“Using <img> Instead of next/image” is a high priority performance issue that shows up in Next.js projects. It is one of the 125+ checks NexusBro runs on every audit — the kind of problem that is easy to miss in code review yet cheap to fix once you know exactly what to look for.
Left unaddressed, it slows page loads, hurts Core Web Vitals, and wastes the crawl budget search engines give your site. The good news: this is a well-understood pattern with a deterministic check and a concrete fix, both of which are below. You can verify it by hand using the command shown, or let an automated scan find every instance of it across your whole site in one pass.
NexusBro checks for this automatically during a Next.js audit. To verify it yourself, run the check below and apply the fix it describes:
Ensure next/image used instead of <img>: grep -rn '<img ' src/ --include="*.tsx" --include="*.ts" | grep -v node_modules. Raw <img> tags bypass Next.js image optimization (WebP, lazy loading, sizing).
Performance issues compound: each one adds milliseconds that push you below the threshold where users bounce and search engines down-rank. Because they are spread across many files, they are easy to overlook in review but straightforward to fix once a tool points to the exact spot.
NexusBro audits your whole site for this check and 120+ others across performance, SEO, accessibility, and security, then hands you a copy-paste fix prompt for your AI coding tool. Free for your first scan, no signup required.
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