Link text vs. Alt tags

[Jon_King]

As we know a redundant search term in link text helps pagerank for that term. But since that redundancy can cause confusing navigation or at least un-intuitive navigation... my question is to what degree can alt tags serve the same purpose? The alt tags can be written like a sentence to include the search term....

-Jon

[rogerd]

Alt text has less impact than link text in most SEs. Also, I'd avoid any spammy looking alt text - if you use alt text, there's nothing wrong with putting a logical keyword or two in, but the text should make sense.

[agerhart]

Jon,

You really can't compare the two, as ALT tags are for image navigation structures and link text would be used for text navs. This being said, it remains an important question, especially when your freedom to make changes are limited.

Link text is obviously the best way to go, and I don't think that ALT tags or link titles are going to compare in terms of weight it carries. When your hands are tied in terms of making changes to the link text, I would use ALT or link titles in exchange.