Embed links are a great tool to share your images and other content directly to your website or Content Management System using a URL created by Image Relay. Using embed links prevents you from having to store your assets in more than one place. Further, if you need to update an image or other files, you need only replace it with a new version on Image Relay and it will update the image on your website; the URL remains the same. 

Unlike quick links, Collections, or your internal Image Relay library, be aware that embed links are searchable on the web by browsers like Google. 

If you would like to learn more about creating embed links, check out this article. For best practices, read on. 

CDN and Bandwidth 

Using embed links for your website can increase your bandwidth usage. For this reason, we strongly encourage clients who implement embed links also utilize our CDN service to bring bandwidth usage down. 

CDN stands for Content Delivery Network and is a distributed network of servers at geographical locations around the world. The purpose of using a CDN is to shorten the physical distance between the server where your content lives and user searching for content. This is achieved by making copies of your Image Relay library and storing them on the distributed servers. In doing so your content will load faster and use significantly less bandwidth. 

If you would like to implement CDN services or learn more, please contact support@imagerelay.com. 

Best Files Types for Embed Links

Some filetypes are much better suited for embed links than others. Generally, these filetypes are low in resolution and size and are well suited to load on various web-connected devices including smartphones, tablets, and desktops. They include: 

• .jpeg

• .png

• .gif

Files Not Recommended for Embed Links: 

Image Relay supports many filetypes, but many of them are not well-suited for embed links. These are most anything not listed above including: 

• Vector Files (ex: .eps, .svg) 

• Working Files (ex: .ind, .ai, .psd)

• Documents (ex: .doc, .ppt. .xls) 

• Video (ex: .mov, .mpeg, .mp4)

• Audio (ex: .wav, .vox.) 

• Raw Camera Files/High Res Image (ex: .tiff, .cr2, .crw) 

The files listed above are not recommended because the user viewing the embedded file may not have a consistent experience or the file may be too large to load. In some cases, they may receive a file that is difficult or impossible for them to view. 

For example, if you create an embed link to a video that was created on an Apple computer in .mov format, a Windows user might not be able to view the video. In the case of raw camera files, original photos are often 5 MB or larger. They can take a long time to download, especially on mobile, and in general, are not what the end-user actually wanted to receive. PDFs may load in-browser on certain computers, but in other cases, they may force the user to download the PDF and view it on their own device. 

If you do need to embed a video file on your website, we recommend uploading it to YouTube or Vimeo and using their embed feature. 

Share Links

While you may not be able to embed the files listed above, you can certainly share the files to colleagues, clients and more using our share links feature. You can also add share links to your website for the public to see.

The share links provide high-quality previews of all of the files listed above and more, including video and audio. They have been created to work with any browser or operating system and use low bandwidth. Learn more about creating share links in this article. 

Further Resources:
Creating Embed Links
Sharing Files and Folders