Does the 'Alt Attribute' affect your ranking?

Marketing
1

I saw this on another thread, which unfortunately had been closed:

“2. “Alt text” is nothing to do with SEO, and does not belong in this forum.”

Now, this is pretty categorical, Alt Text has nothing to do with SEO, no arguments. The reason I’m posting this new thread about this is that I’m not so sure that it’s true, there’s still plenty of debate on whether or not the Alt text matters and one obvious question is ‘how do Google treat image galleries?’ if they have little to go on except the Alt text? Why would they ignore it when it’s going to give them valuable information about an image that they can’t see themselves? It makes sense that they wouldn’t place too much emphasis on it, there are far more important signals, but to completely ignore it? How could it not be a signal for ranking images in Image Search?

It makes little sense that they would ignore the Alt text.

So Stevie (or anyone else who agrees with Stevie), any chance you can post your sources and/or personal experience that would support what you said? I’m sure I’m not the only person who needs to know if it’s true or not.

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I don’t get it. Threads that say rubbishy stuff like 'please explain nofollow’ get 20 responses and my attempt to start a discussion about a genuinely useful topic, that is clearly devisive and a good one for debate gets over 70 views and not a single response…

Stevie, you made the original assertion that "Alt text is nothing to do with SEO", do you not want to talk about this? I’m not trying to prove anyone wrong here, I don’t know how much the Alt text affects SEO, but I strongly doubt it has no effect at all, so let’s talk about it for the good of the forum right?

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Let me clarify what I meant.

I’m not saying that alt text doesn’t have any effect on search engines. Undoubtedly it does, it’s how search engines “read” content images. But it isn’t an SEO topic. In just the same way as content writing or semantic code have an effect on search engines but have their own sections on these forums, alt text is an accessibility feature and should be discussed there unless there’s a specific and good reason to have that discussion elsewhere.

The question asked in the other thread was how to use the alt tag (sic) for SEO. The answer is that you shouldn’t. If you approach alt text from an SEO viewpoint then you’re using it for the wrong reason, and the chances are that you’re going to do it wrong. Alt text should be used to describe the image, in the context of what the reader needs to read if the image is unavailable. The benefit to SEO is a happy by-product of getting this right.

In terms of optimising photo galleries for search engines, that’s an interesting topic for discussion. I usually try to include plenty of on-page text description, either as captions to each image or as general text, as well as giving a brief description in the alt text and a fuller description in the title attribute. Collectively these seem to do quite well in Google, and my sense is that the on-page text (especially text proximally linked to a picture) is the most important factor, but I haven’t done any more detailed analysis or study into it.

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The closed thread to which you refer asked specifically how to use alt text for SEO purposes. I stand by what I said in that thread, that the purpose of alt text is not for SEO. The HTML4 specs make that clear:

Attribute definitions

alt = text [CS]
For user agents that cannot display images, forms, or applets, this attribute specifies alternate text. The language of the alternate text is specified by the lang attribute.

Several non-textual elements (IMG, AREA, APPLET, and INPUT) let authors specify alternate text to serve as content when the element cannot be rendered normally. Specifying alternate text assists users without graphic display terminals, users whose browsers don’t support forms, visually impaired users, those who use speech synthesizers, those who have configured their graphical user agents not to display images, etc.

Of course, a side effect of setting good alt text is that it allows Google to index the images correctly, and if the alt text contains keywords, it might have a slight benefit.

I have redesigned two sites where the only changes I made to the text were to the alt text. Both sites improved in SERPs. I also changed the structure from table-based to div-based, so I can’t say how much of the change was due to the alt text alone. Where the alt text had previously read “cows” or “ferry” I now had “Highland cattle grazing on the beach at [keyword]” and “MV Lollipop approaching [keyword] harbour”. In those cases, the keyword was in the alt text because it was relevant information regarding the image, not for SEO purposes.

There is a perception among some members of this forum that alt text is for keyword stuffing and other techniques to manipulate search engines. It is not. Alt text is like any other content on your site when it comes to SEO - it should be written for humans, not search engines. Can it help with SEO? Possibly, a little. Should it be used i.e. manipulated for SEO? No.

So in the context of the original question, I agree with Stevie D. “Alt text” is nothing to do with SEO, and does not belong in this forum.

Edit: Stevie D got in first while I was typing, so apologies for duplicating some of his response.

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As was mentioned the ALT attribute is primarily for the human in the absence of the image and hence why on IMAGEMAP it provides an alternative text (it is not there for a search engine) to either keyboard access or activate with an input device, to navigate to an image hotspot, etc.

