12 replies to this topic

[Jill]

Randy noticed that the alt attribute for clickable images was being indexed again by Google on his sites, so I just checked my own test and found the same thing.

For me, right now at this moment, Google does index and show you the page that the clickable image with the alt attribute is on. It's not bringing up the resulting page, however, which I believe it used to do.

They seem to be experimenting with this a lot, so this could change at any time. I couldn't find the other thread where we were discussing this, for some reason, so I started this new one.

Jill

[OldWelshGuy]

It appears more and more like Google is running various tests, while it has very little serious competition, but in readiness for next years war of words.

Searchers don't really have a lot of serious choice at the moment, as with 70% of the searches being as relevant as Google they are free to run in test mode.

Well thats my take on it anyhow.

But I have to say that the ALT tag is one of those attributes that has a big sign hanging on it saying ABUSE ME.

But i guess if the page is about mountain gorillas, and you put a few mountain gorilla keywords in there then is it wrong? as that is exactly what the attribute was designed for.

[Scottie]

An alt attribute on an image that is a link is the only way the search engine "knows" anything about that link- without it, it's still a link but it doesn't help to improve their results.

Done correctly, the alt tells users and SE's a little about the page it points to. It's definitely a good idea to use them, even if they are not counted.

It is open to abuse- I would think they could curb that by limiting the number of characters that are indexed.

[ajeshnair]

How about anchor title tag?

I know a website which is ranked in first position by using keywords in anchor title tag. But there is a little content in the page. This website is still maintaning its top position even after algo google changes. Website is having a PageRank of 3.

-Ajesh Nair

[Jill]

Google wasn't counting the link title attribute last I checked.

It's completely ignored.

Jill

[ajeshnair]

Jill Whalen Check "free mms usa" in google

[Jill]

Yes, I checked. But what am I looking for?

Just checked my test page, and the link title attribute is definitely not getting indexed.

If your test is the number 1 page for "free mms usa" that phrase is in the alt tag of a clickable image on that page. If it's another listing you're talking about, please let me know which one so I can look at the code.

Jill

[ajeshnair]

Hi Jill,

Yes. I was refferring the first website which comes for "free mms usa".
You can see the keywords in both anchor title tag and and image alt tag.

Google ignores the anchor title tag and gives importance to image alt tag. Is that your point?

- Ajesh Nair

[Jill]

Not that Google gives importance to the image alt, but simply that it indexes clickable image alts. (There was a week or two there where G was ignoring it, but last I checked G was indexing it again.)

G does ignore the link title attribute, however. Have never seen it actually index that as of yet.

Jill

[hoboseo]

Hi everybody.

I would like to know your opinions about ALT in map areas, does it have the same value (like in clickable images)?

[Jill]

Welcome, Hoboseo!

It depends on the code of the map, but most of the ones I've seen, you can use alt attributes for the different areas, and it's fine.

Jill

[hoboseo]

Ok, Jill, I'll try it then.
Thank you.

[Scottie]

The last time I read anything about it, alt attributes in image maps were not counted. The links can still be followed, no problem. But the alt text won't help the relevance, IMO.

Whether alt attributes are being indexed at all anymore for link graphics seems to change daily!