• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. Image & Video Optimization
        4. How long should the Image Alt Text be for SEO?

        Moz Q&A is closed.

        After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

        How long should the Image Alt Text be for SEO?

        Image & Video Optimization
        4
        4
        18765
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • Ytellsocial
          Ytellsocial last edited by

          When it comes to creating the alternate text for images, what is the character length that I need stay under to rank well?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • AlanMosley
            AlanMosley last edited by

            The images on your page should be relevant to your pages content, so describe them with an alt tag naturally will add relevance. The length is not important, but I would not stuff they will a long list of keywords.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • EGOL
              EGOL last edited by

              This is just my feel for this after watching my own sites pull in thousands of visits per day from image search, but I have not done systematic study.... and Google could have changed even if I did systematic study.

              First, I say that character count is irrelevant.  What you need to focus on is the keywords you want to  be visible for.

              If you are optimizing for image search, I would use very specific keywords.  The exact keywords that you want your image to rank for. AND, most important, the exact keywords that people will relate your image to.  If you call it a duck and it ain't a duck, that blows the value of alt text.  Google knows a little about this stuff, even if they make the news by messing up once in a while.

              If you are optimzing for websearch, I would use the specific keywords for my webPAGE on the highest image in the code of the page.  It is really important to give people an image that their query relates to.  If your page is about ducks and you image is a weasel, they are going to leave.

              After that, it I mix it up, keeping relevant to the image and relevant to the page.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • MichaelC-15022
                MichaelC-15022 last edited by

                There isn't really any limit, like there is for page titles, meta descriptions, etc.  Typically you'll want the ALT text to explain what's in the image--the original purpose was to show the user what the image was before it was downloaded, and also for vision impaired folks, the screen readers would read to them what was in the image by reading the ALT text.

                If you're looking for the image to reinforce the relevance of the page for the page's target topic, then make sure that the topic term is in the ALT text, usually as part of a long phrase or sentence.  If you're looking for the image to rank well in Google image search, then I'd keep the ALT text to just what the target term is (and of course make sure the page title reflects that term as well).

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Browse Questions

                Explore more categories

                • Moz Tools

                  Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                • SEO Tactics

                  Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                • Community

                  Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                • Digital Marketing

                  Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                • Research & Trends

                  Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                • Support

                  Connect on product support and feature requests.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • AliMac26

                  Not using alt tags for decorative images?

                  Hi everyone, My coworker recently stumbled across this article that instructs you to not to alt text for "decorative images" as you might get penalized you for over optimization https://www.shopify.com/blog/7412852-10-must-know-image-optimization-tips Has anyone heard of this or have any thoughts?

                  Image & Video Optimization | | AliMac26
                  0
                • RMATVMC

                  Moving Images to Subdomain: SEO Impacts

                  For sever work- load enhancements we are planning to move our images to a sub-domain. so the files would be located at something like images.domain.com Rather than domain.com/images/ We are a large Ecommerce site so we have a lot of images. These will be self hosted so we are not using a CDN. I'm hoping someone has done the same and if there were any steps they had wished they had taken before making the move/ if they noticed any traffic impacts things like that.

                  Image & Video Optimization | | RMATVMC
                  0
                • Lorne_Marr

                  Google images not showing on SERP

                  Hi, I recently noticed that after a specific name search, Google images on the 'Web' SERP are no longer showing up.  About a month ago, there were atleast 4-5 headshots of this particular person showing up whenever his name was searched.  Now no images are showing, just the ten organic links and two links from adwords campaign we have going.  The images are still optimized and some are even from editorial sites. Does anyone know what may have caused the images to disappear and what we can do to bring them back to the main SERP? (Not sure if it matters but we are in Canada) Thanks

                  Image & Video Optimization | | Lorne_Marr
                  0
                • ArthurRadtke

                  Image ALt Tag in Sliders and Modules (Banner) in Joomla/Wordpress

                  Is it possible to do SEO for images in Sliders and Banner modules in Joomla? I would like to add ALT tags and Titles for those, if possible.

                  Image & Video Optimization | | ArthurRadtke
                  0
                • BobGW

                  Local SEO: Ste vs. Suite vs. #

                  Hi, I used the spelled out "Suite" in my local NAP, but sometimes it's been shortened to Ste by citation websites. I'm trying to remain consistent here Should I use Ste H, Suite H, or #H? This is a good article on it: http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/google-local-citations/1605-suite-vs-ste-vs-your-citation-addresses-2.html but I'd still like your opinion.

                  Image & Video Optimization | | BobGW
                  0
                • BobGW

                  Local SEO: Can you add citations too fast?

                  Should you spread adding citations out over several weeks or can you add them all at once?

                  Image & Video Optimization | | BobGW
                  0
                • unitedairlines

                  Metadata stored in images read by search engines?

                  Does anyone know if metadata stored in images is read by search engines?My company stores images in digital asset management systems and metadata keyword tags are added to the images, so they can easily be found within the system. Since these keywords are stored in the image file, I was wondering if search engines can read them once the image is placed on the website, but I'm not finding any evidence of this in my research.

                  Image & Video Optimization | | unitedairlines
                  0
                • ozgeekmum

                  Dynamic image serving SEO

                  We often use images from a dynamic image server, to cater for image asset management, multiple sizes etc.  Similar to Adobe's Scene7, although that came out after we chose our product. So widgets.com may have all its images with a URL like  myimageserver.com?src=widgets/catalogue/productname.jpg;width=100;height=100;angle=90,  instead of widgets.com/images/productname.jpg. A potential client wants to capitalise on traffic from Google image search. We could build an image sitemap, listing the images on each page. What should we place in the image:loc field? The code: myimageserver.com?src=widgets/catalogue/productname.jpg;width=100;height=100;angle=90 Apparently we have to verify the hosting site in Webmaster Tools, but I can't see where. I have a single Webmaster Tools account, where most of our sites are defined. Would I have to verify it for each site using the dynamic imaging program? Love to hear from anyone with solutions for getting images indexed when they are hosted at third-party dynamic imaging programs.

                  Image & Video Optimization | | ozgeekmum
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                • Digital Marketers
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.