Using Alt Text in stock photography good?

[Eblan]

Hello,

I got a client who told me that he bought his images from a stock photography website. I know it looks awful and all, but the client can't afford a photographer to get some decent pics.

So, How positive it is to use Alt Text on images that aren't yours? The purpose of using alt text properly is to get traffic from an imaged based search right? So if the business shows up with some stock photography it looks kinda bad.

Is it worth optimizing images in this case? Or just leave em without optimizing?

Changing pics isn't an option.

Thanks

[ahockley]

I don't see any reason why not to add alt text to the stock images on your website (I say this both as a site publisher and as a professional photographer).  The alt text doesn't imply ownership of the images, but rather it's designed to provide an assistive description as to what the image represents.  The only area where I think you would be deceptive is if your alt text claims something that is blatantly false, such as showing a stock image of a man and the alt text indicating that it's a photo of your CEO.

Descriptive alt text, including keywords, will have a positive effect on SEO.

[Eblan]

Thanks for your quick response Aaron. What you said makes sense, and now I can go to bed with no worries.