Alt tags are of importance. Search engines cannot read images and they do not know what the image actually shows. The alt property of the image element is integrated for blind people surfing the Internet. Because blind people are using the Internet frequently it helps them to navigate through the site but also search engines are picking up the message.

Example:
<img src="../images/read.png" alt="read detailed info about alt tags" />. Alt="read detailed info about alt tags" tells the search engines and the users that more information can be found about alt tags when clicking the image.

Users browsing with IE see this alt tag, when moving with their mouse over an image as a small tooltip. In the Internet Options of the browser settings the display of alt tags needs to be enabled.

Alt tags are required when following W3 standards, when coding the pages in XHTML 1.0 Transitional. We therefore implement alt tags in all images, even the spacer, often used to keep the layout in the right proportion, is included. This serves the purpose to communicate to blind people and search engines that they do not miss out on anything when ignoring this spacer.gif.