There have been many discussions in the SEO world over the usefulness of alt tags that accompany images. It is generally accepted that Google primarily indexes alt tags as long as the images have a link. If there is no link on the image, the alt text is ignored.

However, a new development in the way that Google caches webpages has raised this question again. As reported by Search Engine RoundTable, Google has begun offering links to text only cache pages.

The reason for this option is given in Google’s cached page’s description: “This cached page may reference images which are no longer available. www.webpronews.com/+webpronews&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&strip=1]Click here for the cached text only[/url].”

Because of this, questions have again surfaced about Google’s indexing of alt text. At the SearchEngineWatch forums, “Marcia” posed questions about how Google will be handling alt text now that it is offering text only cache pages.

She is worried that because Google is showing alt text in place of images for the text only cache, will Google penalize users for having too many repetitive keywords?

Marcia states: “Some believe that all identical anchor text is fine, while others believe that if the identical phrase goes over a certain percentage of total links it can trip a penalty or filter. I'm one of those that believes it can happen, even just within the site itself without regard to inbound links, though inbounds also could possibly make it even worse if there's a problem.”

According to Danny Sullivan, it appears that even though Google has just begun showing text only cache pages, they still only index alt text that accompanies an image with a link. Danny conducted a test of Google’s new feature using CNN.com.

He discovered, “If any ALT text was being indexed, then the home page would have shown up. But this particular ALT text only appears in a graphic, not a graphical link. So, it looks like Google's been indexing ALT text as anchor text for over a year, and the text-only cache makes this much easier to now spot.”

This leads rustybrick of SERoundtable to believe “currently, we do not have to worry about Marcia's questions.” However, not everyone shares rusty’s optimism.

Daria_Goetsch and David Wallace, moderators at SEW believe Google’s new practice can lead to trouble. Daria feels that text only cache pages could lead to “numerous problems sitewide in Google.”

David states that if a logo is used to link back to the homepage for a site that has a large number of pages, Google may penalize these sites for keyword repetition. In conclusion, David states: “Surely Google wouldn't penalize a site such as this because it is a quite common practice.”

__________________
Former WebProWorld Admin
IntentionalFoul.com

Hi Chris

I don't buy that. What would be the reason for Google to ignore image alt text if there is no link? It makes no sense to me. I believe it might be ignored if just a string of keywords, but when/if it aptly describes the image... Alt text is there for the occasion where the image does not show. That is Alternate Text

I don't buy the identical anchor text theory either. Again it makes no sense for Google to penalize over this. Try looking at it this way. IMO the reason why anchor text (from other sites) holds value is this. The text is NOT in the control of the page being pointed to, but rather the webmaster of the page the link is on.

Now consider big names business that can rest on their names and are searched for by name. Microsoft, Ford Motors, Harley Davidson and on and on the list goes. All these sites would have thousands (or even more) links pointing to them with identical anchor text. They are certainly not being penalized.

I highly doubt it. Like I mentioned above, there is just too much evidence to say this is not true. On top of this, I can think of no logical reason for Google doing this. If you link back to your homepage with anchor text "Home", your company logo or your company name etc..so what? Google is VERY much in favor of putting the user first. Being consistent in your links to a specific page is helpful to site visitors. If large sites were penalized for doing what is best for their visitors it would be contrary to Googles guidelines.

__________________
Dave
Excel Templates, Training & Software
Barcode & Fonts
Free MS Office Applications Support

Thanks for your article!

__________________
Computer software review!|Poster art, Posters | Software free download

Here's the proof that Google indexes ALT text on linked images and not on unlinked images:

Do search engines index ALT attributes on linked graphics?

and

Do search engines index ALT attributes on unlinked graphics?

__________________
Webmaster: The Internet Search Engines FAQ

David seems to be arguing with himself.

There also seems to be some confusion between two things:

1. Duplicate ALT text on different pages on the same web site.
2. Duplicate ALT text on the same page.

As a matter of practicality, Google can not penalize sites for duplicate ALT text on different pages. This practice is a standard recommendation in every beginning web design text. In addition, it is programmatically much more difficult for Google to penalize for cross-page behavior than it is for Google to penalize for behavior which occurs on a single page.

