What Is WebP? Modern Image Format Explained for UK Websites

WebP is a raster image format, just like JPEG or PNG, developed by Google and released in 2010. Google designed it specifically to make web images smaller and faster to load. The format uses advanced compression technology based on video compression techniques to reduce file sizes by 25 to 35% compared to JPEG and PNG whilst maintaining the same visual quality.

Think of WebP as a more efficient packing method. It fits the same image into a smaller box without crushing the contents. The format is remarkably versatile, supporting both lossy compression (like JPEG, good for photographs) and lossless compression (like PNG, good for graphics with text or sharp edges). It also handles transparency through an alpha channel and even animation, effectively replacing GIF for simple moving images.

Google created WebP to solve a practical web problem: images are typically the largest files on a webpage. Smaller images mean faster loading, lower bandwidth costs and better user experience. For website owners, this translates directly to happier visitors and lower hosting bills.

The file size savings from WebP are substantial and measurable. WebP lossless files are typically 26% smaller than equivalent PNG files. WebP lossy files are 25 to 34% smaller than comparable quality JPEGs. In some cases, lossy WebP can be up to 50% smaller than PNG.

Here’s a practical example: a 500KB PNG photograph might compress to around 250KB as WebP without visible quality loss, saving 250KB per image. If your homepage displays 10 images, switching to WebP could reduce total image weight from 5MB to 3MB or less, cutting page load time significantly, especially on mobile connections.

Animated WebP files deliver even more impressive savings. They’re substantially smaller than GIF, often 64% smaller, whilst supporting 24-bit colour (16.7 million colours) versus GIF’s limited 8-bit palette (256 colours). Your animated product showcases or instructional animations load faster with richer colour support.

The exact savings depend on image content. Photographs with gradients compress very well, whilst simple graphics may see smaller gains. Still, the average 25 to 35% reduction applies across most website imagery.

Smaller image files deliver two critical benefits for website owners: faster loading times and better search engine rankings. These advantages work together to improve your site’s performance and visibility.

Smaller image files load faster, especially on mobile networks like 4G and 5G and for visitors with slower broadband. Pages that load in under 2 seconds keep visitors engaged. Delays of even 1 to 2 seconds increase bounce rates, meaning visitors leave immediately without exploring your content.

WebP’s smaller files reduce the amount of data transferred from your hosting server to visitors’ browsers, meaning less waiting time. This particularly benefits image-heavy sites like online shops, portfolios and blogs. Faster loading also reduces server load and bandwidth consumption, which matters if your hosting plan has bandwidth limits or you pay for data transfer, common on VPS or cloud hosting.

UK hosting providers including Krystal and SiteGround document WebP as a recommended format for customers on shared hosting to reduce bandwidth usage and improve site performance. The bandwidth savings become substantial when serving hundreds or thousands of page views each month.

Google uses site speed as a ranking factor through Core Web Vitals metrics, specifically Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) which measures how quickly the main content loads. Often, the main content is a large image like a hero banner or product photo.

Since 2021, Core Web Vitals have been part of Google’s ranking algorithm, meaning faster-loading images can directly improve your search visibility. Switching to WebP can improve your LCP score by reducing the time it takes for hero images, product photos or featured images to appear. Google’s own PageSpeed Insights tool actively recommends serving images in next-gen formats like WebP.

WebP addresses a specific technical factor in Google’s algorithm and provides a measurable advantage over sites still using heavier JPEG and PNG files. For competitive keywords, these improvements can influence your position in search results.

WebP’s versatility sets it apart from older image formats. It combines capabilities that previously required multiple formats, simplifying your image workflow.

JPEG only supports lossy compression, which means some quality loss for smaller files. PNG only supports lossless compression, which preserves perfect quality but produces larger files. WebP supports both modes, meaning you can use one format for all image types: lossy WebP for photographs (like JPEG) and lossless WebP for logos, diagrams and graphics with text (like PNG).

This simplifies your workflow. You don’t need to decide between formats based on compression type. WebP handles both use cases efficiently.

PNG is commonly used for images with transparent backgrounds, such as logos, icons and graphics overlaid on other content, because JPEG doesn’t support transparency. However, PNG files with transparency are often very large.

