Cleaning a 4,000-image WordPress Media Library without breaking SEO
On most WordPress sites, the media library is the dirtiest part of the stack.
Not the theme.
Not the plugins.
Not even performance.
The media library.
Recently, I had to clean a WordPress site with nearly 4,000 images accumulated over several years. Multiple contributors, no rules, no real process.
The challenge wasn’t “optimizing images”.
It was cleaning everything without breaking SEO or existing content.
This article explains what actually goes wrong, what you should never do, and a safe strategy to clean a large WordPress media library.
Why WordPress media libraries rot over time
Media libraries don’t become messy because people are careless.
They rot because WordPress makes …
Cleaning a 4,000-image WordPress Media Library without breaking SEO
On most WordPress sites, the media library is the dirtiest part of the stack.
Not the theme.
Not the plugins.
Not even performance.
The media library.
Recently, I had to clean a WordPress site with nearly 4,000 images accumulated over several years. Multiple contributors, no rules, no real process.
The challenge wasn’t “optimizing images”.
It was cleaning everything without breaking SEO or existing content.
This article explains what actually goes wrong, what you should never do, and a safe strategy to clean a large WordPress media library.
Why WordPress media libraries rot over time
Media libraries don’t become messy because people are careless.
They rot because WordPress makes it very easy to upload files — and very hard to enforce rules.
Over time, you usually end up with:
- Images named
IMG_4839.jpg,final-banner-ok-v3.png,screenshot_2021_12_edited.jpg - Missing or useless ALT attributes
- Images uploaded at 4000px wide for a 1200px layout
- Useful formats blocked by default (SVG, WEBM, ZIP…)
- No consistency between old and new content
Add editors, clients, interns, agencies… and the mess compounds.
The worst part?
Most people are afraid to touch the media library, because they fear breaking pages or SEO.
That fear is justified.
What you should NOT do
Before talking about solutions, let’s be clear about the mistakes.
❌ Manually renaming files
Renaming media files directly (FTP or media replacement) can break:
- internal references
- external links
- cached URLs
- social previews
❌ Re-uploading images “cleanly”
Re-uploading means:
- losing existing URLs
- losing Google Image history
- risking broken layouts
❌ Aggressive compression plugins
Compression is not cleaning.
Compression plugins can:
- degrade image quality
- change file hashes
- trigger layout shifts
- hide structural issues instead of fixing them
❌ Blind AI-generated ALT text
Automatically generating descriptive ALT text without context:
- creates irrelevant descriptions
- introduces semantic noise
- can hurt accessibility and SEO
Automation is fine.
Guessing is not.
The safe cleanup strategy
When dealing with thousands of images, the goal is normalization, not magic.
Here’s a strategy that works reliably.
1. Normalize filenames (without breaking URLs)
You don’t need poetic filenames.
You need clean, readable, predictable ones.
- Remove useless characters (
_, random hashes, duplicated words) - Keep meaningful words when possible
- Apply the same rules everywhere
Done properly, this improves long-term maintainability without breaking references.
2. Generate clean, neutral ALT attributes
ALT text is not a keyword playground.
For large libraries:
- Neutral, descriptive ALT is safer than “creative” ALT
- Consistency is more important than cleverness
- Missing ALT is worse than simple ALT
The goal is accessibility first, SEO second.
3. Resize images (not compress them)
Most WordPress images are simply too large.
Resizing means:
- keeping visual quality
- reducing unnecessary pixels
- matching real display needs
On large sites, resizing alone can save hundreds of megabytes, without touching compression.
4. Control allowed formats properly
WordPress blocks many useful formats by default.
Instead of hacks:
- explicitly allow required formats
- apply proper security rules
- keep control at upload level
This avoids unsafe plugins and manual workarounds.
Real case: cleaning a 4,000-image media library
On this project, the site contained 3,949 images.
After cleanup:
- 79 missing ALT attributes were generated
- 1,150 filenames were normalized
- 80 oversized images were resized
- ~370 MB of disk space was saved
No broken pages.
No URL changes.
No SEO loss.
The tool I used (and why I built it)
To automate this safely, I built a small WordPress plugin called Filikod.
Important clarifications:
- No AI
- No destructive compression
- No guessing
Filikod focuses on:
- predictable automation
- structural cleanup
- long-term consistency
(No hard sell. Just context.)
When automation makes sense (and when it doesn’t)
Automation makes sense when:
- the site has hundreds or thousands of images
- multiple people upload content
- consistency matters over time
Automation is not always necessary for:
- very small sites
- single-author blogs
- temporary projects
The key is control, not speed.
Final thoughts
A messy media library is not a minor issue.
It’s a structural problem that affects:
- performance
- accessibility
- SEO
- long-term maintenance
The solution isn’t magic plugins or AI promises.
It’s boring, predictable cleanup, done safely.
Tools should clean.
Not guess.