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Do structural Images need alt tags

by dtoebe
9 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I am dealing with a hosted shopping cart system. Unfortunately I have found that the templates they provide usually are sites based on tables. So this means that with a lot of the borders and spacers are images instead of coding them in. should these have filled alt tags in them?
#alt #images #structural #tags
  • Profile picture of the author Dan Grossman
    Technically, without the alt attributes, the markup is not valid. Practically, if these images are purely structural and there's no reason to describe them to a vision-impaired person, it doesn't really matter.
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    • Profile picture of the author dtoebe
      Can search engines penalize for not having alt tags with content in them? Because I technically it is invalid markup
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Don't worry about Alt-text for theme images you don't want ranked in the SERPs.

    I rank a lot of images & find competition that is ranking an image & doesn't even have Alt-text, Google is picking up other relevant text on those pages. My point is, theme images don't need Alt-text for SEO. The last thing you want ranked is a theme image.

    If it's a product image then you probably want to rank that image, include Alt-text.
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    • Profile picture of the author ArcherWylde
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      Don't worry about Alt-text for theme images you don't want ranked in the SERPs.

      I rank a lot of images & find competition that is ranking an image & doesn't even have Alt-text, Google is picking up other relevant text on those pages. My point is, theme images don't need Alt-text for SEO. The last thing you want ranked is a theme image.

      If it's a product image then you probably want to rank that image, include Alt-text.
      Agreed!

      Usually what I do to get it to pass W3C validation is include the alt tag for ALL images but leave it blank for ones that are irrelevant to the content, something like:

      Code:
      <img src="/images/menu-bar.jpg" alt="" />
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    • Profile picture of the author K Mec
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      Don't worry about Alt-text for theme images you don't want ranked in the SERPs.

      I rank a lot of images & find competition that is ranking an image & doesn't even have Alt-text, Google is picking up other relevant text on those pages. My point is, theme images don't need Alt-text for SEO. The last thing you want ranked is a theme image.

      If it's a product image then you probably want to rank that image, include Alt-text.

      This is right....
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  • Profile picture of the author rasikpatel
    In short, from my experience I can say that structural images like lines, dots or blocks which is means to design theme does not need alt tag.
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  • Profile picture of the author justinkemp99
    Structural images does not need an Alt tag. Alt tags are needed for images that describe something. When you say it with picture and the picture is not displayed then you need an Alt tag to explain it clearly. For images that aren't a part of the content of the web page, you don't need alt tag. Cheers
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  • Profile picture of the author dotgirish
    Originally Posted by dtoebe View Post

    I am dealing with a hosted shopping cart system. Unfortunately I have found that the templates they provide usually are sites based on tables. So this means that with a lot of the borders and spacers are images instead of coding them in. should these have filled alt tags in them?

    Alt text is not going to harm you , but it helps you in on-page seo. so if possible go and fill it up.
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  • Profile picture of the author jasono
    Stop wasting time putting alt tags on images that are not related to your topic.
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