WebP supports transparency through an alpha channel in both lossy and lossless modes and produces much smaller files than PNG, often 26% smaller or more. A logo with transparent background that’s 200KB as PNG might be 140KB as WebP with identical visual appearance. For sites using dozens of transparent graphics, the cumulative savings are substantial.

GIF has been the standard for simple animations on the web, from memes to product demos to short clips. However, GIF is inefficient: it’s limited to 256 colours (8-bit) and produces large files. WebP supports animation with 24-bit colour (16.7 million colours, the same as photographs) and produces files up to 64% smaller than equivalent GIFs.

Animated product showcases or instructional animations benefit from WebP’s smaller file sizes and expanded colour range. Whilst video formats like MP4 are even more efficient for longer clips, animated WebP is ideal for short loops that need to behave like images: auto-play, no controls, inline in content.

As of 2026, WebP is supported by over 97% of web browsers globally, including all modern versions of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Apple Safari and Opera. This near-universal support means the vast majority of your visitors will see WebP images without any issues.

Safari, Apple’s browser, was the last major holdout, adding full WebP support in 2020 with macOS Big Sur and iOS 14. This means even iPhone and Mac users are covered. Only very old browsers like Internet Explorer and ancient versions of Safari lack support, and these represent a tiny fraction of web traffic in 2026.

Best practice is still to provide a fallback image in JPEG or PNG format using the HTML picture element, which automatically serves WebP to compatible browsers and falls back to JPEG or PNG for the rare older browser. This fallback is simple to implement and ensures no visitor sees a broken image. The picture element wraps a source tag for WebP and an img tag for the fallback format, letting the browser choose the best option automatically.

Adopting WebP involves two steps: converting your existing images and implementing them on your site. Both processes are straightforward, with tools available for every skill level.

Several conversion approaches suit different needs. Online tools like Google’s Squoosh offer a free, browser-based, drag-and-drop interface for individual images. Desktop software like Adobe Photoshop (version 23.2 and later supports WebP natively), GIMP (free and open-source) and Canva all handle WebP conversion.

For batch processing multiple images at once, command-line tools like cwebp (Google’s official converter) work efficiently. Bulk conversion services or plugins for WordPress and other CMSs automate the process for larger image libraries. Squoosh works well for beginners converting a few images manually, whilst cwebp or plugins suit larger collections.

Conversion is non-destructive. You can keep your original JPEG and PNG files as backups. Once converted, you’ll need to upload the WebP files to your web server using FTP software like FileZilla to transfer them to your hosting account.

Two main implementation methods exist. The first is replacing image files directly: upload WebP versions and update image references in your HTML or CMS. This approach is simple but offers no fallback for old browsers.

The recommended approach uses the HTML picture element, which serves WebP to modern browsers and JPEG or PNG fallback to old browsers automatically. The picture tag wraps a source element pointing to the WebP file and an img element pointing to the fallback format. Browsers that understand WebP use the source, whilst older browsers ignore it and use the img fallback.

Advanced users can configure automatic WebP serving via .htaccess rules on Apache servers, eliminating the need to modify HTML for each image. This server-level approach works well for sites with many images.

WordPress users can automate WebP conversion and implementation using plugins like Jetpack (includes automatic WebP serving), ShortPixel, Imagify or EWWW Image Optimizer. These plugins convert images on upload and serve WebP to compatible browsers automatically, handling both conversion and fallback without manual HTML editing.

Some UK hosting providers offer built-in WebP conversion. SiteGround’s SG Optimizer plugin and Kinsta’s automatic image optimisation both include WebP support. UK hosts like SiteGround and Kinsta include automatic WebP conversion in their WordPress hosting plans, so check your hosting dashboard or cPanel file manager before installing extra plugins.

Other CMSs like Joomla, Drupal and Shopify have similar extensions or built-in support. Check your hosting provider’s documentation to see if they offer automatic WebP support first.

WebP doesn’t require special server software. Any web server, whether Apache, NGINX or LiteSpeed, can serve WebP files just like JPEG or PNG. All modern UK hosting providers support it by default. WebP files are uploaded and managed just like JPEGs or PNGs via SFTP, with no special configuration needed.

