Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Turn SEO data into actionable Content Briefs
      Moz Pro

      Turn SEO data into actionable Content Briefs

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing
      Moz API

      Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Technical SEO
    4. For an image which is in the CSS and not the HTML, can you add an alt tag?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    For an image which is in the CSS and not the HTML, can you add an alt tag?

    Technical SEO
    3
    3
    2580
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • BridgetGibbons
      BridgetGibbons last edited by

      I would like to improve SEO on a page with three big images, which are currently hosted in the CSS. The sample I am working with is at http://xquisitevents.com/about-us/

      and I put my cursor over the big picture of the wedding dress with bouquet, I inspected the element and saw this code in a div tag:

      #upperleft {

      1. background-image:url(images/AboutTopLeft.jpg);

      Can I add an alt tag to the CSS somehow, or can I have it added to the HTML? What is the best way to handle this, to include keywords like

      exquisite weddings and special event designs?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • SEOAndy
        SEOAndy @LynnPatchett last edited by

        further to this you could look at having the image above some text and the text describes the image -- using z-index to layer them - hope that makes a little sense... if not google z-index 🙂

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • LynnPatchett
          LynnPatchett last edited by

          Hi Bridget,

          There is no alt attribute in css, so no you cannot add it there,

          There are a couple of things you can do.

          1. Optimizing your image file names will at least give an indication of what the image is about and

          2. Rethink your css and the use of background images. Specifically you could get the same effect as you have now without background images using a combination of absolutely and relatively positioned divs. This way you can have the same layout as now but with the image in the html rather than the css and alt tags will be available for them.

          Check the link here for some demo code: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8708945/how-to-position-text-over-an-image-in-css

          Hope that helps!

          SEOAndy 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
          • 1 / 1
          • First post
            Last post

          Got a burning SEO question?

          Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


          Start my free trial


          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.

          • See all categories

          Related Questions

          • LivDetrick

            Does google look at H3 tags?

            I've had someone tell me that google doesn't pay attention to H3 tags -- only H1 and H2.  I haven't found much online to back this up or discredit it; thought I'd ask the Moz community!

            Technical SEO | | LivDetrick
            5
          • kevinpark191

            Can a H1 Tag Have Multiple Spans Within It?

            H1 tags on my client's website follow the template [Service] + [Location]. These two have their own span, meaning there are two spans in an H1 tag. class="what">Truck Repair near class="where">California, CA How do crawl bots see this? Is that okay for SEO?

            Technical SEO | | kevinpark191
            0
          • nerdieb

            Hidden H1 Tag on Image

            Hi, In the page I'm working on, I encountered an tag in an image, rather than in a text form. Do you think it's an issue when it comes to SEO?
            What do you suggest I should do if there is an issue? Keen to hear from you!

            Technical SEO | | nerdieb
            0
          • Uber_

            Add trailing slash after removing .html extention

            My website is non www ,it has wordpress in subdirectory and some static webpages in the root and other subdirectory 1. i want to remove .html extention from the webpages in the root and
            the others static webpages in subdirectory.
            2. add slash at the end.
            3. 301 redirect from non slash to url with slash. so it should be http://ghadaalsaman.com/articles.html to http://ghadaalsaman.com/articles/ and http://ghadaalsaman.com/en/poem-list.html to http://ghadaalsaman.com/en/poem-list/ the below code 1. working with non slash at the end **2. **redirect 301 url with slash to non here's my .htaccess <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews RewriteEngine On
            RewriteBase /</ifmodule> #removing trailing slash
            RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d     
            RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ $1 [R=301,L] #www to non
            RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.(([a-z0-9_]+.)?domain.com)$ [NC]
            RewriteRule .? http://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L] #html
            RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
            RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
            RewriteRule ^([^.]+)$ $1.html [NC,L] #index redirect
            RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index.html\ HTTP/
            RewriteRule ^index.html$ http://ghadaalsaman.com/ [R=301,L]
            RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} .html
            RewriteRule ^(.*).html$ /$1 [R=301,L] PS everything is ok with the wordpress , the problems with static pages only. Thanks in advanced

            Technical SEO | | Uber_
            0
          • Avalara

            Is alt text inside an img tag inside an h1 the same weight as text directly inside the h1?

