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Glossary Term

WebP Format.

Learn what WebP Format means in modern search and SEO.

Part of speechnounOriginAcronym: Web Picture format

A modern image format developed by Google that provides superior lossless and lossy compression compared to JPEG and PNG.

WebP is an image format created by Google that delivers images at 25–34% smaller file sizes than comparable JPEG images at equivalent visual quality. It supports both lossless and lossy compression, transparency (like PNG), and animation (like GIF).

Impact on Core Web Vitals

Smaller image files transfer faster, directly improving Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) when images are the page's largest visible element. Serving WebP via a CDN with proper cache headers is one of the highest-ROI technical SEO quick wins available.

Browser Support and the `<picture>` Element

All major browsers support WebP, but the HTML `<picture>` element with multiple `<source>` formats ensures legacy browsers fall back to JPEG or PNG gracefully. Next-generation formats like AVIF offer even greater compression for browsers that support them.

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