image and ALT tags

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   Writer Foxposted 10 years ago

   The text inserted as a photo caption ends up being the Alt Tag, too.  This is horrible.  What it means is that viewers who cannot see the images (due to slow-load, device, or vision handicaps) end up reading the same text twice. That is a horrible user experience as well as a duplicate content issue for pages with many images.
   
   Also, the Alt Tag and caption are for two different purposes.  The Alt Tag describes what is in the image and helps search engines find photos for image searches.  The caption relates the photo to the content of the page and should encourage a viewer's interest in the article.
   
   When will HP add a different option to fill in a real Alt Tag? I asked about this months ago when Paul E. was looking for suggestions to increase Google traffic and never got an answer. Have you noticed that since the last Panda data refresh, new Hubs with many photos are taking longer to rank? After seven years, is anyone on the team working on this issue?

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   1. 0

      sheilamyersposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I didn't notice this until you mentioned it. You're correct - the Alt tag should be a simple description of the graphic image. I'd like to see HP add a box within the capsule we can fill in the text we want to appear in the Alt tag.

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   2. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      It's a mystery to me why HubPages has never implemented this simple addition.   Every blog has had Alt tags for years.

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2. 82

   tillsontitanposted 10 years ago

   Sounds like a great idea Writer Fox.  We forget that some cannot see the photos we post.

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   1. 30

      Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I hope that someone on the staff will respond to this concern.

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      1. 76

         EGamboaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Good catch Writer Fox. It does seem as if some tweaking is in order.

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3. 30

   Writer Foxposted 10 years ago

   Will the HP team discuss this in the Thursday meeting tomorrow and give us some feedback?

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4. STAFF

   Paul Edmondsonposted 10 years ago

   We've had this in the backlog of things to consider for years. 
   
   It's a good suggestion, but trickier to implement than it might sound.  Very few users know the difference between an alt tag and the caption.  We haven't done it because the hubtool is pretty advanced as it is and each additional field requires spam prevention as well.  When used properly, this will help image search some, however, Google image search has gone through several iterations and now shows the full size image in the results.  Some have suggested that all images get blocked from getting indexed until this changes.
   
   I wouldn't worry about duplicate content like this on a content rich page.
   
   We are working on a way to see what are the most popular requests from the community to see what we should prioritize.  Perhaps this will come out high.

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   1. 30

      Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you for responding.  I vote for making this a high priority.

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   2. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Pixabay recently had a couple of interesting posts on their blog about this.  They've seen a huge drop in traffic since Google Images made that change and clearly, they can't just block all images or they'd be out of business!
      
      They came up with a solution which creates a message across the top of the image when viewed in Google Images, which forces people to visit their site to view the original version.   It doesn't sound like it's been a complete success  - but if they continue to share their efforts on their blog, then it could be well worth HubPages keeping an eye on their attempts.
      
      http://pixabay.com/en/blog/posts/an-upd … ion-fo-41/
      
      Just to clarify - the heading refers to "watermarks" but they are NOT watermarking their images on their site.  The watermark message appears only when someone is viewing the image on Google Images.

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5. 30

   Writer Foxposted 10 years ago

   It's interesting that putting five-year-old forum threads at the bottom of each forum page was considered more important than implementing Alt Tags, which Google recommends.

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