Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. On-Page Optimization
    4. Alt Tags on multiple product images

    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.

    Alt Tags on multiple product images

    On-Page Optimization
    3
    11
    13374
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • BeckyKey
      BeckyKey last edited by

      Hi

      I work on SEO for an ecommerce site and wanted to find out how important it is to optimise all images with alt tags.

      We have alt tags in place, however have not optimised descriptions for the following example images:

      Front of cupboard

      Back of cupboard

      Side of cupboard etc

      Is this dangerous for SEO if these images all have the same alt tag?

      We have thousands of products so it would be a huge job to update these, but if it's crucial for SEO we can work through our priorities.

      Thank you!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • BeckyKey
        BeckyKey @Andy.Drinkwater last edited by

        Yes I was thinking of testing this.

        I have just checked our images and from what I can see the devs have set the alt tag to default to the product title.

        Then the image title is a bit more descriptive - does the image title/legend help with anything or should we ignore these and update alt tags instead?

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Andy.Drinkwater
          Andy.Drinkwater @BeckyKey last edited by

          Sorry Becky, I forgot to say that without some level of testing, it is almost impossible to say with any degree of certainty just what you would get from this as a site-wide task. Depending on the products, searches conducted and how Google ranks the images, you may find a good deal of additional traffic or you may find very little.

          Perhaps take a control group to test and monitor the products over the course of a month to see if sales / traffic has increased.

          -Andy

          BeckyKey 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
          • BeckyKey
            BeckyKey @Alick300 last edited by

            Do you still not need to optimise each different image?

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • BeckyKey
              BeckyKey @Andy.Drinkwater last edited by

              Thank you this is really helpful!

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • BeckyKey
                BeckyKey @Alick300 last edited by

                Great thank you very much for your help!

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • Andy.Drinkwater
                  Andy.Drinkwater @BeckyKey last edited by

                  Hi Becky,

                  You aren't likely to be penalised for this, but the benefit you can derive from ALT text will be lessened. If the picture is of a floor fan, and the ALT tag says this, there is no problem.

                  However, I would be saying something like "Metal Blizzard Floor Fan 12" 55W with tilt". It will help because you have more of a chance of it turning up in image searches = more traffic.

                  -Andy

                  BeckyKey 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • Andy.Drinkwater
                    Andy.Drinkwater @Alick300 last edited by

                    Definitely a great idea is there is a dev on hand to do this 🙂

                    -Andy

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • Alick300
                      Alick300 last edited by

                      Hi Becky,

                      Completely agreed with Andy's suggestion.I  would like to add one more thing here I'm also working on a large e-commerce site with thousands of products. I find a good way to insert alt tag very easily I asked web developer to create a module by which every products having alt tag with product name and web developer did a great job by writing only few lines of code. you can ask web developer to do the same.

                      Now I don't need to add alt tag individually on each product and it saves my time.

                      Hope this helps.

                      Thanks

                      Andy.Drinkwater BeckyKey 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 3
                      • BeckyKey
                        BeckyKey last edited by

                        Hi Andy

                        That's great thank you. I'm finding it harder to describe some products, which have very similar images. Say for instance, a fan at different angles.

                        Will I get penalised if Alt tags have the same name? So if say 3 images all have, floor fan? This is happening as a default at the moment, but I am looking into getting them updated - however if the benefit is small other tasks will be prioritised.

                        Thank you

                        Andy.Drinkwater 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • Andy.Drinkwater
                          Andy.Drinkwater last edited by

                          Hi Becky,

                          What you need to be careful of, is over optimising with ALT tags. This can lead to issues, but what you suggest is correct. John Mueller from Google had this to say about ALT tags...

                          "alt attribute should be used to describe the image. So if you have an image of a big blue pineapple chair you should use the alt tag that best describes it, which is alt=”big blue pineapple chair.”** title attribute** should be used when the image is a hyperlink to a specific page. The title attribute should contain information about what will happen when you click on the image. For example, if the image will get larger, it should read something like, title=”View a larger version of the big blue pineapple chair image.”

                          If the image someone can click on is the rear view of a cupboard, then say this in the ALT tag. However, it is worthwhile remembering that you need to be descriptive with these.

                          Here is a great article on the subject.

                          -Andy

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                          • 1 / 1
                          • First post
                            Last post

                          Got a burning SEO question?

                          Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                          Start my free trial


                          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.

