[SOLVED] Effectiveness of Alt attributes

In terms of SEO, how effective can alt tags be? I've just setup a forum and need to optimize the hell out of it.

Thanks,

This is a really old article, but it may still be relevant.

It still doesn't negate the fact that alt text is just plain good web design, and part of the WCAG 1.0 core techniques.

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this may also be useful in your quest

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That's a shame. I'll stick with the other methods then - unless anyone knows if this has changed?

As with almost all SEO, it's hard to say.

Clearly ALT text is susceptible to keyword-stuffing, so you can expect search engines to be cautious about allowing it much influence.

Perhaps it helps for image ranking, however. On my badminton website, my images with ALT text outrank the images from my previous article on the same subject, despite the older article ranking much higher in Google.

As usual, my advice is to use it in a way that benefits your users. Use your ALT text to describe content images, and use blank ALT text for any decorative images (or better yet, use CSS background images).

Thanks both! Thread solved.