Penalizing for duplicate ALT text in the same page is not currently done programmatically by Google, but may be done manually.

I have tested by applying the same ALT text to dozens of linked images on the same page. This had zero effect on my SERPS. Google appears to limit the effects of repetitive text, whether it occurs as body text, ALT text, etc... You can review this test page for yourself at Quotes on Liberty.

__________________
Webmaster: The Internet Search Engines FAQ

Based on that it would appear so.

__________________
Dave
Excel Templates, Training & Software
Barcode & Fonts
Free MS Office Applications Support

I have now done some more investigating into the non-linked images with Alt text.

I found 20 sites at random which had non-linked images with Alt text. The Alt text used in all cases was ONLY used in Alt text, as far as I could tell.

5 of the 20 sites could be located by searching Google for the unique alt text, eg "Picture of my house". However, it could likley be argued that there were other reasons.

From this, I would say I was likely wrong in my assumption on Alt text and non-linked images. At this point I would say it's about 80% likely that non-linked images with alt text are not indexed by Google.

__________________
Dave
Excel Templates, Training & Software
Barcode & Fonts
Free MS Office Applications Support

Ah... but here's the good news...

You can just link the graphic to the HTML page which calls it.

Seems to work like a charm, and when the user clicks the graphic, his page simply refreshes.

:-)

__________________
Webmaster: The Internet Search Engines FAQ

Seems rather pointless and likley annoying to the user. Why not just make the text visible on the page?

__________________
Dave
Excel Templates, Training & Software
Barcode & Fonts
Free MS Office Applications Support

Nothing to worry about here... just clearing up some "black hat tricks!"

__________________
New daily advice on Advance SEO, Copyright & DMCA @ Twitter

First,

Better you stop unecessary "Anchor Text Linking to your pages"!!! This is not the first time I observed this.
Second,

Agree with Dave Hawley that the alt tags of the images with no links are getting indexed.

Here is the proof:
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache...=UTF-8&strip=1

this is the "text only cached page" of one of www.whartonfashion.com

here google shows the alt tags for images without links.

__________________
Search Engine Management | Sytropin | Running Music

The purpose of ALT tags is not to be visible, unless the user is using a text-only browser or has turned off images.

Why would you want to destroy the purpose of ALT tags?

__________________
Webmaster: The Internet Search Engines FAQ

My hunch is that this is an accessibility-orientated development and that it's very unlikely you'll be penalised for the modest use of keywords in alt text.

I mean, I make a page about venus fly traps - it seems likely that I'll put a pic of ven. Fly trap on the page - it would be really bad of me not to include something along the lines of alt="the venus fly trap is.... blah blah blah" -- how can google penalise me for that?

They probably would, and should, penalise me if I write alt="venus fly trap venus fly trap venus fly trap venus fly trap venus fly trap"... because then I'm saying... "hello world I care more about robots than I do about blind users" - in which case I deserve to kicked completely off the index.

I don't. You can still use the Alt tags as they are supposed to be used.

I fear it is your suggestion of linking an image to the same page the image is on is what will "destroy the purpose of ALT tags".

In addition your suggestion is a blatent attempt to trick Google at the cost of annoying the user. Not a good thing to do at all and is spammy

__________________
Dave
Excel Templates, Training & Software
Barcode & Fonts
Free MS Office Applications Support

Dave:

I think you are completely misunderstanding.

Please start thinking this over from the beginning.

1. You create a web page.
2. You put a graphic on the web page.
3. You put an ALT attribute on the link to the graphic.
4. You put a HREF on the link to the graphic.

How exactly is this annoying to the user?

The user will not notice the HREF unless he clicks the graphic, at which point his page will refresh.

Is your point that an HREF statement takes up too much bandwidth? Is that how this technique will "annoy the user?"

I am unable to fathom the reasoning behind your assault.


Another approach would be to think of it this way: Ninety percent of the web pages in the world have a link to the home page of their web site. Most of these are graphical links.

Technologically speaking, this is equivalent to what I mentioned and to which you took great offense.

Thus far, this technique has not brought down the web as we know it.

__________________
Webmaster: The Internet Search Engines FAQ

Sudhani:

Why would you believe that the contents of the Google cache are relevant in any way to a question relating to PR, indexing, or SERPS.

