Do search engines rate also the alt atribute in image tags? In my opinion the alt attribute was for blind peoples.
A:
The alt attribute isn't just for blind people, it shows up when the image itself doesn't load still informing the visually-able to understand what was supposed to be there. As for the search engines, I don't think there's any solid resource telling you the specifics of each.
In my opinion, you should continue to use it as a good practice and for the potential that this information is used in image-search engines. After all, searching for "Jonathan Sampson" should turn up images that have an alt text of "Photo of Jonathan Sampson."
Jonathan Sampson
2010-02-02 16:34:59
Thank i will set on all images an alt atribute as good practice for me,for searchengines and for the blind people
streetparade
2010-02-02 16:36:51
It was also great for use with Lynx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynx_(web_browser)
Matthew Whited
2010-02-02 16:37:31
Yes thats true, lynx is something very special in case if you dont have X in your Linux box ;-)
streetparade
2010-02-02 16:39:26
@Matthew Whited: I doubt Lynx is really a target browser for any commercial/professional web site. It is ok for testing your website for accessibility (for which i would recommend it to the OP) but it's useless for anything other than to browse kernel.org. Anyways, you should at least use links.
dbemerlin
2010-02-02 16:42:33
Never said it was... also havn't used it in the better part of 5 years... I just said it worked well with 'alt' tags
Matthew Whited
2010-02-02 16:51:56
+1
A:
A quick google search led me to this blog post: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/12/using-alt-attributes-smartly.html
It seems at least google is checking the alt attribute but every search engine has it's own methods so [your favourite search engine] might not use it.
dbemerlin
2010-02-02 16:39:03