TItle Tags vs ALT tags?

10 replies
  • SEO
  • |
A question I have had about image tags for quite sometime...


If I titled all my pics, is a variation of keywords in the ALT field really going to do much? This is a WP site.
#alt #tags #title
  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Originally Posted by hipeopo02 View Post

    A question I have had about image tags for quite sometime...


    If I titled all my pics, is a variation of keywords in the ALT field really going to do much? This is a WP site.

    Image title tags do not show on the google cache (text version), alt tag text does show on the cache text version.

    I can easily get image alt text to show in a SERP description, image title text has never shown in the SERP description.

    So... my advice is use the alt text for SEO.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10460204].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author MrMintyBluez
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      Image title tags do not show on the google cache (text version), alt tag text do show on the cache text version.

      I can easily get image alt text to show in a SERP description, image title text has never shown in the SERP description.

      So... my advice is use the alt text for SEO.
      I second this
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10462133].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author DannyVeiga
    Yes yukon has it spot on. Title text is the text that shows up when you hover on the image - the Alt text is "alternative information" for those that have images disabled in their browsers. Even though Search engines can see both, Google officially confirmed that it focuses on alt text when understanding what an image is about.

    http://googlewebmastercentral.blogsp...s-smartly.html
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10461164].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      Originally Posted by DannyVeiga View Post

      Title text is the text that shows up when you hover on the image - the Alt text is "alternative information" for those that have images disabled in their browsers.
      Not in 2016. That was a waste of what the alt was for, and browsers have choked that useless bit off.

      The alt tag was for other reasons, and now without the hover, it should serve its purpose.

      Hardly.

      The alt was always for exactly what the image was, not keyword stuffing.

      In addition to alt, I would recommend using a descriptive url that also
      describes the image. If google does not like your other shtuff, they
      may use the file as its name.

      Yukon, if you are still in this thread, what about figure, caption, etc?
      Useless?

      Paul
      Signature

      If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10462271].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

        Yukon, if you are still in this thread, what about figure, caption, etc?
        Useless?

        Paul
        I don't think those HTML5 tags do anything for SEO right now. Those things are descriptive & could easily help Google understand different parts of a webpage so I wouldn't be surprised If Google eventually (years) starts parsing HTML5 tags & adding SEO weight better than they do today. Right now I'd say those tags don't do anything.

        The #1 ranking factor right now for all file types including image file types (jpg, png, bmp, etc...) is followed backlinks. This is extremely easy to prove with images because the average SEO/webmaster doesn't aim to rank images which means there's tons of very weak images ranked #1 on Google Images & even thumbnail images on Google text search.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10462353].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author tomhenry1710
    alt tags are the name of image
    tittle tags are the name of post
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10461537].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by tomhenry1710 View Post

      alt tags are the name of image
      tittle tags are the name of post

      Alt-text is the plain text that replaces an image in a text only browser or cache. The file name of an image can be totally different than the alt-text.

      An HTML title attribute can also be added to a hyperlink, it's not a page <title> for the entire webpage. Those are two totally different things.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10462130].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author alycium
    I used to run a Facebook cover site. Alt was great for Google. Don't forget the actual file name of the image for example 'new-years-2016-wallpaper.jpg' this was quite important just like the alt tag. I suggest you to use keywords and be specific with alt along with the image file name.

    Wish you the best!
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10462363].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author karenwilliams
    To use more Alt tags in each blog posts, we should use more than one image in blog posts. I have seen that the posts that have many images with alt tags in them are more easily searchable. They get quickly indexed and it's good for your blog, but you must well optimize your images otherwise your blog might get negative impact for being heavy (recently the loading time/speed has also become an SEO factor)
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10462917].message }}
  • Using alt tags for images helps Google to understand what each image is all about. It will use that information when displaying your images tin Google Image results.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10468659].message }}

Trending Topics