Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Keyword Stuffing in Alt Tags!
-
Hello,
I have on a main page over 50 images. The first page i want to optimize it for MAINKW (let's say).
Now, if i use in the alt tags "MAINKW KW1", "MAINKW KW2", "MAINKW KW3" ... "MAINKW KW50" then Google may say that i stuff the MAINKW in that page?
Those images are reprezentative for main Categories and i have direct links to them from the main page with the anchors KW1, KW2...KW50.
-
Thank you for the answer Harald.
At first it seemed right to me to have nice alt tags. But now i am sure that it is text which can be read both by humans and engines and it is not ok to stuff those KW.
I will rewrite them. I am curious though if i'll rank better after that.
-
Hi Stefanita,
First of all Keeping in mind that the alt-text is meant to be an alternative text that could be shown in place of the image (and accordingly, it's indexed as part of the page), it could be confusing to see the exact same text over and over again," said Mu. "Search engines generally aren't impressed by seeing the same text that many times, so I'd simplify that a bit by perhaps using the full text for the main product image, but not reusing it for all of the smaller detail-images."
Using alt tags is definitely best practice but keyword stuffing (anywhere really) is not. Keep alt tags short, descriptive and relevant to the image they are being used for and you'll all but guarantee that alt tags help (and not hurt) your rankings.
editor's note: see the complete post at http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/archive/2011/04/26/keyword-stuffing-alt-tags-for-google.aspx
By doing the above mentioned it leads to keywords stuffing.
.Filling
alt
attributes with keywords ("keyword stuffing") results in a negative user experience, and may cause your site to be perceived as spam. Instead, focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context. We recommend testing your content by using a text-only browser such as Lynx.Hope that you found the solution.
-
If this occours as part of labeling the images naturaly, I suspect you'll avoid penalisation (but I wouldn't expect you to get a bonus for MINKW, you might for the long tail however)
Generaly, I would be carful using alt tags for pure SEO benifit. They are there to help with accessability, and you risk losing that if your alt doesn't describe you image. (or at least most of them)
-
Salut Stefanita,
"Keyword stuffed" alt tags might look spammy. Use the alt to describe your image - give a relevant description while using the keywords. You can use around 140 characters and you can actually rank for long tail keywords and be found on google images. You can make the first image relevant for your main keywords, but after that just make relevant descriptive text.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
H1 tag positioning impact
Hello, I am currently working with a dev team to develop a new site. We have designed the title tags to sit below a banner image on each page but the technical team are insisting the h1 title tags must come above the banner for maximum SEO impact. I am sceptical about this, can anybody please shed some light and/or share any up to date resource on this? I have attached a side by side wireframe to illustrate the pages with the h1 tags in both positions. Thank you! HnWcLTx
On-Page Optimization | | Popidev0 -
How many keywords should I optimize a page for?
Hi, There is a lot of debate going on on whether to use a single keyword per page or multiple keywords per page. What I know for sure is that it is not advisable to repeat the same exact keyword in different pages. I need to optimize product pages, categories and pages for an online store and still do not know if it is better to: 1-work with one main keyword per page plus latent semantic keywords, 2-to optimize a page for multiple different keywords (2 to 4 keywords) which are strongly related to the main topic or to the product sold in a particular product page 3- use single keyword for each page (and no more than one keyword per page). Some seo gurus argue this is the best way to get higher ranking for that particular page in the serps. My personal opinion would be 1 or 2, but I would like to hear what you suggest and think about it. Any suggestion or opinion is welcome and appreciated. Thanks in advance
On-Page Optimization | | cinzia090 -
Title tag length
Hi, I am fairly new to SEO and have just noticed the end of my title text has been cut off by Google in the serps results. Everything i have read tells me titles should be maximum of 70 characters, however, Google is only displaying 54. See below Security systems | wireless | battery powered | Police... Nobody else on the page is showing more than 54 characters. Am i missing something obvious? Any and all help gratefully appreciated. Thanks Si
On-Page Optimization | | DaddySmurf0 -
ALT tagging images with keyword. What is too much?
I was wondering about the best practices of ALT tags in images. Say if you have an eCommerce site and you're on a product page. This product page has 5 images of the same product (different images), should you give every image an Alt tag with the keyword for that page? Or, is that keyword stuffing, and it would actually be best practice be to provide alt tags on just one image?
On-Page Optimization | | John_Francis0 -
Rel canonical tag back to the same page the tag is on?
Very simple, Why would a website (and I have seen tons doing this) link the rel canonical tag back to the same page the tag is on? Example: somepage.htm has a canonical tag linking to somepage.htm I thought the idea of this tag was to tell google if 2 pages are similar, this page is the original, and it's this page which should be indexed and the page with the tag on should pass all PR to the original. Maybe im wrong and someone can help me out to understand this.
On-Page Optimization | | activitysuper0 -
Image titles and alt tags for multiple images
I'm hoping some of you may be able to help me understand the best way to optimize my image titles and alt tags for a specific situation. I'm working on an interior design website and they have hundreds of pictures. each of their projects has about 10 pictures. Is it best for me to us the key phrase in each title and tag? or is that to repetitive? here is what I mean: A project called "urban interior design" all images are of urban interior design, just different angles and features, so my initial idea is to just have each image title like this: Title: "urban interior design dinning area" Alt: "urban interior design dinning area view" Title: "urban interior design living room" Alt:"urban interior design living room couch view" Is this the best way or will it actually hurt my ranking with too much exact keyword use? Thanks for your help!
On-Page Optimization | | TBSEO0 -
Keyword Density Tools
Does anyone have recommendations on the best tool(s) to use to check the keyword density of each page of a website? I'm not sure if SEOmoz has such a tool.
On-Page Optimization | | webestate0 -
Repeat Keyword Phrase or Use Variations
Is it better to repeat a keyword phrase on a page's text that you have already used once, or to use a different variation of the keyword phrase?
On-Page Optimization | | SparkplugDigital0