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.
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
-
When using external links for onsite optimization, should they be follow or nofollow links?
I'm trying to optimize my home page and need to add external links. I'm planning to link to other authoritative sites. Should they be follow or no follow links?
On-Page Optimization | | ntaparia171 -
How do I reduce the amount of internal links on my site?
Hi, Can someone help me with reducing the amount of internal links on our site please? https://www.thepresentfinder.co.uk Thanks Charlie
On-Page Optimization | | The-Present-Finder0 -
How can I nofollow my affiliate links?
I have a lot of affiliate links and I need to find an efficient way to nofollow them. I have over 500 blog posts and most have an affiliate link. I use Wordpress and Genesis. Any advice?
On-Page Optimization | | 2bloggers0 -
Why will google not index my Images
Hi I've added to index images in our sitemap although they are showing as being submitted Google hasn't indexed a single one. This has been the case for about 3 months. Is there any reason why Google would not index them? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | tidybooks0 -
Do we have too many links in our footer?
Hi guys, we have 41 links on our holiday(vacation) rental website, this seems too many when looking at best practice. 24 of these are links to community pages while 8 link to activities pages. The community and activity pages are also accessible from links on the top menu so they are not strictly necessary but do get 10% of site clickthroughs according to Google in-page analytics. I therefore do not want to remove the links if there is no good evidence that google will penalize us for this. What do you think would be best for our site? Thanks, John Tulley. footer.jpg
On-Page Optimization | | JohnTulley0 -
Same anchor text
I am using the same anchor text on my homepage to go to two different pages. Is this bad? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | tylerfraser0 -
Attributes vs. Separate Products?
I carry a line of products that come in 4 sizes and 15 colors. Is it better to have separate products for each combination (Red Large, Blue Small, etc), or a product for each size with attributes for the color, or something else? Also, should I put the brand name in each product name, or only put it in the category that contains that brand? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | teatable0 -
Links to subfolders
Hi everyone, I would like to know your opinion on this. Do you feel like optimizing, especially pointing links to a subfolder, e.g. www.domain.com/en/ (english language), should be the same as doing that for the main URL (another language)? That said, do you think all the domain will benefit from anchors to subfolders? Thanks a lot!
On-Page Optimization | | SEOpt0