Having read some threads here it appears that it is ok to keyword stuff an ALT tag. Having been looking at competition the top ranking competitor stuffs ALT tags on virtually every page. Thought I would give it a go but......... A friend of mine who is a prety decent SEO guru and director of a very successful internet company has said it will hurt and possibly get the site banned! Does anyone have the definitive answer?
from what i've read search engines, or at least google can tell when you keyword stuff alt images. Not sure about the serps
Sure Google can tell but is it against their TOS and will it hurt the site? Of course if it IS against their TOS then maybe I should be reporting my competitor?!?!
a general rule of thumb is if it looks like spamming to you, then it looks like spamming to google. Besides do you want a user to put their mouse over an image and see a big huge drop down of crap? Try using a text only browser to view your site and if its navigable then dont worry, spiders read the pages just like you read a text only browser. if your competitor is using it i wouldnt tell google since the competitor might find out they're banned and i would prefer to not have them fix their problem.
I think saying that keyword stuffing an ALT tag will get you "banned" might be a bit overboard. The page (or those specific images) might not get much (or any) SERP action, but I seriously doubt if you will get banned for doing it. However, I will NOT recommend doing it. I think it is much better to stick to stick to good, clean practices which ensure that your site provides the best service to your viewers. Google likes (and will progressivelt get better at loving) these websites.
your right, however i expect it would hurt their ratings. Not sure what would happen if he reported a site to google that was over stuffing alt tags though, perhaps it would be banned?
I honestly don't think it will. I think Google (or the guys at Google) will just see it as poor site design and give the site (or page or image) a few demerit points which might affect SERPs ...... unless, for example the site is manually checked and the image and the ALT tag are completely different for all images. Then, the site will be looked at not just spammy, but deceiving as well .... and might get banned.
I tend to use the alt tag to use my lesser used page keyphrases. I don't believe there is any extra advantage to be gained by stuffing, one or two words is fine. More than that and you just water down the impact of each individual phrase and it becomes a negative. I doub't you'll get a ban for it however.
Believe me, write a useful ALT tag will surely benefits to your users and hence google bots for sure. Stuffing in the ALT tags will not help and like other said, it may hurt instead of help.