Image Alt text

[Zara Brown]

Hello, friends! Theme of on-page optimization is quite popular among webmasters and we know that over optimizing with big number of keywords can become too harmful for the website.. These all is true when we speak about title, H1, description, text body.. But can the website be penalized for alt tag over optimization?? How many keywords we can put there? Is there any symbols limit? And in general, what is the best way to create perfect Alt??? Thanks)

[DaftDog]

Hello, friends! Theme of on-page optimization is quite popular among webmasters and we know that over optimizing with big number of keywords can become too harmful for the website.. These all is true when we speak about title, H1, description, text body.. But can the website be penalized for alt tag over optimization?? How many keywords we can put there? Is there any symbols limit? And in general, what is the best way to create perfect Alt??? Thanks)

You make friends quickly.

I would suggest you stuff your alt tags with as many keywords as possible. Google will really love that natural optimization and promote you immediately to the top of the SERP's.

[Doolally]

Of course your site can be ranked lower by Google for stuffing keywords into your ALT tags. Google isn't daft and doesn't want to promote any over-optimisation.

The perfect ALT, I think, would be a few words describing what the image is. They need to make sense and would briefly describe the image if the image wasn't visible for whatever reason.

[universal4]

Agree Doolally,

An alt tag is meant to describe the IMAGE, not a casino, destination, keyword, call to action, or anything else. the alt tag is designed to show what the image is for those that turn images off, or to be used by screen readers for those that use them. (such as those with vision problems)

I have some sites built forever ago that I used alt tags incorrectly, and I often fix them when I run across them. (these were done back in the day when browsers show alt tags on mouse-over)

If you want to use calls to action or keywords title tags are useful for that, but over use could be considered keyword stuffing.

Rick
Universal4

[Ares]

To put it simply, I think more than anything, over-optimizing alt tags is a waste of time.
I have seen case studies where such tricks worked for Seo, but they were about very low competition searches.

[rouletteguru]

All things like alt tags will do is make your page more relevant, but there's a threshold where google already knows what the page is about and overkill may get you a panda penalty

[Aeternus]

I made a habit many years ago of always marking the images I use with the relevant ALT tag, now I do it without even thinking.

The way I go about it is if I for example post a casino review of casino x and add a screenshot of the casinos website, I use the alt tag "casino review of casino x, screenshot". Don't know if this is helping me with rankings, but every little thing counts, atleast that's is my feeling about it.

[xecutable]

Agree Doolally,

An alt tag is meant to describe the IMAGE, not a casino, destination, keyword, call to action, or anything else. the alt tag is designed to show what the image is for those that turn images off, or to be used by screen readers for those that use them. (such as those with vision problems)

I have some sites built forever ago that I used alt tags incorrectly, and I often fix them when I run across them. (these were done back in the day when browsers show alt tags on mouse-over)

If you want to use calls to action or keywords title tags are useful for that, but over use could be considered keyword stuffing.

Rick
Universal4

Odd Rick, then why does YOAST plugin INSISTS it's the targeted keyword phrase and actually lowers your SEO score if it isn't. In a way it's saying your ALTs better be your post targeted keywords or ELSE ...

[universal4]

I did not know Yoast did that.

ALT tags are to describe the image. They most certainly are for screen readers. In fact Yoast themselves state that here.
https://yoast.com/image-seo-alt-tag-...-optimization/

In fact the yoast article links to one of Matt Cutts articles here which also shows that although alt tags can be used with descriptive words (about the image) and in my opinion reading between the lines it appears Matt is clearly stating that the text should be about the image.

It provides Google with useful information about the subject matter of the image. We use this information to help determine the best image to return for a user's query.

https://support.google.com/webmaster...r/114016?hl=en

The use of alt tags for seo and keyword stuffing is clearly old school, and it goes against what they were designed for.

Having 3 or 4 or more images on a page that have an alt tag with "sports betting" tags just seems like over optimization to me where as tags such as "Bet Online Sportsbook image" "Paddy Power Sportsbook and Casino image". Putting the call to action tags int he title attribute, and having text surrounding the image with more keywords seems to be more of the idea Matt was trying to get across.

I do think an intelligent use of alt tags is much safer, follows the guidelines better and when one is creative they can cover both opinions.

Here is a discussion on this at moz
https://moz.com/community/q/keyword-...ng-in-alt-tags

Rick
Universal4

[casinopapa]

Agree Doolally,

An alt tag is meant to describe the IMAGE, not a casino, destination, keyword, call to action, or anything else. the alt tag is designed to show what the image is for those that turn images off, or to be used by screen readers for those that use them. (such as those with vision problems)

I have some sites built forever ago that I used alt tags incorrectly, and I often fix them when I run across them. (these were done back in the day when browsers show alt tags on mouse-over)

If you want to use calls to action or keywords title tags are useful for that, but over use could be considered keyword stuffing.

Rick
Universal4

Exactly right, I agree with @universal4 ... I've experienced lower ranks on projects where we over stuffed alt tags. Just use them as they're supposed to be used. Then focus on just good content!

[pokeraussie]

Google and other search engines see the source code. Whether the keywords are stuffed in the alt img tag or elsewhere doesn't really matter.

[universal4]

True, but Google also sees when a webmaster is using the alt tag for what it was designed and understands a title can be used as a call to action.

The key I think is not to "stuff" keywords no matter where, alt, title,or on page in content.

Rick
Universal4

[pokeraussie]

True, but Google also sees when a webmaster is using the alt tag for what it was designed and understands a title can be used as a call to action.

The key I think is not to "stuff" keywords no matter where, alt, title,or on page in content.

Rick
Universal4

Yeah, that's what I meant mate. Keyword stuffing is keyword stuffing, it doesn't matter where it is in the source code on the page.