Comments on: Matt video: ALT attributes for images

By: SEO Preston

SEO Preston — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:39:18 +0000

Hey Matt,

Just looking over some of your older posts and I can’t believe that there’s a webmaster blog with RSS! How on earth have I missed that! I think I may have associated the blog with Google’s webmaster tools or central. Such a great resource that I’ve been missing out on!

Glad I stopped by!

By: Matthew Thompson

Matthew Thompson — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 05:59:35 +0000

Thanks for this great video.

For anyone who is unable to view the video or would just prefer to read the content in text form, we have created a transcript of the video here:

http://public.youtranscript.com/zs/5.html

Please don’t hesitate to contact us for any future transcription needs or if you would like this transcript removed.

Thanks, YouTranscript

By: Ben @ Discount Resale Shop

Ben @ Discount Resale Shop — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 01:53:49 +0000

There is a maximum size for the ALT attribute

By: velix

velix — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:42:27 +0000

I use “alt” tag always on my pictures but I didn’t see it as so important to SEO. It has very small part on SERP, I can say even less than famous Page Rank. But it is good that you write post about this.

By: Ed

Ed — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:51:51 +0000

Hmmmn, the link to the meta tag reference guide is very useful. It does imply that google doesn’t use this and the classification tag though, is this ture Matt. I always use both tags but ensure that words contained within the tags appear on the page as text. Also, could you clarify two things for us, how many words should the alt tag/element be and the discussion about the stop character is also quite interesting, I personally think that this is very useful within context, never really read anything about it before so it was nice to read info on it here.

A personal opinion, I have posted comments and queries on the google webmasters blog and was quickly shouted down by ignorant and over zealous individuals who obviously had their own agendas. I shall revisit following the comments above.

Thanks all!

By: Avatare

Avatare — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:24:32 +0000

Should we use both “alt” and “title” for the IMG element? Or “alt” is just enough?

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 01:41:35 +0000

Hi Matt, above – someone asked the question “Are there ALT tags for videos, or can one use the image tag somewhere in an embedded video link?” – is there an answer to that? I’ve also been trying to find the answer to this question. For example, if you’re using the EMBED code, can you use EMBED alt=”Me driving a red car.” src=”../path-of-video/” etc. If so, does this help Google know more about the video, or is the text around the video good enough? Thanks

By: A

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 07:55:40 +0000

Hi! Many thanks for the video… it may be old news to some of those who read your blog, but there must be millions who don’t know about the alt attributes.

So in the video, you seem to imply that if alt is specified, title attribute is less important?

One more question, just out of curiosity: in addition to the alt , does it benefit Google to add a line of descriptive text under the image (within the same html td or paragraph ). I have been doing this for a while, not really with google in mind but because I always like to describe photos – in a similar fashion to what you see in newspapers, a descriptive line always goes down well.

By: Lamellenvorhang

Lamellenvorhang — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 11:26:22 +0000

Hi Matt,
Thank you for the video. Very good post.
I think the Use of an ALT Tag with images is for SEO very important.

By: Linda Lynch

Linda Lynch — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 22:48:54 +0000

Good day,
Yeah I am late in on this but will still make the comment in the hopes that maybe just maybe I will be heard and my point will be ‘mathed in’ and the 7 words for alt will be morphed upwards;)
You see, if we are trying to offer good readable alt text for accessibility (sp?) then I think 7 words is way too short. In the photo galleries especially along with key descriptive images I try and paint a picture for people in words. I envision someone who may be visually challenged and is working off braile (sp?) . I might put something into an image that is also a link and say; this is a picture of a beautiful sunset on lake whatever, with people walking barefoot along the beach. This image links to our such and such page where you can make a reservation or call us for more information.
SO would Google say ‘off with her head’ more than 7 words (39(and my math says downgrade her page/site. you see are we going to write alt descs for people or some predetermined word count for da search math? I might say something on an image nav. menu that says ‘this image is the first button in the navigation menu and it takes you to such and such. I am trying to talk to peeps who may not see things like I do and make them feel comfortable.
Thanks for reading my thoughts.