Web Design: Google Okays Image Replacement
When it comes to web design and SEO, there are times when a clash is inevitable. Apart from logos, there may be times when you want to use a fancy font to enhance a certain part of your web page. The problem is, it is quite likely that many users don’t have that font installed on their computers so the effect is lost. Web designers would just replace the text with an image. SEO professionals would argue that text is far better than images when it comes to SEO. So who is right?
If it is done properly, then you may be able to have your cake and eat it too. Search Engine Round Table reports on a Google Webmaster Help thread that apparently gives approval for image replacement techniques.
In the dark? If you want to use an image to display fancy text so that it renders in all browsers the danger has been the loss of that text when it comes to search engine spidering. Sure, you can use ALT attributes to help the search engines out, but that is not the same as the actual text.
Image replacement is a process where both the text and the image are available to a browser. If, for example, a visitor has images switched off in their browser, in the past they would only see the alt tag text. Image replacement inserts the actual text version of the image instead of the alt tag text.
There have been concerns in the past as to whether or not Google accepts this as an acceptable practice, or considers it spam. The answer appears to be an acceptable practice – if done correctly. This means only placing the exact text as it appears in the image.
For everyday website owners, it may be tricky to try and implement. However, if you employ a web design consultant, they will know exactly how do it. The end result, you can have your image and the text as well – all bases covered.
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