png icon coming up as alt text in search engine description
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- The PC Mayor - Botz
- Newbie
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Hello,
I am Botz from I currently have a problem i need help with. I use google webmaster tools to be informed of their opinion of my website and its structural optimization. I have noticed in the search engine results pages, (SERPs), that the template icons used for the main menus are showing an alt text or somehow returning the name of the icon (ie., icon.png, doc.png, rss.png, pdf.png, key.png) in the description under my websites url link. So the .png's in my template folder, i know which ones they are via the descriptions and google webmaster tools content keyword finder. It turns out the most relevant search information in the meta field, either as alt or in description, as I am unsure of what the problem is exactly, is icons, admin, png and minus for my sites content keyword. This is a major SEO issue as google thinks my website is a big icon admin png minus, please help me. Thank you all!
joomla 1.5 - Last Edit: 9 years 3 months ago by Kat05.
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- David Goode
- Preeminent Rocketeer
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- Web Designer and Host
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Hi there,
Looking at your meta content description you have your site title which Google will ignore and so it will select any text from your page that it feels is relevant.
Try writing a proper description that is different to site title.
Hope this helps
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- The PC Mayor - Botz
- Newbie
- Posts: 5
- Thanks: 0
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Hi David,
Thank you so much for the speedy response. The problem with your suggestion of writing a different description in this case is that writing meta's to a page that already has meta's wont solve the problem. I have never once wrote the names of the icons in any meta field or description field, these are ending up in the serp description I am assuming as alt text i am thinking, because of this link i found where someone has the same issue on this website but I could not respond to it, could not find the reply button. http://www.rockettheme.com/forum/index.php?uid=98121&f=208&t=128791&start=&rb_v=viewtopic The link provided shows that some code is picking up the name of the icon and file extension type and providing it as alt text, and for some ungodly reason, sprinkles it around and in my descriptions for all search engines to see. If this is not the case I am wondering if I can somehow I am guessing code the template to hide the icon from the search engine bot. I mean I could always just not use the icons, and maybe that would solve the problem but then the menu links would not look as good at all. I am assuming that the 300% relevance over my real keywords is because these icons are in my main top menu item links, thus show up on every page on my website. Almost all necessary pages imo, on my site, have descriptions that are up to par, any suggestions as to my article here would be greatly appreciated with reference to title and description tags. So i think I have to edit a php file in the template that is causing google to pick this up as alt text and grade it higher than all my relevant content. Very happy knowing there is someone out there I can speak with, as I know your time is important. Thank you! - Last Edit: 9 years 3 months ago by Kat05.
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- The PC Mayor - Botz
- Newbie
- Posts: 5
- Thanks: 0
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Hey David,
After careful thought and consideration I think you are correct. My global site meta description was, "The PC Mayor Review and Tutorial Forum.", Now it is, "The PC Mayor Review and Tutorial Forum. Our goal is to provide you with a dynamic computer learning experience, here to help you 24/7, with any IT related topic, issue or problem you are having trouble with". So, as I recall Matt Cutts saying in a video or two that google reserves the right to select the name of the title and the description through meta tags or the alt tag. So I am guessing still, lol, that the bot due to lack of a sufficient global site meta description on my part was picking up the alt text tag. I am not sure though if this would lower the content keyword issue I am getting from the webmaster tools. So I made the changes, also I just added canonical urls to my site so hopefully after a week, or a month, this can be resolved. I think this change will resolve the description problem but not the keyword content issue, I will be back with an update shortly.
Thanks!
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- David Goode
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 17058
- Thanks: 890
- Web Designer and Host
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Hi there,
If the meta description is lacking then the search engine will try and use site content but it won't know what to use so it becomes hit or miss with the quality of the description.
Keywords should not be defined by the page content. This would mean that you have written a page and then allowed Google to determine what the keywords are based on content. This is completely backwards as your keywords may match the page content but that is very little help if they never get searched for.
The trick is to find out from Google what people are using in their searches and then design your page content around those search terms.
Hope this helps
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