Alt Tags - HTML Forums

webflasher · 12-03-2005, 08:23 PM

I recently added alt tags to images on a few of my pages. I was amazed to see that only a week later Google was ranking some of those pages high on the list using the keywords I used in the alt tags. Up until now I was somewhat dismissive about the effectiveness of alt tags and search engine rankings. Now I know better!

bushie · 12-04-2005, 07:37 PM

Alt attributes are required for page validation anyway. As far as search engines go, make sure you don't abuse the use of the alt attribute by making it 16 lines long. It is purely for a description of the image of vision impaired people or for when the image does not appear.

Draicone · 05-07-2006, 06:36 AM

Like bushie said, do remember that if the image doesn't load for whatever reason (even if the user hits the 'Stop' button!) the alt text will be shown, and should be fairly descriptive. In this case be sure not only to supply alt tags with images but also a width and height.