Opinions on Alt tags

[RiceMedia]

Reading around the web, there are many sources that suggest all images should have an Alt tag attributed to them.  This is good for accessibility etc, however there appears to be conflicting interests between this and what works for SEO.  Hence many other sources suggest that you include a keyphrase or two in 1 image Alt tag, and then leave the rest blank so as not to dilute the alts on the page.

In my experience, the latter appears to be true.  However this seems wrong when the Alt attribute really should be used for accessibility reasons and not for SEO - why would the search engines encourage us to provide poorer quality information by harming our rankings if we try to make a website accessible?

Interested to hear your opinions and experiences on this subject.

Thanks.

[Gaveltek-173238]

As you said it was a generalization, not necessarily directed at you. The quote you are referring to (mine, not Rands) is a simple caveat to anyone who might be reading this question and thinks that alt text will save the day. Optimizing alt tags is a great way to get the job done and accurately describe the images attached, my point was that stuffing, etc... is not. Again not a direct attack on you, just overall advice for people who might want to go down that road.

[eTundra]

Nobody said anything about stuffing keywords.  These images are given a keyword that people are searching for on the internet, therefore they are serving a useful purpose in telling both google bots and people with disabilities and anyone else reading the page what that page is about.

Also, nobody said anything about my site coming down to optimizing alt tags as the only thing being done or the end-all be-all strategy we rely on.

That said, it is widely accepted that optimizing alt tags is a useful tactic in an overall SEO strategy.

Quoted from Rand's post August 17th, 2009:

Alt Attribute - Surprisingly, the alt attribute, long thought to carry little SEO weight, was shown to have quite a robust correlation with high rankings in our studies. Thus, we strongly advise the use of a graphic image/photo/illustration on important keyword-targeted pages with the term/phrase employed in the alt attribute of the img tag.

Finally, if you make broad generalizations about what works in SEO and what doesn't without understanding the particular situation of each site's SEO strategy, then chances are you're the one that's not very good at SEO.

[Gaveltek-173238]

are you using the H1 tag multiple times on the same page?

[Gaveltek-173238]

an Alt tag is wonderful for those with disabilities to actually understand whats going on in your site. Imagine going to a site that stuffs the same three keywords into their image alt tags? It must be super confusing and frustrating for someone with out the gift of sight. At least consider the purpose of the tag. The benefit of stuffing keywords is far outweighed by making your site accessible and easily understood by those with disabilities, or those trying to figure out what that picture might be. I am sure someone else in this thread has touched on the exact same thing I am saying, but if your site is coming down to over optimizing alt tags, chances are your not a very good SEO, you could easily accomplish more with a great description and title tag than all your alts combined.

[eTundra]

A large ecommerce site I work on doesn't have a single ALT tag on any of the product images on category and subcategory pages.  I have come up with a way to add the H1 tag dynamically to the images on these category pages since I have already put in a lot of long hours optimizing the H1.

My concern is this: will the same keyword text on multiple images on the same page hurt me?  No category page has more than 10 images to be optimized.

[RiceMedia]

I'm sure many people would say yes, that is spammy, however in my experience that works better than not including a keyphrase at all.  My advice would be to do it, see what the results are, but be prepared to change it back if Google decides this is dodgy.

[Jeepster]

Question:

At the moment the alt tag on my logo (which appears on all my 4,000+ pages) simply reads "home". Would it be spammy to change it on all 4,000 pages to, eg, "home of cheap red widgets", assuming cheap red widgets was my target keyword?

[StalkerB]

I wonder if I could dynamically insert alt text based on page title into the logo...

BRB, spamming search engines

[RiceMedia]

Like you, I always use the main 1 or 2 keyphrases for the logo alt.  I am also a bad man then!

I think, so long as the page is relevant to those keyphrases - which it really should be - it can't be that bad practice because in most cases you're saying what the main focus of the page is.  Perhaps I am kidding myself though?!

[Julich]

I personnally never heard of this technique (to keep only one alt tag) and thus, I never tried it.

My personal feelings lead me to think it is not natural and I would not recommend using this technique.

[perfectweb]

I would certainly put alt tags on all images for accessibility and usability reasons. The SEO impact of alt tags on images is minimal, but I've never heard of alt tags diluting the SEO success - it sounds ominous to me.

I would be wary of being "too spammy" with your alt tags, as it is entierly possible that googlebot might pick up on this.

It is important to note that good descriptive alt tags (with your keywords) and keywords within your iamge fielnames will certainly help your images rank better on Google Image search. This may or may not be an alternative vertical source of traffic to your site that you may or may not want - really depends on the type of site you're running.

[StalkerB]

I am ashamed to say I spam the heck out of my alt tags because it works

I used to write wonderfully descriptive alt text for accessibility and a different title text, now they're both just the same keyword.

I am a bad man

I've never considered leaving alt text blank if I have multiple pictures as I've seen more than one image rank (image search) from alt text/file name/caption. I do tend to have the first image on the page as the main keyword though.

What do you do about logo alt text?

[RiceMedia]

Thanks both for your responses.  I think in cases such as this, it's generally a good idea to follow your instincts.

Have either of you guys tested what happens to rankings if you remove all alts except the main, keyphrase rich one?

[RiceMedia]

Thanks both for your responses.  I think in cases such as this, it's generally a good idea to follow your instincts.

Have either of you guys tested what happens to rankings if you remove all alts except the main, keyphrase rich one?

[Dan-Petrovic]

Alt, although a valid signal is not as heavy as title for example, so I suggest that you do not compromise the integrity and quality of site for SEO purposes only and manipulation of this tag. Use ALT as it should be used and describe your illustrations, photos, products images and diagrams well enough so that a visually impaired may get an idea of what the image is. That's what Google expects you to do and is generally a win-win.

[Julich]

I personnally always put a quality alt attribute on all my images, with human readable content (for accessibilty reason, or if your image is 404), but also a little bit optimized for SEO. I actually never heard of the alts diluting problem.

I also take the time to put some wisely chosen keywords for the filename of my images. This is the kind of laborious on-page optimization task which individually have no SEO impact, but when combined with many others, can start having an impact on your SEO.

Hope this helps,

J.