5

When I build image tags, I always add Image ALTs & Image Titles.

A few years ago I worked with Drupal 6. When you added images in Drupal 6 you could add three things:

  1. Image ALTs.
  2. Image Titles.
  3. Image Description.

The option to add description to the Drupal API images was taken down with the release of Drupal 7, and also didn't make a comeback in Drupal 8. Therefore my question is:

What is actually this tag and does it have any usage today in SEO to Google or any other major search engine (worldwide)?

Update:

I did see a similar tag by the way under CKeditor: Long Description URL. The CKeditor is a JS library that is vastly used in Drupal sites.

1 Answer 1

3
+50

Drupal 6's Image Description field was never shown on the page or in any metadata available to users or crawlers, thus there is no SEO impact in its presence or absence as it's never read by anyone.

The "description" field is primarily intended to be used with file fields, in which case it is used as the text of the link to download the file.

https://www.drupal.org/node/432846


CKEditor's Long Description URL is included in the longdesc attribute.

Long Description URL – the web address of an HTML page containing a longer description of the image (longdesc attribute).

http://docs.cksource.com/CKEditor_3.x/Users_Guide/Rich_Text/Images

longdesc is a HTML 4 attribute for linking to the longer description of an image. It's currently unsupported by every browser. "Google seems to ignore it" and I don't blame them — it's basically never used and when it is it's not implemented right. Googlebot may follow the link, but it's a stretch to presume it will accurately associate it with that specific image. You'd be better off using the recommended schema.org/ImageObject.

7
  • Thanks for you answer! I've updated the question, you might want to expand your answer based on the data I've added in the end.
    – user58733
    Feb 16, 2016 at 21:26
  • I am confused. Please forgive me. Are you saying that the text is used for link text as any other link would do? If that is the case, then the link text is a very important clue for the target resource, page, image, video, or whatever and would be used in search. If I did not understand you correctly, it is possible that others will not either. Not trying to be a pest. Just confused. Thanks for chucking in. Cheers!!
    – closetnoc
    Feb 17, 2016 at 17:37
  • 1
    @closetnoc For images, the content of the description field is not in the HTML at all (it's used for downloadable files). Feel free to edit the answer if you think it needs clarification.
    – grg
    Feb 17, 2016 at 17:57
  • No. I am sure it is just me. ;-) Cheers!! BTW- I like your answers. I trust you. I was just confused which does not always require a lot!
    – closetnoc
    Feb 17, 2016 at 18:02
  • 2
    @Benia I've expanded my answer to cover your supplementary question — let me know if that's not what you're looking for.
    – grg
    Feb 19, 2016 at 23:07

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.