What if all my images have alts with the same keyword? Bad, good? As an example, I have 10 or so images of coins on a page and they all have the coin name followed by nickel (so Joe Nickel, Steve's Flying Machine Nickel, etc.). Also, should an alt (for image) say the same thing as the image.extension, so Joe Nickel.jpg?
alt image text is used to give the image a name. Thus, if it was an image of a coin you would use "coin". You can use keywords or key phrases to give weight to google image positioning.
It's not good. It would be same as spam. What you got to do is use the keyword in combination with other words. Ex: - If you want the keyword "Gold", you can repeat it in the ALT tags as - "Gold coin" "Gold chain" "Gold pendant" etc.. But the idea is that ALT tags should be used to describe the image in case it doesnt load on the browser, the text would show up as an alternative to the image. So try not to spam by repeating the keyword un necessarily.
as long as the text is necessary to use and describe the image. i think theres nothing to worry about... ;-)
its not bad to put up alt on all your images. its better so that the bots able read it than put nothing.
All the images on the pages I'm referring to are of nickels. I'm just afraid of using the word nickel repeatedly because Google might penalize me for word stuffing.
How can it be descriptive if all of its alt tag has the same alt. It can consider as keyword stuffing. Text in alt should describe the image since SE can't read image. You can add keyword on it but don't overuse it
Bad, Bad, Bad. Keep your alt text relevant to the image. This is the way it should be and the way Google likes it.
A lot of CMS applications just use the filename or the first tag to generate the alt attribute. I haven't heard of any of them being punished, but then I don't pay very close attention. You can do better in a lot of ways, including long-tail, by using unique alt values on each img tag, but this is an area where a lot of webmasters get lazy. Are you using the same file on your different sites? Just a guess, but I think using the same alt attributes with the same images is pretty natural, and probably seen that way by Google.
don't use the same word over and over mix it up, use different keyword phrases and keep it relevant to the image.
Keyword density required to be good for better ranking on SERPS. But repetition of keywords too many times is considered as keyword spamming, trying to manipulate the search engine results. You may try using different variations of the main keywords.
So, I guess even though all the images on a page are of nickels, it's probably not a good idea to use the word nickel repeatedly (even though that's the best descriptor). Okay.
Huh? umm, I think you missed the point. It's ok to have the word nickel in the alt attribute of say 20 or even 50 images that portray a nickel as long as each attribute varies in some way. whether it be textual: "Buffalo nickel" - "lincoln nickel" - "wooden nickel" Or numerical: "1954 nickel" - "1892 nickel" - "2007 nickel" as long as there is some difference in the algorithmic mathematically calculated image attributes, you're fine. Otherwise you would end up with nickels that the engines read as food, electronics, clothing, etc.. all NON-related. Thats NOT good...