Do image links with no alt tags pass link value?
-
"... an image link with no alt tag is useless to search engines..." according to a Nov 2007 seomoz blog post. Is this still the case in 2011?
I ask because I'm about to obtain a banner link on a high-traffic site (chiefly for the clickthrough value) but I notice the site uses neither "title" nor "alt" tags.
-
If your image link is FOLLOW, the alt tag may pass link value.
But it seems that text links have a value slightly higher. That at least is what I have observed. But put the alt on your images you are linking to your site is essential.
-
Maile Ohye stated (at SESSF 2010), when an image is linking out, the alt img text is just as important as anchor text is in a contextual link. That is something to keep in mind when you are going through your link profile..
-
It's not really useless as there is page rank passed through most links on the web to some degree, it's just harder to classify what the image means in a keyword sense. Also, if this is a banner link, there's likely to be a redirect script or discounted link value because you're paying for the placement anyways.
If you do acquire other image links though, having the image be in a table cell with related text nearby helps, having the image and text be part of the link also heps, if the image is in a div or other markup along with related text, that helps too... Basically anything that correlates the image to some text in a common web structure. And of course, alt or title text.
-
As Rebecca pointed out right after that statement, Google is able to pull the context around the link and probably the context of your own site to determine the value of that link but it's definitely not desirable. If you can I would push for an alt/title tag.
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
-
Disvowing Links?
I ran a report through SEM rush and it came back with 174 toxic links ( score 100-60). I have been reading mixed reviews about what to do. Most of the websites are not relevant and appear to be linking to the images. Should I disavow these links? Would it help SEO? Or should I leave it be?
Link Building | | higherimages0 -
Internal Linking
OSE only shows me as having 24 internal links on my home page. My internal links and total links are far less than my competitors, some of whom have 1700 on a single page. My site is www.CenterCityTeam.com and an example of a competitor with far more internal links is www.McCannTeam.com. 1) How do I get that many internal links on a page and 2) do I even want to?
Link Building | | frankdefazio0 -
External links - link to third party sites
Greetings! Actually, got an doubt on linking to external site. The thing, i have working for roof marketers site. They have covered roof products. Each of the products have a page along with major keyword. Actually, i do link from other pages[internally]. Meaning,if i see any main keywords in different page then will link that to corresponding page/product[internally].This is what i am doing to get page rank. Now, my doubt. Some of the pages are having link with main keywords which directs to the third party site those who are really producing the products. But, i remove the third party-link which has with main keywords. Since already the site/my client site having pages for that main keywords. But client really want that link. meaning the links which they have given to direct to third party[product producer] site. So what should i do at this case. Can i just past RAW link like [http://www.thirdpartysite.com] or what do i do. But my client wants that link to be in content area. Hope you would understand my long explanation and case Please help us. Thank you
Link Building | | Webworld_Norway0 -
Link-Building
Hello, I have been doing link-building for my website since 2 of January. However those links are not in the Open Site Explorer. For example I have the DMOZ website pointing to my website and I cant see it in open site explorer! Why?? Tks in advance!
Link Building | | PedroM0 -
JavaScript is crawled by search engines, isn’t it? Does it mean that links embedded in JavaScript pass link juice?
I wonder If links embedded in JavaScript from an external Website pass link juice to the linked page and thus have a positive effect on google rankings. I read that JavaScipt is craweld. Does it mean that also the link juice is passed? I'm looking forward to your answers.
Link Building | | Tabea0 -
Too many external links vs linking root domains - good or bad?
Hi guys, After the latest Linkscape update, we noticed that our website have 424,671 external links with 4,395 linking root domains, so roughly 100 links/domain. Does Google consider this to be a negative thing or we do not need to worry about it. Many thanks. David
Link Building | | sssrpm0 -
Amazon Affiliate Link Values
I'm fairly new to the whole SEO and link building scene so I'm trying to get a handle of high value, low value, and negative value links. For example, I had a discussion with my boss on the idea of affiliating our e-commerce site with Amazon. From a business standpoint, it'd probably increase sales. However, I was wondering if those links would have value for search engines? Thanks
Link Building | | Robdps0 -
How long does it take for crawlers to update links? As in number of back links
How long does it take for crawlers to update links? As in number of back links
Link Building | | tom14cat140