# **🧭 Overview**

When OTTO SEO deploys on-page optimizations to your website, two common questions arise: **Where do meta keywords appear?** and **Where does image alt text appear?** These are two distinct SEO elements that behave very differently after deployment. This article explains exactly what each element does, who can see it, and where to verify it.

# **📋 Meta Keywords: Source Code Only**

Meta keywords are placed inside the **<head>** section of your page's HTML as a **<meta>** tag. They are **not visible to website visitors** on the page itself. No text, label, or indicator appears anywhere on the front-end of your site.

Meta keywords are only accessible in two places:

- **Your page's source code** — right-click any page and select *View Page Source* to find the tag inside the **<head>** section.
- **Browser developer tools** — open DevTools (F12), go to the *Elements* tab, and inspect the **<head>** block.

This is standard browser behaviour and is not specific to OTTO SEO. Meta keywords have no visual presence on a webpage by design — they exist purely as metadata read by crawlers and tools, not by human visitors.

# **🖼️ Image Alt Text: Visible in Source Code and to Assistive Technology**

Image alt text behaves very differently from meta keywords. After OTTO SEO deploys alt text to your images, it becomes part of the **rendered HTML of your page** — meaning it is accessible to website visitors and external tools, not hidden inside a software layer.

Specifically, deployed image alt text:

- **Appears in your page's source code** — right-click the page, select *View Page Source*, and search for the **alt=""** attribute on your **<img>** tags.
- **Is read aloud by screen readers** — visitors using assistive technology will hear the alt text description when they navigate to that image.
- **Displays as fallback text** — if an image fails to load in a visitor's browser, the alt text appears in place of the broken image.
- **Is indexed by search engines** — Googlebot and other crawlers read alt text directly from your page's HTML to understand image content.

Alt text does **not** appear as a visible caption or label on the page for sighted visitors under normal circumstances — but it is fully present in the live HTML that anyone can inspect.

# **⚖️ Side-by-Side Comparison**

- **Meta Keywords —** Location: **<head>** section of HTML | Visible to site visitors: No | In page source code: Yes | Read by screen readers: No | Indexed by Google: No (largely ignored by modern search engines)
- **Image Alt Text —** Location: **<img>** tag within page body | Visible to site visitors: No (unless image fails to load) | In page source code: Yes | Read by screen readers: Yes | Indexed by Google: Yes

# **✅ How to Verify Deployments in OTTO SEO**

1. In the left sidebar, navigate to **OTTO SEO → All Sites (SEO Automation)** (URL: **/seo-automation-v3**).
2. Locate the page you optimized.
3. In your browser, open a new tab and go to the live URL of that page.
4. Right-click anywhere on the page and select **View Page Source**.
5. To check **meta keywords**: press **Ctrl+F** (or **Cmd+F** on Mac) and search for **meta name="keywords"**. You will find it inside the **<head>** block.
6. To check **image alt text**: search for **alt=** in the source code. Each deployed alt text value will appear inside the corresponding **<img>** tag.

If you do not see your changes reflected in the page source within a few minutes of deployment, try a hard refresh (**Ctrl+Shift+R** or **Cmd+Shift+R**) to bypass any cached version of the page.

# **❓ Frequently Asked Questions**

- **Will visitors see my meta keywords on the page?** No. Meta keywords are hidden metadata. No visitor — regardless of device or browser — will see them displayed on the page.
- **Does OTTO SEO only change how things look on the front end?** No. Image alt text is written directly into your page's HTML source, making it a real structural change — not just a visual overlay. It will appear in your source code and be readable by search engines and assistive technology.
- **Why can't I see the alt text with my eyes on the page?** Alt text is not a visible caption. It lives inside the HTML tag itself. You can confirm it is there by viewing the page source or using browser DevTools to inspect the image element.

# **💬 Need More Help?**

If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type **human teammate** to be connected with a member of our team.