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Are Image Alt Tags Considered Hidden Keywords?

by wiseworks
14 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I've been learning as much as I can about Google Penguin and ran across a blog where I can't get my questions answered.

SEnuke X, SEnuke Blog - SE Nuke, Search Engine Optimization Software

Are image alt tags considered hidden keywords if any keyword is in it?

If so, would it be wise to delete every single image alt tag on all my sites?
#alt #considered #hidden #image #keywords #tags
  • Profile picture of the author alextheseo
    Alt tags can be a sensitive area. They are still recognized but paid attention to more carefully by search engine crawlers. ALT Tags are not just for keywords, they describe the image to the crawlers.
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  • Profile picture of the author BloggingPro
    If your using the alt tag to keyword stuff, then yes they are bad. For the most part Google looked for sites using the tag so that images could be "explained" to its algo. Many sites soon adopted it and today it's standard.

    As long as you are correctly describing the image in the alt-tag, then you are fine.

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  • Profile picture of the author SE0Warrior
    No they are not counted as hidden keywords, you are allowed to use them for SEO.
    But still try to keep them varied, if you add the same keyword to all of the alt tags then that could hurt your SEO. Try be creative and get pictures relating to your target keywords then describe the pictures with the keywords, it also helps to make a few alt tags with other descriptions with keywords that you aren't targeting. This makes your site look nice and natural for Google.
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    • Profile picture of the author WebMeUp
      I believe there's no need to delete ALT attributes for your images.

      If they're are currently keyword-stuffed, just rewrite them the most natural way. Use the best practice for writing titles - make them appealing for users, up to the point and descriptive.
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  • Profile picture of the author imsun
    Alt tags are just a bonus for SEO your site..Keyword diversity is applicable for not only the text , but for images too ..So diversify the keywords for images too...
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  • Profile picture of the author nishasharma2012
    Alt text is meant to be an alternative information source for those people who have chosen to disable images in their browsers and those user agents that are simply unable to “see” the images. It should describe what the image is about and get those visitors interested to see it. So we can use alt tag as a keyword.
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  • Profile picture of the author effectivesite
    Google likes alt text since it gives their crawlers something to read and check if images are relevant (they assume you're honest about the alt tags) like others said don't delete them.

    Hidden text is keywords added in with the same color as the background, with an image over them, etc. so that people browsing the site won't see it, but the google bots will pick up on them and in theory count them as keywords on the page.
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  • Profile picture of the author subashanusha@gmail.com
    As of i know alt tags are really important to Image results
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    What's funny is even in 2012, image alt-text is one of the few things that still allows keyword stuffing. As long as the keywords are relevant to the rest of the page content the image will usually rank.
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  • Profile picture of the author HorseStall
    No - utilizing Alt Image Tags is good SEO as long as you don't stuff keywords.
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  • Profile picture of the author extremejava
    No but too much of keyword stuffing in alt tags may affect your rankings
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  • Profile picture of the author larry05
    Alt Tags are not considered hidden keywords. In fact it is one of the ways search engines recognize the images and in case of some technical issue if that is not displayed alt tags take over the image.
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  • Profile picture of the author Robaski
    Does this work the exact same way for banner alt tags?
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