Type over images that is engine readable.

Do you have a sample of the site? That would help us give you more definate answers.

But the one definate answer, search engines will not be able to use any text contained in an image. (some may grab the contnent of your ALT tag, but not 100% sure on that).

What reason do you have for not using layers? Also, the background would work as well, backgrounds do not have to be .GIF. These are your two cohoies of putting text on top of graphics while still having them remain as actual text.

-Greg

Use CSS to make the background not repeat (I'm assuming that's what you're referring to in your last message). That would be your best solution. Also make the div the same size as the image

#yourimage {background: url('imagepath.jpg') no-repeat; height: ???px; width: ???px;}

Use alt and title in image tags:

your limited to amount of words in alt and title for display, so make em count

You can use CSS to set your image as background with no repeat

Ha! Posted at the same time. The alt and title attributes are good as well, although I'm not sure that the SE's put as much importance on them as it does on regular text. With a regular text mark-up you could even make the text a header tag to give it more importance.

Folks, thanks for all your advice.
As I said, my main concern is that with all these images, the engines may not think I am "content rich." Maybe I am being overly concerned because throughout the site there IS a bit of text.
Actually, I hope I am being overly conerned--would save me a bunch of head aches.
Your frank thoughts please.
Below is a link to just one of such pages so you will see what I am driving at. Note that I do not always use that transparent square on which to place type. Sometimes I just over-write the picture--if the background is not too busy.
Also, I usually always use ALT tags, but you will see that in this case I neglected to do so, but I will.
This is a "moderately" adult site, so if you are going to be offended, don't go.

[link removed]

Use CSS to position a div over the image with text, something like

#text1 {
left:100px;
top 200px;
color: black
background: white border 1px solid;
}

would need to refined to suit, but use that instead of the transparent image.

The images never loaded for me, timed out, but managed to get the properties of them, they are 177kb and 196kb plus the two banners 33kb and home button 1.5kb - weigh to big for dial up.

I hate to be a pest, but I still need help with this type-over-image thing. I made a practice page using CSS and used an image as a table background. Then I added text. It works fine in my browser, but when I upload it to the web, all that shows is the text. The image disappears.
I never had trouble uploading images before--about 500 such pages on my site.
Here is a link to the practice page, maybe someone would be so kind as to look at the source, and perhaps see what I am doing wrong.

http://www.sinfulescortsusa.com/Arizona/Independents/Jazzy/jazzy-profile.html

It displays correctly for me

Put the background in the

Thanks to all the help from you wonderful folks, I solved the problem.
I used the image as a background for the table/s with the text over it using CSS "absolute positioning". For others who might want the answer to this question, I am showing here the code I used. (See below.)
As an alternative, I could have eliminated the table by just placing the image on the page background using CSS positioning with type over that. Since I have about 500 pages that must be redone, I may do that is some cases.
Here is the code I used for just one page. There are actually two tables on this page, but in interest of space, I include only one here.

Independent Arizona Escorts

body {background-color: 000033; margin: 2%; link: yellow; vlink: yellow; }
p {color: red; font-size: 12px; width: 300px; font-family: sans-serif; font-weight: bold; position: absolute; top: 239px; left: 118px;}

p.lines {color: yellow; font-size: 16px; width: 360px; font-family: sans-serif; font-weight: bold; position: absolute; top: 970px; left: 260px;}

p.addy {color: yellow; font-size: 16px; width: 300px; font-family: sans-serif; font-weight: bold; position: absolute; top: 1196px; left: 284px;}

I am the newest, youngest, sweetest and jazziest escort in Phoenix. I am the hottie who wants to jazz up your life, and believe me, I do know how. And my sparkling blue eyes are a joy to wake up. I stand 5'7", measure 34-24-36, a 120 lbs. of all it takes to make you a happy man. I . . .

pic properties are read by the search engines.. put your keywords in there that are relevant