 <p>I think he's resolving your empty bind as <code>url(undefined)</code>.. So He'll try to resolve the URL <code>http://&lt;domain&gt;/path/to/your/page/undefined</code> .</p> <p>Do you initialize <code>scope.image_url</code> on page load? </p> <p>To prevent this, I suggest to bind the <strong>entire</strong> style attribute, and not only the <code>url()</code> ... If there is no "empty" <code>url()</code>, I think it won't load a random request... Or if the background is only static, use CSS classes instead of <code>style</code> attribute...</p>