Main Keyword in Alt Image Tags - Acceptable Number of Times Used?

[danijelzi]

I've noticed a couple of times that some unique product reviews I had posted on both Pandalized and non-Pandalized sites were de-ranked to #50 or lower. What's common for them is use of the main keyword (reviewed product) more than 10 times in alt tags per review. Like alt="blue widget front view" in one image, alt="blue widget lid" in the next one, etc. Image title tags are the same as alt tags or reworded on some images. All of the images are original and alt tags actually describe what's on them. The reviews are originally written. Is there a penalty for alt tag use like this?

[danijelzi]

Now, we also know that there's a possibility that this problem is caused by simply using too many thumbnails on a single html page, with PR linking to the images. [webmasterworld.com...]

[Bill_H]

It would seem arrogantly ludicrous that G would penalize a page for accurately describing the image in the alt tag. I have worked with a number of blind customers, and most want more info in the image tag rather than less. By more, I mean, instead of "Picture of shoe" they would prefer "Picture of red shoe with blue laces and yellow heel". If the keyword for that page was shoe, it is certainly justifiable for the alt tag to contain the same text.

If G disagrees, and I find that hard to believe, then they have flat out got it wrong. We are charged with providing quality and meaningful information to our viewers, not information as deemed "correct" by G.

Cheers,
Bill

[jemois]

@danijelzi
I think the best way so see how many times you should use it is to check the top 10 ranking pages for the niche and keyword and see how many times they are using it.

[diberry]

I've just noticed a lot of people in various niches where I have sites are carefully naming their images stuff like sdfyq.jpg. If I have a picture of an apple, I'm going to call it "apple.jpg" so I can find it on my hard drive to upload it. I store huge numbers of image files to upload - I can't remember a code name for each of them! It's absurd.

I hope people are worrying too much. If they're not, and Google considers systematic file naming and appropriate use of meta tags "overoptimization", then it's hopeless. A Google that would call that overoptimization might next decide that using colors popular in your niche is overoptimization. I mean, it would just be endless.

[indyank]

I would agree. On the other hand, "image, cheap blue widget front view", "image, cheap blue widget lid", might not be OK... and the repetition of "blue" might not be necessary for every image. Ten times on a page does sound excessive.

I am pretty sure that one of my sites is getting affected for keyword stuffing through alt tags of images in photo galleries. But I have no idea on how to address this. This website has several image galleries and most of these pages have only images on them with little or no textual content.But the images get their alt tags automatically from the image names. Most of those image names would include the keyword. Leaving out "blue" or "widget" in the above example would not be an accurate definition of the individual image. Now if I were to blank out the alt tags programatically, googlebot will not see any textual content on those pages.

I know that Google imagebot can now identify what the image is all about without an alt text as their technology has improved (though I am not sure of how or whether they can recognize some rare or unique images correctly).But is it fair to inflict this keyword stuffing penalty for alt text when it just describes individual images (just because their technology has improved)? They were all along advocating accurate description of individual images, weren't they?

I can understand that some people use a lot of keywords (50 to 100 lines) via alt text and it would be appropriate for them to consider that as spam. They can easily identify this spam when they see repeated keywords or their synonyms within the same alt text, can't they?

But when alt text of several related images appearing in a photo gallery carry a common keyword, why should google consider it as keyword spamming? Even several here accept it to be keyword spamming! But it isn't...If I remove the alt text altogether the bots will not see any appropriate content on those photo gallery pages and that will also be a problem.How to address this situation?

[indyank]

Doesn't anyone here have a suggestion for this?

[Robert Charlton]

I know that Google imagebot can now identify what the image is all about without an alt text as their technology has improved...

This is probably overstating their capabilities quite a bit. They can apparently recognize something as complex as a cat (but maybe no other animals yet), and they can match patterns, and with meta and/or geo-data they can match patterns within a limited enough context to identify a landmark... but saying that their technology can "identify what the image is all about" is IMO pushing things.

Leaving out "blue" or "widget" in the above example would not be an accurate definition of the individual image.

Please re-read my comment, which you quoted, in its original context. I wasn't suggesting that "blue" or "widget" would be the problem. Rather, I suggest that adding a modifier like "cheap", unnecessary for description of an object but maybe desired for ranking, and repeating the same three-word phrase over and over, would most likely sound unnatural. Repetition becomes less and less natural as the length of a phrase increases. I doubt that you can pin a ranking just on alt text, though.

But the images get their alt tags automatically from the image names.

I don't understand what you mean by "image names", since you're saying that if you blanked out your alt tags, Google would see no text on the page. If that's the case, where do these "image names" appear?

[indyank]

I wasn't suggesting that "blue" or "widget" would be the problem. Rather, I suggest that adding a modifier like "cheap", unnecessary for description of an object but maybe desired for ranking, and repeating the same three-word phrase over and over, would most likely sound unnatural. Repetition becomes less and less natural as the length of a phrase increases.

Thanks for that clarification Robert.

I doubt that you can pin a ranking just on alt text, though.

but these pages are galleries and all that a Googlebot (not an image bot) can find on such pages are only alt text for those images.

I don't understand what you mean by "image names", since you're saying that if you blanked out your alt tags, Google would see no text on the page. If that's the case, where do these "image names" appear?

For an image abc.jpg, the name is "abc". Googlebot will find such names within the src attribute of img tags.

I wasn't comfortable with blanking out alt tags but since these are gallery pages, googlebot will only see keyword repetitions.

For example a gallery of roses, will have alt tags as red-rose, red-rose-1, red-rose-2, white-rose, white-rose-1, white-rose-2, yellow-rose, yellow-rose-1, yellow-rose-2 and so on.

But it is a beautiful gallery where visitors will love those colored roses and they wouldn't even bother about what the alt texts are. The alt texts are given only for the search engines because they wanted them. Google imagebot will spider those individual images, index and rank them individually. So I had to describe those images accurately for them. Hence I had to use red-rose-1 as the name (and the alt tag) for the second image if I had already named the first one as red-rose. However, the normal Googlebot will read the alt texts for the entire gallery as follows (without the commas).

red-rose red-rose-1 red-rose-2 white-rose white-rose-1 white-rose-2 yellow-rose yellow-rose-1 yellow-rose-2

Will this be considered as keyword stuffing?

These pages are now affected and I don't see any other reason. Since there are considerable number of such pages which might be perceived as "keyword stuffing", the algorithmic site wide action impacts the site as a whole.