            Right now I use a background image and CSS to tie the h1 tag to my logo on each page. However, I am concerned that may not be best practice. Plus, I am interested in using schema markup on my logo. So, my question is, if I use an image with alt text inside my h1 tag, will the alt text carry as much weight as a text-based h1?

            Technical SEO | | Avalara
            0
          • BridgetGibbons

            Isnt it better to have headlines in H1 and H2 tags instead of p tags?

            I am working with a simple site http://http://lightsigns.com/Uniko_Manufacturing_Limited.html They seek more SEO traffic. However, the two big headlines that read "Wholesale Supply to the Sign and Display Industries" which is on line 241 and 242 of the source code, its in a p tag, i.e. <p <span class="webkit-html-tag">style</p <span>="padding-top: 0pt; " class="paragraph_style_1">Wholesale Supply to the and <p <span class="webkit-html-tag">style</p <span>="padding-bottom: 0pt; " class="paragraph_style_1">Sign and Display Industries Likewise, the product titles are in p tags, also. For example, on the Slide-in Light Box product page, http://lightsigns.com/Slide_In_light_box.html , I have done keyword research and no one is using the words slide in light box.Plus, it is also a p tag, ie. line 43 reads style="padding-bottom: 0pt; padding-top: 0pt; " class="paragraph_style">Slide-in Light Box If I suggest that they make an H2 tag with SEO-optimized keywords such as Display Light Box - Slide-In LIght Box, would this indeed help SEO? In summary, is it correct to say that H1 and H2 tags are stronger signals to the search bots of what the page is about?

            Technical SEO | | BridgetGibbons
            1
          • PioneerServices

            Can you have a /sitemap.xml and /sitemap.html on the same site?

            Thanks in advance for any responses; we really appreciate the expertise of the SEOmoz community! My question: Since the file extensions are different, can a site have both a /sitemap.xml and /sitemap.html both siting at the root domain? For example, we've already put the html sitemap in place here: https://www.pioneermilitaryloans.com/sitemap Now, we're considering adding an XML sitemap. I know standard practice is to load it at the root (www.example.com/sitemap.xml), but am wondering if this will cause conflicts. I've been unable to find this topic addressed anywhere, or any real-life examples of sites currently doing this. What do you think?

            Technical SEO | | PioneerServices
            0
          • mickey11

            Using symbols in the html title of a webpage

            If you a symbol in the title of a webpage will this dilute the keywords in the title
            thus making it rank worse in search engines here is an example <title><br /> Black Shoe Polish<br /></title> versus <title><br /> ▶ Black Shoe Polish<br /></title> will the extra symbols count as words and thus the dilute the effectiveness of the Black Shoe Polish keyword. sort of making like 4 words instead 3. By the way, The reason to use a symbol is to make it stand on in the search engine results

            Technical SEO | | mickey11
            0

          Get started with Moz Pro!

          Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

          Start my free trial
          Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz API
          • Moz Data
          • STAT
          • Product Updates
          Moz Solutions
          • SMB Solutions
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Digital Marketers
          Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Authority Checker
          • Link Explorer
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • Brand Authority Checker
          • Local Citation Checker
          • MozBar Extension
          • MozCast
          Resources
          • Blog
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Help Hub
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • How-to Guides
          • Moz Academy
          • API Docs
          About Moz
          • About
          • Team
          • Careers
          • Contact
          Why Moz
          • Case Studies
          • Testimonials
          Get Involved
          • Become an Affiliate
          • MozCon
          • Webinars
          • Practical Marketer Series
          • MozPod
          Connect with us

          Contact the Help team

          Join our newsletter
          Moz logo
          © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
          • Accessibility
          • Terms of Use
          • Privacy

          Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.