That paragraph is pretty much spot on regarding perception since the other original “ALT tag” post was asking how to apply text for ranking only, which completely misses the point of the ALT attribute. Good ALT text would possibly help as a by-product when doing an image search though the alternative text should be written for humans.

Though clearly keyword stuffing or the engine is not the intended purpose; else there wouldn’t be need for such a thing as a null ALT attribute, i.e. alt=“” the unscrupulous would add text to all images.

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That’s more like it. I think what’s pertinent here is that whether or not the Alt Text is actually an accessibility feature, it also impacts on SEO and is therefore fine to discuss in the SEO forum, in fact it should be discussed. The question isn’t whether or not it affects SEO but how much it affects SEO.

You don’t have to keyword stuff the Alt desc, just wirte a description of what the image is about and it should naturally include your keyword phrase right? And that’s going to affect your ranking to one degree or another.

Ok, what do you know about it?

In that case, why the Accessiblity lecture? If Alt desc affects SEO then it’s worthy of discussion and the OP didn’t ask to get his wrist slapped by the Semantic Markup purity crowd, technically that’s thread hijacking right? :wink:

Maybe it’s you that’s missing the point? The Alt desc can clearly be used in SEO to help rankings and the question was posted in the SEO forum so it deserved an answer not a well intentioned but irrelevant correction.

I don’t have any real practical experience with using the Alt desc to improve SEO (mostly because I don’t pay much attention to on-page elements), I was hoping there’d be someone who has. Maybe we should test it?

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The Accessibility lecture, as you put it, was to explain the basic fact that alt text is for humans, not search engines. My post in the other thread was in response to another - since deleted but quoted in my own - that stated

alt tags are used to tell google what exactly it is
Explaining the purpose of alt text hardly constitures hi-jacking a thread on that subject.

8

Essentially the ALT describes the image itself in absence of the image: “A painting of a white Bear” generally it should be concise. It doesn’t tell you, image: “Cute cuddly furry white wee Bear, wearing a red scarf, doesn’t have sharp claws, likes to hug and serves porridge” (the latter is the purpose of supportive text).

The four ALT attributes: [Home, Products, Services and Index] may reside upon a textual image map of the same words; it’s not going to go into great depth or say you sell: gramophones and make pancakes and live in a gingerbread house.

We aren’t saying it doesn’t affect a result more a case it’s not really the intended use of the attribute but if an image contains good ALT for the human it may have other observable benefits. If somebody is really considering doing a dummy page test for the ALT and its results, might as well test text within the TITLE attribute on the IMG element.

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As far as SEO is concerned the alt text shouldn’t be treated any differently from any of the other text in the page. For anyone with images turned off (which presumably includes search engines) that just forms a part of the text content of the page and shouldn’t have any higher or lower weight in terms of SEO than any of the other text in the page does.

So when discussing it for SEO there ois not reason for any reference to the alt attribute as text is text whether it is in the alt attribute or not. The only difference it being in the alt attribute makes is that for those with images turned on that text is replaced by an image that presumably is more descriptive than the text it replaces.

Anyone considering alt text specifically for SEO has generally overlooked the fact that apart from those few people who have images enabled in their browser that alt text will be visible as a part of the page content. Generally those discussing alt text and SEO want to stuff that part of their text content with meaningless nonsense in an attempt to scam the search engines.

The best way to handle alt text is to write the text as a part of your main text content of the page prior to adding the images. That way it will read correctly as a part of the page content to start with. Then you simply wrap that text inside the alt attribute when you add the image into that spot in the text.

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Alt attribute is beneficial for SEO purpose when search engine not show your website then alt tag show which type of your image and what is the use of this image with the help of alt tag we describe this easily.

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Yes, I understand that, that’s why I called it a lecture, it’s a point that’s being somewhat laboured wouldn’t you say? It wasn’t what the OP asked for and it wasn’t helpful to the thread, and it’s still not.

Do you have anything you can contribute on how the Alt desc affects SEO?

Let’s assume that’s not what we’re discussing… nor does theory stated as if it were fact really help here, I have lots of theory too but I’d prefer some actual experience to contribute to this discussion.

What’s your practical experience with using the Alt text to try to influence rankings?

Here’s a video of Matt Cutts telling us all about the Alt desc - http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/optimize-alt-tags/ Now, why would the head of the Google Anti-spam team bother to tell us what a particular HTML Attribute is all about? Could it be because he really really cares about good semantic markup? Maybe it’s because it DOES affect SEO and he doesn’t want people trying to do that? (Hobo know their stuff, worth subscribing to their feed)

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I have never tried it since it would obviously present a portion of visitors with absolute garbage resulting in driving real people away from the site regardless of how attractive it makes it for search engines.

I guess it depends on whether your end goal is to have a top result in the search results with a page no one wants to visit or a page that has real people visiting and interacting with it.

