Alt image tags not being read by on-page optimization tool

[leatherhidestore]

Can bots see the keyword among other words in aIt  image tags?  For example, if the keyword is upholstery leather and the image tag says "our upholstery leather collection" will the keyword be recognized?  Another example is buy leather.  I have a image tag on a slide that reads "free samples before you buy leather" but an on-page analysis in moz does not show an alt tag title for buy leather?  Same problem with an moz on-page analysis of the term upholstery leather.

Thanks!

Hunter

[CoreyNorthcutt]

Hi Hunter.

1. Yes, search engines definitely read text inside of image ALT tags.

2. Yes, you should absolutely use them, every time.  Among other important applications, they're used by screen readers for the blind.  Having a handicap-accessible site, among other things, immediately places your site in a league above the competition in terms of overall quality.

3. Maybe, on the scope of keyword uses that you mentioned.  You'll need to be very, very careful on how you use keywords in hidden tags like this.  There was a time when keyword density was everything to Google, and black hat SEO's stuffed the crap out of these hidden tags with their keywords.  Nowadays, the help that you give yourself, keyword-wise, for Google's standard (non-image) search, from ALT tags, is really negligible.  It's much more about the above (having a useful description, just in those scenarios that it's really necessary).  Most of the time, when I see a client trying something like this, they've invited massive penalties on themselves from abusing it.  It's much easier to hurt yourself than help yourself through "optimizing" a lot of on-page factors like these, so be careful and keep these tags succinct / genuinely descriptive.

Good luck.

-C

[leatherhidestore]

Hi Corey,

Thanks for taking the time to respond.  I actually only have upholstery leather mentioned on the page 3x and the moz on-page optimization report said I needed a fourth.  Titling the alt img upholstery leather was perfect b/c it is an accurate description of the image and (I thought) would be recognized as the 4th mention of the keyword on the page.  My question (or problem) is why is the moz on-page optimizer not reading it?  I am glad to here the the googlebots will recognize the keyword even when enclosed by other text.  One thought just occurred to me and that is the images are hyperlinked...could that influence it?  Maybe a question best posed to the moz team?

Thanks,

Hunter

[CoreyNorthcutt]

Sure.  If it's only done 3x and genuinely descriptive, you're probably good.

As for why 'moz pro might not be seeing it, it's indeed tough to say, but I'd start by double-checking that you have valid code using http://validator.w3.org.   If there's a tag left open or a quote out of place, that can muck things all up.

[leatherhidestore]

Good point.  Just ran it through W3 and everything was spic and span clean..1.0 Strict compliance!  The site is Leather Hide Store if you want to see but again, maybe a question for team moz.

Hunter