Is the alt text within the image tag given equal value to textual content
Sometimes, especially in quick turn-around campaign sites, images are used to such an extent that there is actually very little textual content on the web page. A quick and dirty solution for getting a magazine advert or flier onto the web.
“If all of the content is repeated as alt text for each image, then all is ok, isn’t it?”
Is this true? There are obvious usability problems with this method including not being able to adjust the text size or contrast and the loss of semantics e.g. no paragraghs, headings, lists etc. However, I wonder if there is another problem, where search engines value such content less than normal text?
Interestingly there is a “black hat” SEO technique of loading image alt text with keywords, related or otherwise, in order to climb up the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).