Alt tags - accurate or not?

[Jon12345]

Just noticed a site of mine with zero alt tags on it. So, the menu at the top says Home, Products, Services etc. These are graphical images.

Can I put an alt tag text of say "Blue Widgets" under the Products image or should it really be "Products"? Just wondered how the search engines view this nowadays and what common practice is.

[edited by: caveman at 6:05 pm (utc) on Mar. 6, 2006]
[edit reason] Widgetized - no specifics please, per TOS [/edit]

[caveman]

My opinion: If the Products are blue widgets then I think you could certainly use "blue widget products" or, I suppose, "blue widgets." But if you end up with lots of alts that include the phrase "blue widgets" I think you start to run some risk of not ranking for that phrase. In other words, don't overdo it. ;-)