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Microstock Photography Forum - General => Symbiostock => Symbiostock - SEO & Marketing => Topic started by: grsphoto on April 18, 2013, 12:30

Title: Alt text for images
Post by: grsphoto on April 18, 2013, 12:30

As near as I can tell, Symbiostock does not put alt text on the images ( at least I could find any)

In my SEO reading people say that Alt text is very important.

Is this something for future releases, or is it yet again a case I don't know what I am talking about?

Glenn

Title: Re: Alt text for images
Post by: Leo Blanchette on April 18, 2013, 12:37

There is alt text unless I accidentally did something

Title: Re: Alt text for images
Post by: daveh900 on April 18, 2013, 12:39

It's there, most browsers don't show alt text anymore.

Title: Re: Alt text for images
Post by: ajt on April 18, 2013, 12:45

By the way, is there any reason, why IPTC fields are copied to thumbnail, but not to preview image?

Title: Re: Alt text for images
Post by: Leo Blanchette on April 18, 2013, 12:47

 ??? Should be preview

Title: Re: Alt text for images
Post by: cascoly on April 18, 2013, 15:30

alt is on the individual image page, but not on the page displaying contents of a category.

eg
http://cascoly-images.com/pix/image-type/elephants-images/ (http://cascoly-images.com/pix/image-type/elephants-images/)

uses the following for the image:

  <a class="search_result_preview" title="Hunting tiger from elephant" href="http://cascoly-images.com/pix/image/hunting-tiger-from-elephant/">
              <img class="search_minipic" src="http://cascoly-images.com/pix/wp-content/uploads/symbiostock_rf_content/434-minipic.jpg" />
            [/url]

so the title is being used but not the alt

I just did a quick search and th consensus, backed by some info from google is that crawlers use the alt more than the title;  there's some concern that using both may count as keyword stuffing, but others say it's ok as long as the text is relevant 

if I had to use only 1, i'd go with alt

I think it's important to have the alt on these category pages since they are more likely to be crawled & indexed than indiv image pages

Title: Re: Alt text for images
Post by: Leo Blanchette on April 18, 2013, 15:39

Actually I specifically left off alt text on preview images to keep the main image as most relevant, and not water down its unique-ness on the site. I was thinking of putting something more generic on the pointer pic like "preview for image number 1234".

Title: Re: Alt text for images
Post by: cascoly on April 18, 2013, 15:42

Quote from: Leo on April 18, 2013, 15:39

Actually I specifically left off alt text on preview images to keep the main image as most relevant, and not water down its unique-ness on the site. I was thinking of putting something more generic on the pointer pic like "preview for image number 1234".

that's fine on the preview page -- I was referring to the pages that result from clicking on a category or doing a search where you have multiple images, none being primary

Title: Re: Alt text for images
Post by: Travelling-light on April 18, 2013, 15:49

The downside of not using 'title' on category or search result pages is that browsers use it for the hover text. Customers like to know what they're looking at.

Title: Re: Alt text for images
Post by: Leo Blanchette on April 18, 2013, 15:51

Just fixed it. It has "stock image #----"