert about image indexing. But I'm sure that Google will preferer user-avatar-question-overflow-18.jpg over 18.jpg. And if you can't have a different slug for each image, I think it's still a plus value to have one.
    – j0k
    Commented Sep 19, 2012 at 14:32

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