image naming and seo/penalties

if i have a lot of images on a page named shirt, and emo-shirt, etc., and there is no text on the page saying "shirt", will i be penalized?


i don't know a lot about seo, but i have heard that naming images after your keywords is a good idea?

thanks in advance

 

It's probably a good idea since top 3 SE's have image databases that link back to your site.

 

The number of images won't hurt you, the large size of the page to load might.

 

No you will not get penalized.

It is good idea to use keywords when naming images. Also use the image alt tag.

Maybe just consider adding a header or some description aswell.

 

I've also heard the tip before to name your images for example
red-shirt-picture.jpg
instead of just
red-shirt.jpg
then that may help to keep you under the spam filter.

 

Dont know about this one...

What you are actually saying is "red-shirt-picture.picture"?

The

 

be sure to use alt and title tags with good keyword(s). Not only will the SEs pick those up as text, but users with slow connections or old computers that have trouble rendering the images will be able to see what the image is supposed to be. So, alt and title tags are good all around. Use them.

 

I would put some text on the page, not because you will be penalize but more because you can get indexed better!

 

use a descriptive name, stay away from names and alt tags that are just a string of keywords.

 

Good call oseymour, I should have been clearer. Stay away from stuffing your keywords in the alt and title tags. Use good descriptions of your images by writing in a way someone would read them.

 

Actually, you might want to check the keyword density within that website and if you have a lot of shirt images and not a lot of text, they might think you might be keyword stuffing.

 

remember that users with screen readers need the alt text....

 

With IE (love it or hate it, IE users are more than 70% of my total site visitors and likely 90% or better of my regular readers), the ALT text shows when you hover over an image. The TITLE attribute does the same. How key is it to use both ALT and TITLE tags in your image code? I've always used ALT tags on images and TITLE tags on links, but only recently heard about the need to also use TITLE tags on images.

Will having both improve Google's ability find my images?

Rob

 

ALT tags are the text descriptions of the images if for some reason images are disabled on your site, users (and SEs) can still see what is supposed to be there. Title tags are just that, the title or name of the image. Both can be read by the users and SEs, so yes, use both.

Title tags in links? You mean image links? Use alt and title.

 

Yup, like so:

<a href="http://www.ugo.com" title="Click to visit the U Go Here site">U Go Here</a>

Code (markup):

 

Anyone know if the images' EXIF information affects the "searchability" of those files on my web site? That is, would adding (or improving) the EXIF metadata in the images used on my site make them any more likely to be found by Google, MSN, or Yahoo! searches?

 

I think, tricking SE's by naming your images with names that are long is not going to work anymore. I think what could hurt you though is if your site is about flowers, but your name your images something like 'finance, loans' etc

 

I agree with jackar000, that seems like a old under hand trick that I wouldn't want to risk taking.

 

It is a good idea as long as your not spamming.