How can we stop internal anchor links from showing in G-Search?

[PROFRBcom]

Google has this annoying habit of inserting alt text from our internal anchor links into the SERPS. Sometimes it's tolerable, other times it is egregiously screwing up the results and certainly negatively impacting our CTR.


How do I stop crap like this from happening (this is mobile search results)?

[ddm]

link to this specific page please? curious to see the markup.

[yeahfree]

answering the question with a question, why would you like to have text somewhere in your html source like 'most players cta'?

[ddm]

answering the question with a question, why would you like to have text somewhere in your html source like 'most players cta'?

it sounds like it's an internal anchor [not a very user friendly one, but not really relevant to the question at hand]. if it was an image alt-tag [which should be used for accessibilty purposes only] then I would be asking that Q ^ ..

I'm curious to examine the page source code to see what's up.

[yeahfree]

search for "most players cta" (with quotes around it) and you will find it

solution is simple, does the image (because they are alt text he said) require an alt text? if yes, choose a better one, if not, alt=""

[ddm]

search for "most players cta" (with quotes around it) and you will find it

lol 1st result is a scrape of profrb's page, posted on a hacked site, redirecting to some BS.

scheduldosa DOT tk/best-asian-poker-players-who-are-broke.php

so @ profb, you are confusing internal anchors
https://www.yourhtmlsource.com/text/internallinks.html

and alt-text,
https://webaim.org/techniques/alttext/

and misusing the latter.

The image Alt text attribute is an accesibility feature, and should not be used for anything except describing an image or the text within an image [if it's an image of text].


FWIW read up on web-standards, and try to understand the 'why' behind each recommendation.
embracing web-standards will yield you more traffic, eg. via properly annotated images + image search query traffic, semantic markup and other good stuff.

if not, alt=""

well, all images are supposed to have alt text, UNLESS they are background / design elements that don't communicate any information. Accessibility is about providing EQUIVALENT ACCESS to information to blind people, or people using assistive devices (like screen-readers), or people using unusual browsers (like text browsers)... fwiw

[PROFRBcom]

link to this specific page please? curious to see the markup.

https://professionalrakeback.com/Off...er-Sites-Guide

answering the question with a question, why would you like to have text somewhere in your html source like 'most players cta'?

In this case, it is alt text. My OP should have been worded more carefully. We also have this issue with "jump to xyz" internal page links. The internal page links were what I meant to discuss, but I had this image taken from just 2 days ago with ALT text showing up and forgot to differentiate between the two.

search for "most players cta" (with quotes around it) and you will find it

solution is simple, does the image (because they are alt text he said) require an alt text? if yes, choose a better one, if not, alt=""

We have been operating under the impression that we should have alt text on every single image on site. In fact, everyone but the admin can not save a single page on site without alt text on images, due to some SEO rules we enabled a few years back.

lol 1st result is a scrape of profrb's page, posted on a hacked site, redirecting to some BS.

scheduldosa DOT tk/best-asian-poker-players-who-are-broke.php

So this explains the EIGHT HUNDRED AND EIGHTY domains we disavowed last night. I have a sneaking suspicion that this scraping is affecting our website. What can be done about it short of making disavow files every other day from here until they quit?

so @ profb, you are confusing internal anchors
https://www.yourhtmlsource.com/text/internallinks.html

and alt-text,
https://webaim.org/techniques/alttext/

and misusing the latter.

Yes, as I described in a reply above, I misspoke about the issue. We actually have an issue where both our ALT TEXT and our Internal Anchor Links are showing up in SERPS. I simply used a picture of a screwed up search result as an example without differentiating... I blame lack of sleep.

We do in fact have problems with both. I have also seen on other searches that other websites have "jump to xyz" internal anchor links show up in searches. How does one stop that from happening? And is doing so SEO positive, negative, or neutral?

I suspect positive insofar as it no longer screws up the search results. Negative insofar as I could swear we've read that Google demands that we include such text. And perhaps neutral when both sides of the argument are taken into account?

[PROFRBcom]

and alt-text,
https://webaim.org/techniques/alttext/

and misusing the latter.

The image Alt text attribute is an accesibility feature, and should not be used for anything except describing an image or the text within an image [if it's an image of text].


FWIW read up on web-standards, and try to understand the 'why' behind each recommendation.
embracing web-standards will yield you more traffic, eg. via properly annotated images + image search query traffic, semantic markup and other good stuff.

Other than the addition of the word "CTA" to the image, alt, are we not following the correct rules by displaying the text of the image in the ALT? Here are the images associated with the actual ALT tags, they are part of a CTA to sign up at various sites inserted between sections of one of our pages:



Now, here is what the link you provided says about Functional Images:



The bolded sentence at the bottom of the aforementioned image reads "When an image contains only text, the text being displayed can usually be used as an alternative text."

Granted, there is a logo, and text, but it is a functional image, and the text is the call to action.

How would we better use alt text on an image such as this? I am at a loss.

[ddm]

you are correct that if you just remove 'CTA' from each image you are good.

Your Thread title was just misleading b/c you said they were internal anchor links when they were in fact image alts [the images are nested inside anchors, but semantically the alts are nothing to do with the links - they are attributes of the images.. links don't have ALT attributes of course, but they do have title tags, which I see you are employing, and the destination of the links (internal/external) was/is also irrelevant.]

[universal4]

The problem with the way alt text has been used forever has always been that folks stuff keyword in alt tags, and yet an alt should be a description of the image which shows when visitors have images turn off.

Title tags can be used for descriptions or calls to action that will show on mouseovers.

Rick
Universal4

[ddm]

So this explains the EIGHT HUNDRED AND EIGHTY domains we disavowed last night.

WOWOWOW.
that's fricking insane.

SERPs are full of this hacked site / scraped content / redirect to casino sh*t.
good job google. <facepalm>