__________________
Webmaster: The Internet Search Engines FAQ

One additional caveat to all of my documentation in this thread:

Google could change it's behavior overnight. What was true last Tuesday may not be true today, or tomorrow.

If I am wrong on any point, I would very much appreciate being corrected.

__________________
Webmaster: The Internet Search Engines FAQ

No, I'm not. you have selectively left out the all important part. Change #4 to: You put a HREF on the graphic that links to the very same page the graphic is on.

That is what's annoying. If a user wants to Refresh they will click the Refresh button on their Browser. When user clicks a link they, rightly so, expect to be taken to either;

A) Another Page.
b) Another section of the page that is relavant to the link they click.

You method of linking the graphic to the same page the graphic is on and cause a Refresh, is a blatent attempt to fool Google's algo.

No of couse not. Read above.

My assualt??? LOL. I picked you up on suggesting a spammy technique, no-body assaulted you.

Yes, of course they do. But this has nothing to do with your suggestion.

Firstly I have not taken "great offense" I'm simply pointing out to others that your suggestion is spam.

Secondly, It's nothing like having a home page graphic on other pages. What you are suggesting is equivalent to having a This Page graphic on each page BUT you try and fool the SE's and your own site visitors into thinking the link actually takes you somewhere.


Good grief Will, you are very dramatic.

assault, great offense and now you are trying to make out I'm saying your spammy method will bring down the Web. [/b]

__________________
Dave
Excel Templates, Training & Software
Barcode & Fonts
Free MS Office Applications Support

It only refers to the question of whether google takes notice of the non-linked image alt text or not. No one can tell how much weight it gives to each of these elements!!! Its a pure guess work!!!

__________________
Search Engine Management | Sytropin | Running Music

The alternative to guessing is scientific testing.

For this question, I have conducted two tests and presented the results for peer review.

Isn't that preferable to guessing?

__________________
Webmaster: The Internet Search Engines FAQ

Lets not get personal ... Let us leave the issue to the Mods!!!

__________________
Search Engine Management | Sytropin | Running Music

Thanks Will. Your suggestion like any other suggestion about optimizing a page by tweaking the code is anything but "spammy". It's another good tool in an SEO's arsenal.

Don't mind Dave, you can end up going round and round wasting time on pointless responses getting you further and further off track.

ciao.

Any blatent attempt to fool a SE into thinking your page/site is more relavant is not SEO, it's spamming. Serious SEOing is about making your page/site more relavant. No trickery, smoke and mirrors etc.

It's this sort of really poor advise, that you have mistakenly seen as SEO, that ends up having business dropped from the SERPs and give the SEO world a really bad name.

It's really quite simple, stick withing Google guidelines while SEOing and you are not spamming. Go outside (as you suggest) and you a spamming.

It's always those that do not have the skills to SEO that resort to spam.

__________________
Dave
Excel Templates, Training & Software
Barcode & Fonts
Free MS Office Applications Support

Known bad habit of mine. <blush>

I'm going to attempt to ignore the flames and get back to productive work.

Thank you for the kind words.

__________________
Webmaster: The Internet Search Engines FAQ

RE: get back to productive work

RE: I'm going to attempt to ignore the flames
I take flamimg spammers as a compliment :)

__________________
Dave
Excel Templates, Training & Software
Barcode & Fonts
Free MS Office Applications Support

Right now my current ranking on google is like 500 and something. However, recently I began to optimize the website. One change that I made was incorporating a list of keywords for my alt text. Will this simply be ignored?

AChernyak, make the Alt text a human readable statement with Keywords/Phrases included. If the image is not linked, it might help to use a very similar/same statement just above/below the image.

It's very likely that visible text on page carries more weight than Alt tags. The pupose of Alt text, short for alternative text, is to show alternate text when/if the image does not show. It is also for those with vision impairment and use audio-based browsers. This is yet another reason not to play the cruel trick suggested, creating a circular link. Besides it sending a poor quality signal to Google.

There is some good sensible suggestions here
http://www.pantos.org/atw/35534.html

__________________
Dave
Excel Templates, Training & Software
Barcode & Fonts
Free MS Office Applications Support