What is Alt tag?

Answered across 4 episodes of The Best SEO Podcast

The short answer

Descriptive text attributes added to images that tell Google what an image depicts, helping images appear in search results and improving accessibility for screen readers.

How experts on the show define it

Descriptive text attributes added to images that tell Google what an image depicts, helping images appear in search results and improving accessibility for screen readers.

From SEO and Web Design: How to Build a Website That Ranks Ep. 599

Text attached to an image that describes its content, visible when hovering over the image, believed in the SEO community to affect search engine optimization.

From Internet Marketing on Bing - Unknown Secrets of SEO E-Webstyle Number 24

A descriptor added to an image in a website that Google reads to understand what the image is about, making it a place to include target keywords.

From On-Site Vs Off-Site website work to improve your Search Engine Placement, A Great Interview Part 3 of 4 - Unknown Secrets of SEO E-Webstyle Number 30

A text tag added to an image element that search engines read in place of the image itself, since search engines cannot read image files.

From Alt Image Tags and Internet Marketing - Unknown Secrets of SEO E-Webstyle Number 56

Episodes that cover this

Related answers

See the full SEO & AI search glossary.

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