Question on a website

[Goku770]

Ok so I have noticed that this site outranks all other sites, despite low links, reviews, and citations. It also appears above google+local every single time I type in city+keyword. I just noticed that when I put the mouse arrow over their pictures and page titles, this grey box appears. Does anybody know what that is or how to get it?

Here's an example:

 

[Laustin1878]

Alt Image Text. That is an example of a spammed tag though. I would not think that is the reason the site is outranking other sites though. It's likely better backlinks.

 

[Goku770]

Ok thank you for your answer

 

[Linda Buquet]

Yes Luke is right. It's image alt text.

View source and you'll see it.

For instance the landscaping image alt = LANDSCAPING SERVICES, landscaping, lawn care, maintenance, bush hogging, tractor work, service, mowing, mow, landscape lighting, sod, sod installation, sodding service, lutz, odessa, land o lakes, wesley chapel, new tampa, commercial, residential, florida, fl, foreman, crew, employee, pasco, employment, job, career.

That's total KW spam. Image alt is supposed to describe the image. City + Landscaping Service would be the max that should be in there.

So don't do everything he does and think it will help you. Might hurt you and he obviously has just not gotten caught yet.

In fact the code in general on that site is messed up. Others that are curious, view source on mowingbybowen DOT com. Most of the meta tags are sitting outside the head tags. That's odd.

 

[Goku770]

Ok thank you Linda

 

[Laustin1878]

The technical use for the alt image tag is to allow visually impaired users to understand what is on the page. Therefore, it's descriptive text to explain the image. Google and other search engines use this tag to understand what the image is about since they cannot read text within the image itself.

As you see in Exhibit A, people abuse this.

 

[Blake Denman]

Just to verify, are you clearing cache and cookies when searching city + keyword?

If you are not, Google will usually show URL's that you have clicked on previously towards the top of SERP's, regardless of authority the site has.