Anyone running any tests on alt attributes of non linking
images?

"T.J." <no1@here.invalid> wrote in message
news:d7kqbu$bl8$1@nwrdmz01.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com...
> Anyone running any tests on alt attributes of non linking
> images?
>
>

I don't want to shock anyone but Google is now indexing non linking alt text
in images. MSN and Yahoo are not. I have checked my site with some of my old
pages and I had some non linking images that the alt text was indexed. :-)

Stacey

"Stacey" <stacey@staceyssimplestuff.com> wrote in message
news:Kdone.24896$Fv.11379@lakeread01...
> "T.J." <no1@here.invalid> wrote in message
> news:d7kqbu$bl8$1@nwrdmz01.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com...
>> Anyone running any tests on alt attributes of non linking
>> images?
>>
>>
>
> I don't want to shock anyone but Google is now indexing non linking alt
> text
> in images. MSN and Yahoo are not. I have checked my site with some of my
> old
> pages and I had some non linking images that the alt text was indexed. :-)
>
> Stacey
>
I believe it has been the case for a month or more and threw up
a new test page a couple of days ago.
Google appears to be picking up all alt attributes, and it does have
an effect in the SERPs.
If anyone has been running any tests over the past few weeks, I would
be interested in hearing their conclusions.

On Wed, 1 Jun 2005 15:43:40 -0400, "Stacey"
<stacey@staceyssimplestuff.com> wrote:

>"T.J." <no1@here.invalid> wrote in message
>news:d7kqbu$bl8$1@nwrdmz01.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com...
>> Anyone running any tests on alt attributes of non linking
>> images?
>>
>>
>
>I don't want to shock anyone but Google is now indexing non linking alt text
>in images. MSN and Yahoo are not. I have checked my site with some of my old
>pages and I had some non linking images that the alt text was indexed. :-)
>
>Stacey

Oo-er!

BB

--
www.kruse.co.uk/ seo@kruse.demon.co.uk
seo that watches the river flow...
--

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed "Stacey"
<stacey@staceyssimplestuff.com> writing in
news:Kdone.24896$Fv.11379@lakeread01:

> "T.J." <no1@here.invalid> wrote in message
> news:d7kqbu$bl8$1@nwrdmz01.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com...
>> Anyone running any tests on alt attributes of non linking images?
>>
>>
>
> I don't want to shock anyone but Google is now indexing non linking alt
> text in images. MSN and Yahoo are not. I have checked my site with some
> of my old pages and I had some non linking images that the alt text was
> indexed. :-)
>
> Stacey
>
>

That's bad news, because I'm sure that developers will abuse it. I can
imagine someone with a slice and dice table based layout with spacer gifs
using the alt attribute on all of them. Imagine what a screen reader is
going to say!
<table>
<tr>
<td><img src="clear.gif" width="1" height="1" alt="My keyword"></td>
<td><img src="rightcorner.gif" width="10" height="10" alt="My other
keyword"></td>
....

Not to mention that IE shows the alt attribute as a tool tip, so anyone
mousing over such a slice and dice nightmare would have tool tips popping
up all over the place.

The alt attribute is there as an _alternative_ for an image. It should be
left null (alt="") for images that are for decoration only. If Google is
picking up alt="Picture of ACME Purple Widget with Orange Widget" then
that's okay, but if it's picking up alt="My logo", it's not.

Now, if Google would pick up the title attribute, that would be very nice.

--
Adrienne Boswell
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share

Adrienne wrote:

> Gazing into my crystal ball I observed "Stacey"
> <stacey@staceyssimplestuff.com> writing in
> news:Kdone.24896$Fv.11379@lakeread01:
>

> > I don't want to shock anyone but Google is now indexing non linking


> That's bad news, because I'm sure that developers will abuse it. I
> can imagine someone with a slice and dice table based layout with
> spacer gifs using the alt attribute on all of them. Imagine what a
> screen reader is going to say!

Search engines should implement understanding the standards, IMO, and
not care about ways it could be abused until after that. Alt-text on
non-linking images can be used for right and wrong reasons; so can CSS
colors, title tags, etc. It's true that alt-text poses a specific risk:
it can't be seen by the end user on normal browsers...

> <table>
> <tr>
> <td><img src="clear.gif" width="1" height="1" alt="My keyword"></td>
> <td><img src="rightcorner.gif" width="10" height="10" alt="My other
> keyword"></td>
> ...
>
> Not to mention that IE shows the alt attribute as a tool tip, so
> anyone mousing over such a slice and dice nightmare would have tool
> tips popping up all over the place.
>

That can be avoided if you include alt="something" title="".
(Rendering alt-texts as tool-tips is a misbehavior of IExplorer, by the
way.)

> The alt attribute is there as an alternative for an image. It should
> be left null (alt="") for images that are for decoration only. If
> Google is picking up alt="Picture of ACME Purple Widget with Orange
> Widget" then that's okay, but if it's picking up alt="My logo", it's
> not.

Actually "Picture of ACME Purple Widget with Orange Widget" is a bad
alt-text, but you're right.

>
> Now, if Google would pick up the title attribute, that would be very
> nice.

Agreed...

--
Google Blogoscoped
http://blog.outer-court.com