Image alt attribute vs. plain text in link?
-
I'm building a product category browsing page for a high-falutin' jewelry retailer where we display only product photos linking to individual product pages, without any text in the links.
From an SEO and link-juice-passing perspective, is it most effective to embed the product titles as the alt attribute in each image, or to leave alt="" and use text substitutions (i.e. an inner which is css'd to display: none) within the <a>to help search engines accept my product titles as the link text with the most credibility?</a>
-
Nope. Sorry. Google can crawl CSS, so anything you do to hide text (z-index, position:relative, etc) is easily detectable (Google can even parse javascript).
Now, sometimes you can get away with such things, like in a drop down menu for example. But if you do it, be sure to use the standards from a site that is well indexed.
You're right, I was looking at that to... hahaha. From my experience though, It's better to have one link.. maybe not much better, but at least a little bit.
Does this help Jonathan?
-
It's interesting to note that Etsy (your example) uses the second option.
What do you think of absolutely positioning the image over the text, so that the text is only visible until obscured by the image as it loads? I don't mind that, and it would allow me to sneak in some decent anchor text past the client's visual look-and-feel regime...
-
Great question. I recently worked on a site with exact same layout, and I chose the first one.
I think it's better for users because they won't have to 'think' about which one they should they click. It's also a bit easier to maintain, so you can focus resources elsewhere.
-
Can I do:
Or will having the alt text and the plain text both in the contents of the same link pollute its keyword focus? Would it be better to do something like:
And then 301 or rel=canonical the two PHP targets to the same page? (I understand that if both links point to the same URL, Google will ignore the second one on the page, considering it a duplicate.)
-
Hey Jonathan,
Chris is right. I strongly recommend:
-
use the alt tag (and don't hide text)
-
use text links along with the images
A great example is http://www.etsy.com/category/jewelry
(except they didn't name the images very well)Does this help?
-
-
I agree.... I would go to these high-falutin' folks and tell them that a little text on the page is a good thing.
As Chris suggests I would name the images and create alt attributes for appropriate keywords.
-
I would be very careful about using the display: none route. Hidden text is considered a no no. If you can't convince the client of the importance of link text then go with the alt tag. I would also name the image files to reflect the anchor text I would like to use.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Keywords that are bold in text
Hi, Does anyone think having keywords in your articles that are bold or i_talic_ or underlined makes any difference ?
On-Page Optimization | | ReSEOlve0 -
Removing text from Homepage - Bad idea?
Hi Mozzers, I've just read this great article: http://moz.com/ugc/how-to-build-a-great-online-fashion-brand-34-things-that-really-amazing-fashion-retailers-do I'm working with my wife on a small (hopefully, growing) fashion website www.vintageeheirloom.com One of the points was not to directly sell on the homepage, rather draw customers into different areas of the site. Seems good advice and it's followed by many big brands online. As a small company, doing fairly well for some targeted keywords, do you think it would be a good or bad idea for me to remove most, or all of the text on my homepage. The main emphasis of our site is vintage Chanel and using the tool nTopic I score 99% relevancy for 'Vintage Chanel'. Removing would certainly affect this. Obviously I could amend my Vintage Chanel shopping category to include all this. I'd be grateful if you have any thoughts / similar experience. Thanks ! Kevin
On-Page Optimization | | well-its-1-louder0 -
Alt image tags not being read by on-page optimization tool
Can bots see the keyword among other words in aIt image tags? For example, if the keyword is upholstery leather and the image tag says "our upholstery leather collection" will the keyword be recognized? Another example is buy leather. I have a image tag on a slide that reads "free samples before you buy leather" but an on-page analysis in moz does not show an alt tag title for buy leather? Same problem with an moz on-page analysis of the term upholstery leather. Thanks! Hunter
On-Page Optimization | | leatherhidestore0 -
Pages vs Posts
What are your thoughts on pages vs posts? I am setting up a new blog for a client but not sure how to structure the content. I may just do posts or a whole bunch of page listed down the sidebar. It seems like my pages always rank better than my posts. Has anyone else noticed this? Could it be because of the dates tied posts?
On-Page Optimization | | SixTwoInteractive0 -
Should I nofollow all my outbound links?
I've read a lot of stuff and I can't get a good answer about this. Now I'm reading Wordpress 3 - Search Engine Optimization, and the writer says that less outbound dofollow links you have, better for you. What is the best practice in this subject? Should I really nofollow more than 80% of all my outbound links? Thank you.
On-Page Optimization | | izaiasalmeida0 -
Correct use of Canonical link vs 301 redirect
Hi All, Seeking yet more advice. SEOMOZ tools have told me I have duplicate content on one of my sites and I am keen to clean this up. I am not to familiar with the following so thought I would ask. The duplicate content is shown on : www.mysite.com www.mysite.com/index.html Obviously I only see index.html when I check the code so what is the best method of resolving the duplicate content, Canonical or 301? Can you give me an example 🙂 Thanks all
On-Page Optimization | | wedmonds0 -
Absolute vs Relative URLs
What are the pros and cons of these two types of URLs and what type of weight does this hold. It doesn't seem to be a big issue in regards to ranking. Any qualified clarity would help.
On-Page Optimization | | Romancing0