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Oh dear, it [video] sayeth “<alt> tags” cannot even get the terminology correct. Perhaps its a new HTML5 thingie… :rofl:

Like we said previously above; good ALT is meant for humans and will naturally also achieve suitable enough results.

No, a null ALT attribute (alt=“”) is used for things like bullet points and rounded corners that aren’t to be read. Albeit if he really meant; don’t forget to add the REQUIRED alt attribute on an IMG then it might have made some sense. :rolleyes:

For the video; he also seems to be slightly confusing the ALT attribute with the TITLE attribute.

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Interesting video from Cutts. He seems to be suggesting—in a very diplomatic way—a couple of things:

  • Google focuses mainly on the alt text to categorize an image (he seemed pretty much to dismiss the file name of the image itself, as well as the title attribute)
  • don’t stuff the alt attribute with a long string of meaningless words (he’s lookin’ at you, SEO people. He actually calls it “spamming”)
  • Google is able (to some extent) to distinguish features in the image itself, such as faces. (Sounds advanced. Watch this space, I guess.)
Off Topic:

Hopefully one day, when Google has a bit more money, they will be able to make some more high-tech videos. :lol: Presumably this presentation was delivered to a group of young children, based on how he delivered it.

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Alt text is sometimes only needed when your image file names are dynamic and search engines might not recognize what these images relate to. Alt text for images will serve as labels for the photos you posted in your webpages.

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Ok, good to know.

Those are the only options? Odd. Firstly you’re suggesting that spamming the Alt will give you a ‘top result’, what are you basing that on? Secondly you’re assuming that a spammed Alt will ruin the visitor experience or somehow deter visitors, again, based on what? You say you have no practical experience and yet you make what come across as categorical statements about this as if you have definitive knowledge. I think that might be confusing for some people.

Is it also possible that there is a third option, to optimise the Alt without spamming it? Can we talk about that specifically?

One interesting thing coming out of this thread is that there’s a clear belief (perhaps only amongst people who don’t actually do SEO) that to optimise the Alt Desc is to spam it with meaningless garbage.

Why?

If I have a page about polar bears, specifically red ones, and I use the phrase ‘red polar bears’ in the Alt (because that’s the phrase I’m trying to rank for) of an image of red polar bears, have I not just helped my SEO but without filling it with ‘absolute garbage’ (felgall), just by improving my on-page optimisation?

We’re still no closer to idnetifying how much the Alt can actually help your SEO though.

That makes sense, they have to be able to make sense of the Alt to be able to correctly categorise the image. It doesn’t tell us much about whether or not the Alt is used in the ranking algo though.

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Ironically Gain wrote an article [I]The Hidden Nuggets of WCAG2: When Not to Use ALT Attributes[/I] on SP regarding ALT yesterday – just seen it now - that will backup a lot of what I said previously.

A Polar bear covered head-to-foot in blood from killing prey would be the most likely ‘red polar bear’ occurrence thus “polar bear covered in blood” might be more unique. Though I get the impression the image search doesn’t have a strong link to the whole page as an entity rank. Assuming we aren’t talking polar bear shaped sweets.

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The only people I trust to tell me about the SEO effects of alt text on Google searches is the Google people themselves. I’m never convinced when clients start to to talk about stuffing alt text with keywords (as often happens when they’ve gotten the once-over by SEO specialists). SEO seems too much like a vague and misty science to me. Surely Google would be on the lookout for keyword stuffing in alt text, just as it now disregards the meta keywords (as I understand).

O Gian, what a missed opportunity. :nono: Look at what you could have written:

‘Older man with ACME ULTIMATE glasses SPECIAL DEALS ON ALL ACME GLASSES NOW smiling at the BEST SELLING ACMEMAX SUPERDUPER camera (VISIT YOUR LOCAL ACMEMAX STORE NOW)’

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I’ve been doing some research to see what information I can find on this subject. As is usually the case with any sort of SEO related research I’ve been doing lately, I haven’t been able to find any quantifiable results - probably since the search algorithms change so often.

From what I have been reading - this subject falls under the rest of the white hat concepts. It can help, but too much of it can be bad and end up hurting you through penalties, though again, I can’t find any quantifiable research to see where that threshold is.

So I would guess it’s the same as anything else - if you can add value to the alt attribute (and in turn help those with accessibility needs), then you would get SEO benefit from it as well. But don’t let SEO be the be all and end all result - it may help with SE results, but if it causes issues with usability and user retention (and in turn, sales), what’s the point?

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Off Topic:

Where can I buy the old(er) man from? :slight_smile: My short-term memory has failed to remember the rest of the junk. So obviously that was an good example of pointless promo text.