The main hosting benefit is bandwidth savings. Smaller image files mean less data transferred from your server to visitors, which reduces bandwidth usage. This matters if your hosting plan has a monthly bandwidth limit (common on shared hosting) or if you pay for bandwidth overages on VPS or cloud hosting.

Some providers offer automatic WebP conversion as a feature. Cloudflare’s CDN service includes “Polish” which auto-converts images to WebP on the fly. SiteGround and Kinsta (managed WordPress hosts) offer built-in WebP optimisation. Hostinger includes image optimisation tools in their control panel. UK providers like SiteGround, Kinsta and Krystal offer automatic WebP conversion in their WordPress hosting plans, whilst Cloudflare’s free CDN plan includes WebP conversion via the Polish feature.

WebP also reduces server load slightly, as there’s less data to read from disk and send over the network. This can improve performance on shared hosting where resources are limited. Advanced users can use URL rewrite rules to automatically serve WebP versions when available, further streamlining delivery.

WebP delivers particular value for image-heavy sites like online shops, photography portfolios and blogs with lots of photos, where bandwidth and speed are critical. The cumulative savings across thousands of monthly visitors add up quickly.

WebP has few genuine drawbacks, but understanding them helps you implement the format properly. Very old browsers like Internet Explorer and Safari versions before 2020 don’t support WebP, but these represent less than 3% of web traffic in 2026 and are easily handled with fallback images using the picture element.

Some image editing software doesn’t support WebP natively, though major tools like Photoshop, GIMP and Canva now do. Windows 10 and 11 support WebP preview in File Explorer, but older Windows versions may not show thumbnails. This is a minor inconvenience for site owners but has no impact on visitors.

Conversion takes time and effort if you have a large existing image library, though plugins can automate this. Lossy WebP compression, like JPEG, is not reversible. Once compressed, you can’t recover the original quality, so keep original files as backups.

Some people find WebP frustrating for offline use, such as saving images from websites, because older desktop software may not open WebP files. However, this is increasingly rare as software updates. In rare cases, older servers may need the WebP MIME type (image/webp) configured manually for files to display correctly, though most modern hosting environments handle this automatically.

These limitations are minor compared to the file size and performance benefits. Most are addressed through proper implementation: fallbacks for old browsers, keeping original files and using modern tools.

AVIF (AV1 Image Format) is an even newer format, standardised in 2019, that offers better compression than WebP. It can produce files 20 to 30% smaller than WebP at the same quality. However, AVIF has much lower browser support as of 2026. Chrome and Firefox support it, Safari has partial support and Edge added support recently, but adoption is not yet widespread.

AVIF encoding is also slower and more CPU-intensive than WebP, making it less practical for real-time conversion on busy websites. WebP offers near-universal browser support, mature tooling and documented performance benefits in 2026. AVIF may become more widely adopted in future years, but WebP is the broadly compatible choice today.

Some advanced setups serve AVIF to browsers that support it, WebP as a fallback and JPEG or PNG as a final fallback. However, this adds complexity and is overkill for most small business sites. For the vast majority of website owners, WebP offers the best balance of compression, compatibility and ease of implementation.

WebP is a modern, versatile image format that delivers substantial file size reductions compared to JPEG and PNG without sacrificing visual quality, making it the practical standard for faster-loading websites in 2026. It supports everything you need: lossy and lossless compression, transparency and animation, effectively replacing JPEG, PNG and GIF in one format.

With over 97% browser support and simple fallback options, adopting WebP presents minimal compatibility risk. The benefits are substantial: faster page loads (especially on mobile), lower bandwidth usage (reducing hosting costs and server load) and improved Core Web Vitals scores that can positively influence Google rankings. Implementation is straightforward. WordPress plugins and many UK hosting providers offer automatic WebP conversion, so you don’t need technical expertise.

For anyone running an image-heavy website like an online shop, portfolio or blog, switching to WebP represents a significant performance improvement you can implement in 2026. Whilst newer formats like AVIF may gain broader adoption in future, WebP is the proven, widely-supported choice today. If you’re unsure whether your current hosting setup supports WebP or need help optimising your site’s performance, our free advice service can help you choose the right web hosting provider and configuration for your needs.