Text in Images vs. Alt tags
-
Hi on my homepage i h ave multiple images They have the appropriate alt text for each image, but the text which the image displays is not written into the page and styled using CSS rather than placing text within an image.
Is this a issue worth correcting, or is it sufficient to have just alt text for each image.
Any major pros from having putting the text in the image into the CMS using appropriate CSS styling to achieve the same effect.
-
Don't take chances. Put any text that you want search engines to see out there where visitors will see it - in text.
-
I strongly prefer all text to be displayed as HTML text rather then embedded in images.
PROS:
-
text can be changed very quickly as needed. This is helpful for translations, keyword changes, etc. Changes of images may require a designer and developer whereas a text change can often be done by a site owner.
-
any time an image is updated, you either have to update the site's code or deal with caching issues where some users will see the old image
-
search engines can always read the text and there is a 100% confidence what is being read by the crawler is also being viewed by users
CONS:
- If you desire a very specific font or styling, it could be altered by various browsers at times. This can easily be avoided by either choosing from one of the many popular fonts or using CSS3 to make the font available to the viewer
Tests have been performed to show currently Google evaluates alt text and html text equally. I strongly believe at some point this will change. Google strongly desires to align their evaluations with the user experience. Alt text is very commonly manipulated whereas text can be trusted to a much higher degree.
-
-
Great question. Yes, it would be much better to put the text on the page via the CMS with CSS to achieve the same look as you have right now. The reason is that a SE spider cannot crawl text that is embedded in an image. All the spider will "see" is that it is an image containing whatever is described by your "alt" attributes. If you want search engines to be able to "read" that content, I would recommend going the route of making it actual text styled in conjunction with the image you want via CSS as you propose.
Hope that helps!
Dana
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
-
Above the Fold Content - Use of large images
Hi All, Our designers have come to the SEO team to ask if have a large image across the top of the page taking up a large majority of the above the fold real estate will impact our SEO. Our initial thoughts are no as long as we have an optimised H1 visibal to the user landing there which informs them what the page is about. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Web Design | | J_Sinclair1 -
Is it ok to redirect an old URL to new URL with anchor tag?
Ex. OLD URL - http://www.mysite.com/shoes/red/description NEW URL - http://www.mysite.com/shoes/red#desc Thanks in advance!
Web Design | | esiow20130 -
Why aren't Images in G+ product page posts showing up in SERPs for brand searches?
Before 1-2 weeks ago, our G+ posts containing links to our product pages would show up in in SERPs (when searching for our brand name) with a thumbnail of the product image. Now, they do not (see image below for visual). Our tech team confirmed there hasn't been any coding change that might be to blame and I see that this isn't happening to other sites. Any idea what may be the problem here? tcnhLgy
Web Design | | znotes0 -
Any meta tag suggestion ??
Meta Tag Description can we add meta tag description like this i mean targeted keyword before the description start, is it useful or not? important Meta tags please visit my http://www.topnotchlawsuitloans.com/ and inform me what are the important meta tags, so i can remove other tags
Web Design | | JulieWhite0 -
Including key words in alt image attributes - stuffing etc?
I'm pretty new to all this but seem to have been getting good result by adjusting our sit to meet the seomoz on page analysis factors. I'm currently adjusting the alt image attributes for this page: www.katalysticevents.com The copy I'm writing is aimed at targeting "luxury marquee hire". It's quite hard to get the keyword into a readable image attribute which properly relates to the image. So my question is if I add say " | Luxury Marquee" onto the end of each image attribute would this get penalised and seen as keyword stuffing or something like that? My image attributes would be:
Web Design | | EdoubleD
Cocktail bar inside Giant Tipi at night | Luxury Marquee Hire Live Band on stage | Luxury Marquee Hire and so on. Thanks!!!!0 -
CSS vs Javascript vs JQuery drop down navigation
For a user / seo perspective, what is the best way to code a drop down menu nav bar? Is it best to use css, javascript or a scripting library like jquery? I am thinking about overall best practice that will not have a negative impact on serps. I am also thinking about what will work best on all types of devices i.e. desk tops, lap tops, smart phones and tablets. What are the Pro's & Cons of Using CSS for Drop Down Menus. What are the Pro's & cons of using Javascript for drop down menus. And the same question for jquery. Thank you all in advance for your ideas.
Web Design | | bronxpad0 -
Pages vs. Posts for SEO
Hi, I would like your thoughts about pages vs. posts for SEO. I understand the difference in terms of WP structure and have read the SEOmoz blog post about setting up your site for SEO success (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/setup-wordpress-for-seo-success). However, if you're trying to rank for a particular keyword, it seems that either one could work, from an on-page SEO perspective, as far as title tag, URL, meta description, etc. So how do you decide whether to set up a page vs. a post? What are the pros and cons, from an SEO perspective, about using one vs. the other? Thanks in advance! Carolina
Web Design | | csmm0 -
Java-script slider & H1 tags
If you have a java-script slider on the homepage, each slide has an H1 tag heading, which of the H1 tags would google most likely consider? all of them or just the first one?
Web Design | | GraphicMail0