title or alt?

[Jeka]

Are you using "title" or "alt" for your image and text link tags? Or both?

[Lemmy]

Alt for image, title for text.

[dirtyjumbo]

Like Lemmy said, use them both

[ladydesigner]

I also use both. Alt for images and title for text/links.

[MrYum]

Another vote for both here |thumb

[msanchez]

Both for me too.

[virgohippy]

Spiders read both. |thumb

[Preacher]

I use both, but I've read some places that seem to think title tags have more weight. If I only want to do one, I make sure it's a title. Whether that theory holds any water is pure speculation, but it makes sense when you think about link relevancy versus an alt which in my perception is just like another keyword.

[Vinci]

nice thread, I was also wondering about using alt's for images, now I know, thx

[HarryM]

always use alt tags on images, in fact if you're writing strict html it's required.

[kenny]

I have always used "alt"

I have never used "title"

Prehaps I should start

[ieatjackets]

Of course you should be using both! Short of (deliberate) SE spam, adding these kinds of tags to links/images can only help your ranking and traffic!

[Licker4U]

Well this brings up another question. How much text in alt and title is OK? 2-4 words? I'm sure a novel is out of the question, but what would be OK for SE's and what would be OK for link lists?

[MrYum]

Well this brings up another question. How much text in alt and title is OK? 2-4 words? I'm sure a novel is out of the question, but what would be OK for SE's and what would be OK for link lists?
In general, a brief statement describing the image is the intent of the alt tag. I usually try to keep em to about 5 to 7 words.

I have recently seen some free site submitters stuffing alt tags with full paragraphs of text. In a land long ago and far away, that used to be a way to spam the engines. These days, it's highly frowned upon by the engines...and this reviewer |club|

If you keep it reasonable, you shouldn't have any problems |thumb

[flyeruk]

On the subject of title tags, I read somewhere that the anchor text and title tag shouldn't be the same...

eg. free porn links with a title tag of "free porn links"

Reason I'm asking is that I have about 200 anchor links to change over...

Would this be the way to go?

website design by blahblah with a title tag of "somewhere design agency"

Any advice appreciated :D

Cheers,
Lisa.

[virgohippy]

On the subject of title tags, I read somewhere that the anchor text and title tag shouldn't be the same...

eg. free porn links with a title tag of "free porn links"

I always figured title/alt tags was my opportunity for extra words. Repeating myself seems counter-productive if I'm trying to add more text. |loony|

[Halfdeck]

Google doesn't use TITLE tag text to evaluate ranking.

Using this board as an example:

<a href="showthread.php?goto=newpost&amp;t=34437" title="Go to first unread post in thread 'CCBill links with encoded '&amp;' don't work'">

site:http://www.greenguysboard.com "Go to first unread post" (http://www.google.com/search?hs=ghc&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.greenguysboard.com+%22Go+to+first+unread+post%22&btnG=Search)

returns no results.

At least until this post gets indexed.

<img class="inlineimg" src="mimg/buttons/lastpost.gif" alt="Go to last post" border="0" />

ALT Text?

site:http://www.greenguysboard.com "Go to last post" (http://www.google.com/search?hs=BNx&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.greenguysboard.com+%22Go+to+last+post%22&btnG=Search)

If you look at the cache:


These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: go to last post

ALT text is still worth using imo as part of Google Images optimization, but not for regular SERP if you're targeting competitive keywords. After all, we're talking about an on-page element that visitors on some browsers don't even see.