79 replies to this topic

[maleman]

How fun!

I heard that! I aint had so much fun since the pigs ate my little brother!

[qwerty]

Well, if Chris can jump on alt tags...

ya know it's sort of a mute point for most.

Huh? Whaaaat? I can't hear you! I think your point is mute! Either that, or there's a banana in my ear.

Anyway, it's a moot point, but I thought I'd mention it just for kicks

[torka]

Oh, no, we're not going to start that discussion up again, are we?

--Torka

[suzstephens]

Heh heh! You folks should be over on the RealTalk email list watching me being flamed for supposed spewing "technobabble" for trying to explain the difference that title tags, title tags and alt attributes. (In other words, posting the same quotes from W3C that were posted here.) I haven't been flamed that well in a long time -

Some of them still insist that title attributes do make a significant difference in SEO. I'm afraid I am losing interest in the issue. It's hard enough just getting real estate agents to pay a little attention to title tags and content. I guess they're too busy obsessively tweaking their meta keywords to have time to bother with 'em.

[Jill]

Uh oh...and this is the forum thread in the week in the newsletter!

It's easy enough to prove whether or not the title attribute has any effect in SEO. Are they doing that?

(Going to look up the old page I used as a test for this.)

[Added]

Ok, found it. At this time (as previously) neither Google, Yahoo, nor MSN index the words in a link title attribute.

[DanThies]

I don't know why anyone would "feel" that search engines are indexing the title attributes of images. It's easy enough to test, and then they would "know" that the title attribute isn't indexed.

Don't just take my word for it, go do a search on any engine for:
site:seoresearchlabs.com smooth
Then go to my home page and mouse over my picture to see the title attribute, which has been there for many months.

The purpose of the title attribute in an img tag is to display a "tooltip" over the image. A title attribute does the same thing for anchor tags.

This can be useful in driving clicks and conversion (click here for big savings on widgets!), but it has no effect on SEO/rankings. The title attribute of anchors isn't indexed either.

No matter how anyone feels about it.

[Jill]

Yeah...I think I just said that! Must have cross posted.

[suzstephens]

They claim to have tested it, Jill. Where you mentioned "going to the old page I used as a test for this ...and OK, found it..." Are you referring to a test that you ran yourself?

My email service flaked out for a day or so, so I haven't been able to keep up with how badly they continue to flame me. Too bad, huh?

So, my email finally started working again and now the person says that he meant title attribute in link tags, not image tags. Since I often use images as links, I can't see that it would make much difference where the title attribute went -- link or img tag -- if indeed it does make a difference for SEO.

[Jill]

Are you referring to a test that you ran yourself?

Yes.

If they say that the title attribute is indexed, I'd sure like to see the test they have because I don't believe it for a minute. Mine certainly are not indexed.

[qwerty]

...now the person says that he meant title attribute in link tags, not image tags.

Nope, nope and another nope for good measure. Have them show you a page where the title attribute of any element is indexed.

I tried searching around for some authoritative word on this. When I ran a google search for seo title attribute the first thing that came up was so wrong I wanted to scream at the author.

Next up was this very thread (so hopefully a lot of people will learn something here), and a little further down was a thread at SEW in which a test was discussed, but it's been more than a year and the tester never posted the results. Most of that thread is me and a few more people reminding everyone of the difference between an attribute and an element


[edit: that's "thread" at SEW, not "threat" -- I hope]

Edited by qwerty, 06 September 2006 - 10:36 PM.

[Davidinnotts]

Hi, all.

So let me spell it out to see if I've understood:

The search engines use ALT= image attributes in ranking, but ignore TITLE= image attributes, as far as Jill can tell.

Users of the site whose browsers are showing images will see the image, and hovering over it will show the TITLE= image attribute text in most browsers.

I'm still not sure what users with images switched off will see. They'll see the ALT= image attribute text, of course - tha's what it's for! Will they also see the TITLE= image attribute text, too, directly or by hovering? Or does this depend on the browser?

People using a text-to-speech reader will hear the ALT attribute text. Will this be followed by the TITLE attribute text? Or does this depend on the text-to-speech program?

David.

[Sarah]

Ok, found it.  At this time (as previously) neither Google, Yahoo, nor MSN index the words in a link title attribute.

I like to use a TITLE="----" for a link - this is to give a greater idea to users of teh page they are linking to from the menus where there may not be a huge amount of space in the design for a full description. This then brings up a 'hover text' that can be read by the user.

So am I doing a bad thing? I'm afraid I might be getting confuddled now.

And on images, the alt attribute is used

[Archie]

I'm still not sure what users with images switched off will see.  They'll see the ALT= image attribute text, of course - tha's what it's for!  Will they also see the TITLE= image attribute text, too, directly or by hovering?  Or does this depend on the browser?

Try it yourself by setting the appropriate settings in browsers! A quick check reveals the following:
IE6: Uses ALT as tooltip (label displayed with cursor hover over image) if no Title attribute used. If both Alt and Title are used - displays Title as tool tip.
Opera, Safari: only use Title attribute as a tooltip
All the above display only ALT attribute when images switched off in browser.

[Davidinnotts]

Thanks, Archie - that's logical and reasonable of Microsoft, for a change!

Does anyone know what happens when you have a text-to-speech reader? I'm anxious to get that right: we don't want to lose the less sighted as customers!

David,
lurking on the edge of Sherwood Forest.

Edited by Davidinnotts, 07 September 2006 - 06:56 AM.

[Jill]

The search engines use ALT= image attributes in ranking

This is not always true. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they do for clickable images only, sometimes they do for all images.

I like to use a TITLE="----" for a link - this is to give a greater idea to users of teh page they are linking to from the menus where there may not be a huge amount of space in the design for a full description. This then brings up a 'hover text' that can be read by the user.

So am I doing a bad thing?

No, of course not. Just because the search engines ignore it doesn't mean it's bad!