Can you use the image description for IMG ALT?

[Bio-RadAbs]

ello ello!

We're running an ecommerce site with thousands of products. None of the product pages have an IMG ALT.

We're been thinking about an IMG ALT rule to apply to all product page images. Every image currently has a detailed caption so the thought was, why don't we use the description as the IMG ALT? It's perfect as it explains the image.

Now the thing is, the length of the description, some of them come to 150 - 200 characters with spaces. Do you think this is too much?

Also, would having a caption and the IMG ALT be the same cause issues?

Have you guys employed any rules for IMG ALT in a bulk way?

[MashBonigala]

Yes, 150-200 words in the image ALT tag would be considered spammy and you may get some sort of penalty.

I recommend having the product name as the image ALT.

[Bio-RadAbs]

I thought that too but what if you have numerous images promoting a product? Can't have:

• product name (an a unique identifier) for image 1
• product name (an a unique identifier) for image 2
• product name (an a unique identifier) for image 3

Wouldn't it look spammy to have numerous images on a product page with the same keyword as the title?

In my view, images on a product page should enhance the product, they should demonstrate the product in action to further incentivise the customer to go "aha..this is a great product."

For example a product like a shovel would  have images showing the shovel in usage.

This is why I thought the description would work as it describes the image, is unique and features the product name. But yeah, it's the length that concerns me.

[StevenHowe]

Whilst I can see you are looking to gain SEO advantage in your use of ALT text, your primary consideration should always be for the end user: If this image does not display, does the ALTernative text explain what was there?

You should be testing this with a text browser, or an emulator, to make sure it still makes sense.

Taking this approach should yield the best results.

[MashBonigala]

You are right. You can not have the same product name for all images. That would be bad too. Some sites simply use the image name. If there are hyphens in the image name, then some Javascript can take care of that and you would have some decent ALT tags. But then the images should have good file names in the first place. If the names makes no sense than they would make no sense as the ALT tags too.

There is no easy way to apply bulk rules to images in ecommerce sites.

[gfiorelli1]

The rule should be naming the image files in a descriptive way, i.e.: "View from the room of the apartment in name of the street" (sorry, using real estate example, but working on a site in that niche with the same problem), and than using the name of the file both a title img and alt text.

The alt text would be surely shorter than the caption, also because it is quite normal to trying been short in files' names.

[Christy-Correll]

I would also encourage you to keep visually impaired users in mind, as alt-img tags (and contextual text) are how they determine what an image is. The screen reader skips over blank alt-img tags, and reads all others out loud.