The image alt tag and anchor text links are very important to Google

Cristian Level X³

May 16, 2017, 3:57 pm

Write the reason you're deleting this FAQ

The image alt tag and anchor text links are very important to Google

In a recent response on Twitter John Mueller Webmaster, Trends Analyst at Google said and commented on image alt tag and anchor text links saying, and I quote:

"I wouldn't leave it out if you can avoid it"

The image alt tag and anchor text links are very important to Google

This shows, yet again that Google puts a lot of weight on use having alt tags based keywords on every image on our website as well as generally use text anchor based links. Sometimes we take Google and its crawlers for granted. They aren't as smart as we think they are and a lot of Google robots still look and analyze the little things like alt tags and anchor texts.

I'm not saying abuse this implementation and focus on over optimization and keyword stuffing, I'm just saying that most webmasters out there ignore alt tag implementation for their images as well as forget to add anchor text to links.

You need to help Google understand what you are publishing, you don't need to "optimize" and stuff your keywords every time you get the opportunity, just be sincere in your alt description as well as your anchor text and everything should be alright in the long run.

Let's say you have around 1k images on your website, if every image has an alt tag, I assure you that your website will get a decent amount of traffic just from Google Image Search, even if your alt tag doesn't always reflect some relevant keyword to your niche.
sincere

Comments

Please login or sign up to leave a comment

Join

TommyCarey

Google started pushing alt tags a little while ago and now everyone who doesn't have their images optimized are actually falling behind in the marketing game lol.

I was actually surprised as to how many people actually didn't know how to add in alt tags to their images, which could be a booming market when it comes to getting new clients for an SEO and Online Marketing company

Something else I like to do is name the image file similar to what the image is about. If it's a skateboarder kickflipping a stair set, I'll name my image skateboarder-kickflipping-stairs.jpg or something like that

You always have to stay ahead of the game so that when Google does do something tricky, you're there to get the top rankings

9 years ago

Are you sure you want to delete this post?

overcast

These days I am noticing lot of shutterstock and dreamstime images. So I can see that they are doing a lot of SEO. And with time and again their methods are proven. So I am guessing the image alt tag and the image name is very much important for ranking images. It's kind of safe to say that not all people can get it properly done. Some people may not get domain authority like others.

9 years ago

Are you sure you want to delete this post?

Corzhens

I didn’t know that images can also be optimized with the alt tags because I really don’t have an experience in uploading images. When I was co-blogging, all my articles were uploaded by the main blogger and I don’t know if there are tags in the images. Maybe I can check that with the main blogger and suggest to him to add “alt tags” to our images. Most of our blogs have multiple images with a minimum of 3 images per article.

7 years ago

Are you sure you want to delete this post?