                          • See all categories

                          Related Questions

                          • DVLighting

                            Is using a H1 tag in a logo image bad for SEO?

                            We have brand logos on certain pages that have H1 tags in them - the H1 text being the brand's name, as this is what we'd want the title of the page to be.  The logos are at the top of the page instead of a written title. But is this the best option for SEO? Do search engines value H1 tags in images as highly as a standard H1 tag?Would it be better for SEO to add an alt tag to the logo and add a separate H1 tag on the page that's also the name of the brand?

                            On-Page Optimization | | DVLighting
                            0
                          • yousayjump

                            Product Colour Variation and Canonicals

                            Hi there, We are currently doing an SEO audit of an ecommerce website and we ar eunsure on the best practice in terms of using canonical link tag for some product variations. An example is that the company has a product with two colour variations: Black and Tan. These are for the same product and have 99% the same content. Within the content of the page the colour is the only thing that changes (along with the meta information and imagery of course). My question is should we choose one product and canonically link back to that one i.e. Black is the main product and we link Tan back to this via a canonical link? Many thanks in advance.

                            On-Page Optimization | | yousayjump
                            0
                          • aronwp

                            What to do with multiple forms and thank you pages

                            Hi Everyone, I'm wondering what to do with form and thank you pages. I asked a question a long time ago about the contact page as noindex and was told by people that its better to leave it and write content for it and thats what we did. Now I have a client that does self storage and they have 4 locations and each location has a reservation page with a basic form but no content. Each page also redirects to a thank you page with tracking codes. There's a total of 6 "thank you" pages with different codes (this was done by yellow book). 4 "reserve your storage pages", 2 pages to pay for storage with iframes to 3rd party payment portals. I was told to noindex these pages but I'm not sure so I'm asking here. I was also told to nofollow and remove them from sitemaps. Thanks Aron

                            On-Page Optimization | | aronwp
                            0
                          • cschwartzel

                            What are "stop" words in Title Tags?

                            My client is following his GoDaddy SEO Checklist, and it is reporting 5 errors in Title Tags, saying the Titles contain "stop" words. I can't figure out what these are. Any ideas?

                            On-Page Optimization | | cschwartzel
                            0
                          • John_Francis

                            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_Francis
                            0
                          • Amosnet

                            Do images on a CDN affect my Google Ranking?

                            I have recently switched my images to a CDN (MaxCDN) and all of the images within my post are now get loaded directly from the CDN. Will this affect my Google ranking? Do Google care if the image is hosted physicaly on the domain?

                            On-Page Optimization | | Amosnet
                            0
                          • azguy

                            Submitting multiple sitemaps

                            I recently moved over from html to wordpress. I have the google sitemap plugin on the new wordpress site, but in webmaster tools, it's only showing 71 pages, and I have hundreds, but many are html. Is it okay, to submit an html sitemap as well as the wp sitemap that's already in there?

                            On-Page Optimization | | azguy
                            0
                          • Audiohype

                            Using commas in the title tag?

                            Is there a disadvantage/advantage to using commas to separate words in the title tag. Which will be more effective as a title tag: "keyword1 keyword2 - Brand" OR "keyword1, keyword2 - Brand"?

                            On-Page Optimization | | Audiohype
                            0

                          Get started with Moz Pro!

                          Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                          Start my free trial
                          Products
                          • Moz Pro
                          • Moz Local
                          • Moz API
                          • Moz Data
                          • STAT
                          • Product Updates
                          Moz Solutions
                          • SMB Solutions
                          • Agency Solutions
                          • Enterprise Solutions
                          • Digital Marketers
                          Free SEO Tools
                          • Domain Authority Checker
                          • Link Explorer
                          • Keyword Explorer
                          • Competitive Research
                          • Brand Authority Checker
                          • Local Citation Checker
                          • MozBar Extension
                          • MozCast
                          Resources
                          • Blog
                          • SEO Learning Center
                          • Help Hub
                          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                          • How-to Guides
                          • Moz Academy
                          • API Docs
                          About Moz
                          • About
                          • Team
                          • Careers
                          • Contact
                          Why Moz
                          • Case Studies
                          • Testimonials
                          Get Involved
                          • Become an Affiliate
                          • MozCon
                          • Webinars
                          • Practical Marketer Series
                          • MozPod
                          Connect with us

                          Contact the Help team

                          Join our newsletter
                          Moz logo
                          © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                          • Accessibility
                          • Terms of Use
                          • Privacy

                          Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.