It does. Google even specifically mentions alt-text, and alt-text best practices in their SEO docs: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide#images...
Not sure if they actually help for SEO, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did. Does anyone experienced know?
And I can tell you from personal experience (and based on a discussion with a Google Businesses rep) that they actually do lower the rank of sites that don't adhere to good accessibility practices, like including descriptive alt-text for every image.
I have seen it, Bluesky and Tumblr both do decent jobs at alt text designed for accessibility. I suspect that there are websites copying Microsoft office keyword descriptions or using them for SEO...
I have seen it, Bluesky and Tumblr both do decent jobs at alt text designed for accessibility. I suspect that there are websites copying Microsoft office keyword descriptions or using them for SEO but good alt text makes images "viewable" and "understandable" to those with screen readers.
Gifs were just added on Bluesky proper and their lack of alt text built in has caused some folks to not use them. Even a "Jim from the Office looks at camera meme .gif" is better than nothing.
It does. Google even specifically mentions alt-text, and alt-text best practices in their SEO docs:
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide#images
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/google-images#descriptive-alt-text%20descriptive-titles-captions-filenames
And I can tell you from personal experience (and based on a discussion with a Google Businesses rep) that they actually do lower the rank of sites that don't adhere to good accessibility practices, like including descriptive alt-text for every image.
I have seen it, Bluesky and Tumblr both do decent jobs at alt text designed for accessibility. I suspect that there are websites copying Microsoft office keyword descriptions or using them for SEO but good alt text makes images "viewable" and "understandable" to those with screen readers.
Gifs were just added on Bluesky proper and their lack of alt text built in has caused some folks to not use them. Even a "Jim from the Office looks at camera meme .gif" is better than nothing.