Handling of ALT attributes

Will be fixed in nodewords-4.7.x-1.3 and nodewords-5.x-1.6.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Could this just be an optional setting. I think for most sites the insertin of the alt text into the metatags just confuses things.

For instance this google search here:
http://tinyurl.com/5ofdxh

Pulled in the thumbnail alt text (bolded for emphasis) below:

Hopewell Centre Screen-shot ThumbnailThe Hopewell Eating Disorder Support Centre of Ottawa helps people understand eating disorders and the importance of ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

And did so in a manner that makes it quite hard to understand. If the alt text is just a description of a mathematical image as per the request last year that would be just fine. However, I think that most of us probably aren't writing the alt text as exact equivilents. Often the images are just there to make the page more interesting and the article can be as easily read with it as without it.

Is there another use case which we can point to where it makes sense for SEO to have the image alt text stuffed into the metatags?

Mike

I just ran into this myself as users placed images higher in the page, causing them to load in the teasers. I'll write a patch against 5.x (since that's what the site is on) and port to 6.x upon review.

Here is a patch which implements a new setting to control alt tags. It defaults to enabled so as to match existing behavior.

I applied this patch by hand to nodewords-6.x-1.0. It worked perfectly. thanks. Please get this committed to 6.x too so I don't have to continue removing this feature by hand. It really messes up the meta description.

@joestewart, could you post a patch against D6? See http://drupal.org/patch/create for directions if you don't know how. It will also make it easier for you to apply in the future if needed :).

Thanks for the reminder to make a patch.

Patch against nodewords DRUPAL-6--1.

Looks good to me - a straight port of #5. +1 for RTBC.

Is really necessary to replace the image with its alternative text?
That text is useful when the image is not loaded for any reasons, and the user sees a placeholder instead of the image; in the case of nodewords, the text that would appear could not make any sense for who sees it without to know there was an image where he sees the text. I can image people who try to understand from where the text comes, as they don't see it in the teaser.

My idea is that the text should be placed between square parenthesis, or not show at all.

Yes, having this option is a must. In some cases, you don't want the ALT text to show because the alt text doesn't really make sense when put inline with the text...

This post would result in:

Register now for Drupalcon Paris 2009Almost 3 months have passed since Bonnie and her team performed the ultimate party trick: materializing a 1400 people conference out of thin air.

Notice the lack of space between "2009" and "Almost"? Imagine this with a number of different images in the teaser? Yeeeeah, this patch is a must.

Oh, and it also applies fine to DRUPAL-5 too.

My idea is that the text should be placed between square parenthesis, or not show at all.

That's what this patch does. It allows you to choose whether to include the ALT text, or not.

In some cases, you don't want the ALT text to show because the alt text doesn't really make sense when put inline with the text...

I would say that the ALT text doesn't really make sense when put in line with the text, always.
The ALT text is thought to be used for a well defined purpose, which is not to transform HTML text with images into plain text.

What I am saying is that the code should remove the images, and not put anything instead of them. Actually, the code should sanitize the text used for the description, which probably cannot contain arbitrary HTML content.

The patch must be changed; when the option is to use the ALT attribute is not enabled, the IMG tags must be removed.

I corrected the patch, and applied it to the CVS code for the Drupal 6 branch.

Thanks to all for the help.

As the Drupal 5 version is not supported anymore, I am changing the status of this report.

If the Drupal 5 version isn't supported any more, it would be good if you could update the releases list as it's currently marked as "recommended".

The module is still listed because otherwise who is still using it would get a warning message about the module not being supported; as I was asked to leave the Drupal 5 version listed in the project page, I did so.