SEOClerks

The image alt tag and anchor text links are very important to Google

The image alt tag and anchor text links are very important to Google

Comments

Please login or sign up to leave a comment

TommyCarey

overcast

Corzhens

Invalid SQL

Expensive SQL

Suspicious SQL

Match	Count	SQL	Script
SELECT * FROM `questions` as q JOIN categories_faq as c ON q.catid=c.CATID WHERE (q.status=1 OR (q.status=2 AND userid='') ) AND q.quesid='22627'	1	SELECT q.*, c.seo as CatSEO, c.name as CatName, c.parentid FROM `questions` as q JOIN categories_faq as c ON q.catid=c.CATID WHERE (q.status=1 OR (q.status=2 AND userid='') ) AND q.quesid='22627'	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/viewfaq.php 496 () ()
SELECT * FROM seoclerks.members WHERE USERID='134'	1	SELECT * FROM seoclerks.members WHERE USERID='134'	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/include/functions/includes/member.php 445 GetAllUserDetails() ()
SELECT * FROM categories_faq WHERE CATID='36'	1	SELECT CATID, seo, name, metatitle, h2header, metakeywords, metadescription, metaheader, parentid, image_name FROM categories_faq WHERE CATID='36'	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/libraries/adodb5/adodb.inc.php 1899 CacheExecute() GetCategorySeoFromType()
SELECT * FROM categories_faq WHERE CATID='30'	1	SELECT CATID, seo, name, metatitle, h2header, metakeywords, metadescription, metaheader, parentid, image_name FROM categories_faq WHERE CATID='30'	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/libraries/adodb5/adodb.inc.php 1899 CacheExecute() GetCategorySeoFromType()
SELECT * FROM seoclerks.members WHERE USERID=134	1	SELECT googleplus_profile FROM seoclerks.members WHERE USERID=134	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/include/functions/main.php 16914 GetGooglePlusProfileFromId() ()
SELECT * FROM ratings_faq as r, seoclerks.members as m WHERE r.USERID=m.USERID AND r.upvote=1 AND r.PID=22627 LIMIT 5	1	SELECT m.username FROM ratings_faq as r, seoclerks.members as m WHERE r.USERID=m.USERID AND r.upvote=1 AND r.PID=22627 LIMIT 5	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/include/functions/main.php 17159 GetVoters() ()
SELECT * FROM answers a, seoclerks.members b WHERE a.quesid='22627' AND a.userid=b.USERID and b.status='1' AND a.status=1 ORDER BY a.combined_votes DESC, a.date_answered asc	1	SELECT a.answer, a.USERID, a.upvotes, a.downvotes, a.ansid, a.parentid, a.combined_votes, a.date_answered, b.username, b.userlevel, b.profilepicture FROM answers a, seoclerks.members b WHERE a.quesid='22627' AND a.userid=b.USERID and b.status='1' AND a.status=1 ORDER BY a.combined_votes DESC, a.date_answered asc	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/viewfaq.php 1245 () ()
SELECT * FROM ratings_faqanswers as r, seoclerks.members as m WHERE r.USERID=m.USERID AND r.upvote=1 AND r.PID=117386 LIMIT 5	1	SELECT m.username FROM ratings_faqanswers as r, seoclerks.members as m WHERE r.USERID=m.USERID AND r.upvote=1 AND r.PID=117386 LIMIT 5	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/include/functions/main.php 17159 GetVoters() ()
SELECT * FROM ratings_faqanswers as r, seoclerks.members as m WHERE r.USERID=m.USERID AND r.upvote=1 AND r.PID=124837 LIMIT 5	1	SELECT m.username FROM ratings_faqanswers as r, seoclerks.members as m WHERE r.USERID=m.USERID AND r.upvote=1 AND r.PID=124837 LIMIT 5	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/include/functions/main.php 17159 GetVoters() ()
SELECT * FROM ratings_faqanswers as r, seoclerks.members as m WHERE r.USERID=m.USERID AND r.upvote=1 AND r.PID=170378 LIMIT 5	1	SELECT m.username FROM ratings_faqanswers as r, seoclerks.members as m WHERE r.USERID=m.USERID AND r.upvote=1 AND r.PID=170378 LIMIT 5	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/include/functions/main.php 17159 GetVoters() ()
UPDATE questions SET total_views = total_views + 1 WHERE quesid='22627'	1	UPDATE questions SET total_views = total_views + 1 WHERE quesid='22627'	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/include/functions/main.php 1765 update_Faqviewcount() ()
SELECT * FROM questions WHERE quesid!='22627' AND status='1' AND (question like '%The image alt tag anchor text links important Google%' OR question like '%image%' OR question like '%anchor%' OR question like '%text%' OR question like '%links%' OR question like '%important%' OR question like '%Google%') -- ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 15	1	SELECT quesid, question, seo, userid FROM questions WHERE quesid!='22627' AND status='1' AND (question like '%The image alt tag anchor text links important Google%' OR question like '%image%' OR question like '%anchor%' OR question like '%text%' OR question like '%links%' OR question like '%important%' OR question like '%Google%') -- ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 15	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/libraries/adodb5/adodb.inc.php 1899 CacheExecute() ()
SELECT * FROM seoclerks.members WHERE USERID='498' limit 1	1	SELECT profilepicture FROM seoclerks.members WHERE USERID='498' limit 1	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/libraries/adodb5/adodb.inc.php 1899 CacheExecute() insert_get_member_profilepicture()
SELECT * FROM seoclerks.members WHERE USERID='632' limit 1	1	SELECT profilepicture FROM seoclerks.members WHERE USERID='632' limit 1	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/libraries/adodb5/adodb.inc.php 1899 CacheExecute() insert_get_member_profilepicture()
SELECT * FROM seoclerks.members WHERE USERID='707' limit 1	1	SELECT profilepicture FROM seoclerks.members WHERE USERID='707' limit 1	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/libraries/adodb5/adodb.inc.php 1899 CacheExecute() insert_get_member_profilepicture()
SELECT * FROM seoclerks.members WHERE USERID='9' limit 1	1	SELECT profilepicture FROM seoclerks.members WHERE USERID='9' limit 1	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/libraries/adodb5/adodb.inc.php 1899 CacheExecute() insert_get_member_profilepicture()
SELECT * FROM members_ledger WHERE script='/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/viewfaq.php' AND querystring LIKE '%id=22627%' AND added>=UNIX_TIMESTAMP(NOW())-1200 GROUP BY USERID	1	SELECT USERID, username FROM members_ledger WHERE script='/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/viewfaq.php' AND querystring LIKE '%id=22627%' AND added>=UNIX_TIMESTAMP(NOW())-1200 GROUP BY USERID	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/libraries/adodb5/adodb.inc.php 1899 CacheExecute() ()
SELECT * FROM categories	1	SELECT * FROM categories	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/libraries/adodb5/adodb.inc.php 1899 CacheExecute() parseRedundantQueriesCache()
select * from categories_software order by name asc	1	select * from categories_software order by name asc	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/libraries/adodb5/adodb.inc.php 1899 CacheExecute() insert_GetSoftwareCategories()
select * from categories_wanttobuy order by name asc	1	select * from categories_wanttobuy order by name asc	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/libraries/adodb5/adodb.inc.php 1899 CacheExecute() insert_get_wantcategories()
select * from categories_wanttotrade order by name asc	1	select * from categories_wanttotrade order by name asc	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/libraries/adodb5/adodb.inc.php 1899 CacheExecute() insert_get_tradecategories()
SELECT * FROM seoclerks.members WHERE USERID='19821.png'	1	SELECT profilepicture FROM seoclerks.members WHERE USERID='19821.png'	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/libraries/adodb5/adodb.inc.php 1899 CacheExecute() getUserProfileImage()
SELECT * FROM seoclerks.members WHERE USERID='589438.jpg'	1	SELECT profilepicture FROM seoclerks.members WHERE USERID='589438.jpg'	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/libraries/adodb5/adodb.inc.php 1899 CacheExecute() getUserProfileImage()
SELECT * FROM seoclerks.members WHERE USERID='600657.jpg'	1	SELECT profilepicture FROM seoclerks.members WHERE USERID='600657.jpg'	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/libraries/adodb5/adodb.inc.php 1899 CacheExecute() getUserProfileImage()
select * from categories_faq order by name asc	1	select * from categories_faq order by name asc	/opt/clerks-staging/docroot/libraries/adodb5/adodb.inc.php 1899 CacheExecute() insert_GetFaqCategories()