Look how old this is! I post at SearchCommander.com now, and this post was published 19 years 4 months 23 days ago. This industry changes FAST, so blindly following the advice here *may not* be a good idea! If you're at all unsure, feel free to hit me up on Twitter and ask.
This will only appeal to the most hard core SEO geeks, but it’s really fascinating…
We all know that the ALT tag text has become totally useless for SEO purposes right? At least that was what we’re the top SEO experts in the world have finally agreed upon, like Robin Nobles.
Well if that’s true, then why is Google showing my Alt tag text as the first sentence of my description in the search results for a relevant search phrase? hmmm?
Search Google for “internet consulting blog” and my index page (not my blog page) ranks number five. The first sentence of my Google description showing is “Internet Consultant Scott Hendisons name and a link to his blog”. That sentence only appears in an image alt tag, and nowhere else in my source code or on the page.
My alt tag properly describes the image it’s used for, and is being used exactly as it’s supposed to be…that is, “to describe the image to a sight impaired person”. Do you suppose this is this an anomaly or a new trend? Is this “Breaking search industry news” or is it just Google keeping us on our toes?
***update***
It appears that it may be happening because my image with the ALT tag is a link, although i’m not sure if it’s factoring into my rankings or not.
