# Would allowing images hosted on other websites burden the SDMB servers?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-allowing-images-hosted-on-other-websites-burden-the-sdmb-servers/470831>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [November 3, 2008, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-allowing-images-hosted-on-other-websites-burden-the-sdmb-servers/470831 "2008-11-03T06:45:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\
**Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-allowing-images-hosted-on-other-websites-burden-the-sdmb-servers/470831/1 "2008-11-03T06:45:22Z")

</div>

This is a factual question, and not a request for a feature.

If the SDMB (or any message board for that matter) allowed images in posts, but only images that were hosted on other websites, e.g. [photobucket.com](http://photobucket.com), would the message board servers have an increased burden vs text-only threads?

I would assume no, but I don’t know the inner workings of message board software. Can someone knowledgeable explain?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\
**Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-allowing-images-hosted-on-other-websites-burden-the-sdmb-servers/470831/2 "2008-11-03T07:03:23Z")

</div>

> [@Polerius](#):
>
> I would assume no, but I don’t know the inner workings of message board software. Can someone knowledgeable explain?

That is correct, provided the images are indeed hosted off-site, and not hosted as an integral attachment. The [noparse][img][/noparse]tags don’t create added queries to the server.