Metadata is an important factor in the optimization of any website. Meta tags are a great way for website owners to provide search engines with important information about their sites. One of the tags that probably requires the most clarification is the alternative text (alt text) related to images . Especially how Google views this tag since Google is the most used search engine.

Google ‘s use of alt text as a ranking factor is limited to image searches. It adds no value to a regular web search. In short, this is the answer given to this question by Google’s search lawyer John Mueller during the last episode of Google Search Central SEO on March 18.

Google clarifies that alt text is only a factor for image searches, not for regular web searches.

When alt text is used

Mueller answers several concerns about alt text, leading to a number of conclusions about the impact it has on SEO.

Adding alt text attributes to images is recommended from an accessibility standpoint, as it is useful for visitors who rely on screen readers. From an SEO standpoint, alt text is recommended when your goal is to have images rank in search.

Alt text is (exclusively) for image searches

In a question related to the title of this article, Mueller was asked if alt text is only used for image search results.

Mueller confirms exactly that.

From an SEO standpoint, the decision to use alt text depends on whether or not you care about images appearing in image searches. Google doesn’t see a page as more valuable for web search because it has images with alt text.

When it comes to using alt text in general, Mueller recommends focusing on the accessibility aspect rather than the SEO aspect.

“I think it’s totally up to you. So I can’t speak to the accessibility point of view, so that’s one angle of view that exists. But from an SEO point of view, alt text really helps us understand the image better for image search. And if you don’t care about the image ranking for image search, then it’s fine to do whatever you want with it.

It’s something to describe the image, which sometimes you just don’t care about. For things like stock images where you know the same image is on many other sites, you don’t care about doing an image search for it. Do whatever you want there. There I would focus more on the accessibility aspect than the pure SEO aspect.

It is not the case that we would say that a text web page has more value because it has images. We’re really just seeing the alt text and applying it to the image, and if someone is looking for an image, we can use that to better understand the image. It’s not like a web page would rank better in a text web search because it has an image with an alt tag “.

You can view Mueller ‘s entire response here .

For more news and interesting stories from digital marketing , visit our blog page or follow our Instagram profile.