gif alt tag?

This is quite probably a reallly silly question and I feel rather silly asking,
but I'm going to ask anyway. I had a client say that they wanted the text on
their site to be in a gif file, fair enough I get that. What I didn't
understand was they said that I should also put the text in a gif alt tag as
well so that search engines can pick it up. What I've done is put the text in
the meta tags at the top of the page and also, the same colour as the page, in
the actual page itself. Is this what they meant or are they talking about
something totally different?
Okay if this is a silly question you now have my permission to laugh:-)
Cheers

This is quite probably a reallly silly question and I feel rather silly
asking,
but I'm going to ask anyway. I had a client say that they wanted the text
on
their site to be in a gif file, fair enough I get that.

actually, no, that's not 'fair enough'. That's bad web design.

What I didn't
understand was they said that I should also put the text in a gif alt tag
as
well so that search engines can pick it up.

It's an attribute...not a tag...and is designed to act as a alternative to
an image. To place the entirety of the page content into an alt attribute is
really stretching the alt attribute's purpose.

What I've done is put the text in
the meta tags at the top of the page

That won't do much.

and also, the same colour as the page, in
the actual page itself.

Google will see that as SEO spamming and penalize you.

Is this what they meant or are they talking about
something totally different?

No, they are talking about the alt attribute:

<img src="yourImage.gif" alt="your alternative text">

-Darrel

their site to be in a gif file, fair enough I get that.

Not fair enough - it's a terrible idea. But they are referring to using the
alt attribute of the image tag -

<img alt="here is all the text you would have otherwise used on the
page"....

Did I say it's a terrible idea?

--
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(If you *MUST* email me, don't LAUGH when you do so!)
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"Lucy4" <webforumsuser (AT) macromedia (DOT) com> wrote

This is quite probably a reallly silly question and I feel rather silly
asking,
but I'm going to ask anyway. I had a client say that they wanted the text
on
their site to be in a gif file, fair enough I get that. What I didn't
understand was they said that I should also put the text in a gif alt tag
as
well so that search engines can pick it up. What I've done is put the text
in
the meta tags at the top of the page and also, the same colour as the
page, in
the actual page itself. Is this what they meant or are they talking about
something totally different?
Okay if this is a silly question you now have my permission to laugh:-)
Cheers

Adding an alt parameter to the img tags is always the best practice. Search
engines aside, not everyone automatically loads images on pages so they will
see the alt tags in the rendered box so it is more friendly towards them.

Also, from a design standpoint, they also allow you to add more description to
what the image is without having to use insanely long file names.

As for your practice of putting keywords as a block of text matching the
background color, I would cease doing that. First it messes up printing by
adding extraneous stuff. But most importantly a lot of users these days search
in context so the keywords should already be somewhere in the body text to
begin with. Adding to them again is just being redundant and if the search
engine displays that block instead of the context, the user may move on.

Thanks. That's answered my question. I'll speak to the client to suggest doing it that way instead.

One thing to keep in mind too is that while they are a pasying client, your job
as the designer is to advise them on things they may want but are not feasible.
It is absolutely ludicrous to have text be inside images unless you are doing
something like a masthead or using a non-standard font. If they want some sort
of effect, check into using to acheive it first.

Second, using a .GIF is not the best of ideas if the image is not animated
and/or transparent. JPG/PNG are better choices for that. Load time these days
is extremely important esspecially now that some browsers like Firefox actually
have timers that show load time.

On 07 Nov 2005 in macromedia.dreamweaver, Lucy4 wrote:

Thanks. That's answered my question. I'll speak to the client to
suggest doing it that way instead.

You got good answers; I will, however, add this: If the client really,
really wants to use Goofy Grunge Font #26, then offer to put in a few
headlines in that font - ie create graphics of the headline and put them
in with appropriate alt attributes. Or you could use sIFR:

http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2004/08/sifr

or any number of other pages obtainable on a web search.

--
Joe Makowiec
http://makowiec.net/
Email: http://makowiec.net/email.php

Second, using a .GIF is not the best of ideas if the image is not animated
and/or transparent. JPG/PNG are better choices for that.

No, that's not true.

The TYPE of image is what is important. Continuous tone = JPG is likely the
better option. Line art (ie, text) = GIF is likely the better option.

Load time these days
is extremely important esspecially now that some browsers like Firefox
actually
have timers that show load time.

What?

-Darrel