Comments on: Good Alt Text for Images

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:04:39 +0000

Hi Rob, in most cases for decorative images I’d usually display them as background images anyway using CSS but there may also be occasions when a foreground image would also not provide any further information to the content and in those cases I’d also use alt=”"

By: Rob Mason

Rob Mason — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:22:59 +0000

Writing alt text for images that don’t need it is a waste of time (IMHO) and is unlikely to have any meaningful impact on SEO.

Personally I always use the rule of “If it’s decorative, leave the alt blank”.

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:12:26 +0000

Hi Jermayn, For both points I’d ask you to consider what impact this would have on accessibility?

If you’re only adding alt text to benefit the search engines then how does this affect people who are viewing the page with images turned off who are hearing an audio version of the page via a screenreader?

Try turning CSS and images off and if the alt text doesn’t add anything to the content then I’d always use alt=”".

By: Jermayn

Jermayn — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 02:09:41 +0000

While I understand the theory for not having alt text for some images, I personally do not think its a good idea.

1) Can help SEO – even if only small
2) Is an alt text for a meaningless image that big a deal?