HTML Alt and Title Tags

 I am trying to do some work on sending out a link for people to link back to my website.

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/objects.html#alternate-text - official definition for alt text

The alt attribute must be specified for any IMG tag.

...some text...
Here's a photo of 
<A href="http://someplace.com/neatstuff.gif" title="Me scuba diving">
   me scuba diving last summer
</A>
...some more text...

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/global.html#h-7.4.3

and here are my test graphics where I add alt and title tags,

when you mouse over you should see the title tags.

Understand The Purpose of ALT and TITLE

The ALT attribute is designed to be an alternative text description for images. ALT text displays before the image is loaded (if it's loaded at all) in the major browsers and instead of the image in text-based browsers like Lynx. ALT is a required element for images and can only be used for image tags because its specific purpose is to describe images.

In contrast, you can use the TITLE attribute for just about any page element, but it isn't required for any page element. Use it to describe links, tables, individual table rows, and other structural HTML elements. They're more versatile than the ALT attribute and many search engine ranking algorithms read the text in TITLE attributes as regular page content.

Consider the benefits of good ALT and TITLE text:

Enhance the browsing experience of visitors with disabilities. Increase your page's keyword density score and relevancy for your targeted keywords. Provide valuable information to all your visitors with descriptive link titles and descriptive text about other page elements.

June 28, 2009

I just got the results in from the SEO work I did,
this isn't a huge sample size, but I think it's probably big enough.

I put up 2 images with title and alt tags.

The alt tags showed up for both in google when I search on them.

The alt tag for one image was passed through to the site being linked.

This means if someone links an image to your site with an alt tag, and then that alt tag is typed into the google search  your site will show up in the listings.  of course if it is a popular search term you may be way at the bottom.

The title tags didn't show up in google for either one.

July 12, 2009