SEO of Image Thumbnail Links

Comment on Stallion Responsive SEO Theme Layout Options by Erik.

Have been doing some tweaks of features and generally reviewing my links, especially those generated site-wide or via features I have switched on site-wide.

I have been thinking a lot about the thumbnail images lately (both on archive pages and those generated by the widgets such as Stallion SEO Posts).

I am wondering if there is SEO benefit to having the images linked in addition to the text links.

I can see the user benefit in that some people are accustomed to having linked images and it makes it more likely/easier for someone to click through to that page just by clicking on the image (via a popular posts widget for example).

Is there anything to be gained SEO-wise by having, and conversely, removing these image links? I am just wondering if I need so many links say from the archive page to a given post.

As it stands right now with the image links switched on, we’ve got it linked three times from archive pages: 1) the post title, 2) following “Continue reading [post link]”, and 3) the thumbnail image link.

If I use the Stallion SEO Posts widget, then I have 2 links: 1) the post title link and 2) the image link.

I realize that the image link has a different ending (ie, #img_rand instead of #text_rand), but doesn’t this still count as an additional link to that post? That’s what the internal linking tool I use tells me, in any case.

In looking at flow of link benefit, maybe 2 or just 1 links from posts featured via these archive pages/widgets is enough? Would there be any benefit in having a feature to switch this off?

If for example I removed image thumbnail links on my main index page, that would cut out 10 links which are going to posts that are already twice linked (and possibly even more with the recent articles widget active) from my most powerful page (homepage). Maybe that link benefit would be better spread to my more important pages (such as those featured in my main menu links).

I really don’t know the answer, but just wondering about any thoughts you have on this topic.

Thanks as always Dave.