Rails Tip: image_tag, SEO Optimization

when you use rails's image_tag, by default it sets the HTML attributes of alt and title to the filename of the image. so for

image_tag 'dscn0001.jpg'

will produce the following html something like that

<img src="images/dscn0001.jpg" alt="dscn0001" />


the alt attribute for image tag is meant to explain the content of the image in case the actual image was not found, or for non-graphic browsers.

The default value for the alt attribute should not be used, unless the file name does not really supply information about the image. my suggestion is to use the :alt option in the image_tag helper.

important: do not attempt to use the alt for keywords heaping ('elad-rails-blog-ruby.jpg'), this will not help you in your SEO.