Related - SEO for naming imagesIn an effort to increase the perceived speed of a heavy homepage, I'm loading a number of the heavier images via javascript on document.ready.  I'm using a blank gif as a placeholder src in my img tags with all of the appropriate alt and title tags.  When the document is ready, then, I simply swap out the src for the img tags with the real image that I want displayed.All of the images are named SEO appropriate names and alt and title tags are filled with (non-keyword-stuffed) SEO appropriate content.Will this technique have any impact, positive or negative, on how Google perceives and scores the page?
Will delay loading images hurt SEO?
seo;images;ranking
It shouldn't have any effect on the page itself, but by using blank images you won't get any rankings in Image Search.I would first look at reducing the file size of the images on the homepage if possible, e.g. via PNGcrush or using lower-quality JPEGs. Any non-content images can be moved to CSS sprites and loaded as one background image to save on HTTP requests.