The “Using the <PICTURE> tag syntax” option replaces the img HTML tags with picture tags so that ShortPixel can deliver WebP and/or AVIF files correctly. It is one of the two options you can use to deliver next generation images on your website. You can find it at Settings > ShortPixel > Advanced > Next Generation Images.
There are a few possible explanations for why this delivery method does not work and you still see the JPG/PNG/GIF versions instead of WebP/AVIF:
- You optimized all your Media Library before selecting the “Create WebP versions of the images” option. Please check out this article: I optimized already all the images but then I realized that I didn’t select the option to generate next-gen images, what can I do?
- The WebP or AVIF version was not generated on purpose because they are larger than the original image. Check out this article: Why is my image not converted to WebP or AVIF?
- The original image is in a folder outside the typical uploads folder (which is /wp-content/uploads/). Please take note of where exactly the images are stored and add the paths as custom media folders: How to optimize images of WordPress themes and plugins
- The images are background images. If your images are loaded via CSS with the
background-imageproperty, ShortPixel Image Optimizer cannot serve them as WebP or AVIF using this method. - The lazy-loading solution you are using conflicts with SPIO. Try disabling all lazy loading features on your website to see if this fixes the problem. If it does, we recommend that you use a different lazy-loading solution.
- The images are served via JavaScript mechanisms.
- A cache solution is serving old pages. It can be your browser, server, CDN or a cache plugin. Try clearing them all: How to clear WordPress cache
- You have used a page builder for page creation. Our feature may not work well with pages created with some of these tools.
- You have a Windows Plesk server. You need to add a MIME type for .webp (
image/webp .webp) or .avif (image/avif .avif) extensions on your server.
If none of these apply to your case, you should try an alternative solution for next-gen images delivery:
- Use the second next generation image delivery option built into SPIO (Without altering the page code (via .htaccess)): WebP instructions / AVIF instructions
- If you have an NGINX server, you can configure NGINX to transparently serve next-gen format files when supported.
- Add ShortPixel Adaptive Images to your site and use it to serve the next-gen images. Read more about the differences between ShortPixel Image Optimizer and ShortPixel Adaptive Images here: ShortPixel Adaptive Images vs. ShortPixel Image Optimizer.
- Use another plugin to deliver the WebP/AVIF files created by ShortPixel, such as Cache Enabler or WP Rocket.
- If you use LiteSpeed Cache, you can use it to deliver the WebP files generated by ShortPixel.