Images or Text for site navigation?

[rj700]

Is it better for SEO to use images or text for site navigation?

I'm currently using Frontpage 2002 with a vertical theme navigation bar for the site. I like the ease of adding a page to the navigation bar and having it update automatically throughout the site.

But I recently ran a Search Engine Spider Simulator, that I found at http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/sea...imulator.shtml , that showed all my navigational text links within the navigation bar appearing first to the simulator.

Being a newbie to webdesign, I'm not too sure exactly how this works but I remember reading somewhere that the main keywords in the meta tags should show up within the first 90 characters of the pages content for proper search engine optimization.

If this is the case, is it better to use images for the navigation system so the spiders do not read the navigation order at the top of a page? or am I way off?

Thanks,
RJ

[bhartzer]

It's better for SEO purposes to use text. Search engines read text, they don't read images.

[rj700]

Yes I know the engines don't read images -- that's my point.

I'm wondering if it's better to use images for navigation so the engines read the relevant content in the page first, rather than the links themselves which may not have the appropriate keywords that are required for the optimization of that page.

[HardCoded]

You have a good point there. My feeling is, that you could have the advantages of both decent anchor text to your inside pages, and the advantage of having your main content earlier in the source code, by putting menus at the end of the source and then positioning them via CSS.

Another option could be to use image links as you suggest, but also include plain text "footer menus" as well.

But since CSS menus can be made fairly pretty and button-like these days, with much less download drag and upkeep pain, I've been going the CSS route on this. How many times, in those early years, have we lost the freakin font we used to make our buttons?

[ChrisRC]

Well, it's important to remember that the significance of the links isn't simply as copy on the page being spidered, but as links for the spider to follow to the pages they link to.

Depending on the nature of your site, it's likely that something other than the home page will be targeted towards a given specific search - and the link to that page helps in that targeting.

For instance, if I have a site about generators, my home page might give an overview of the types of generators I sell, but it will also link to a page specifically on PTO generators. That page will be SEOd for searches on PTO generators, both in terms of copy and in terms of the link to that page. An image won't help the SEO on my PTO generator page as much as anchor text of "PTO Generators" would.

[WebDesignDatabase]

Images for main navagation is fine. I have many top ranked sites that use images as Nav. You need to remember that while spiders can not read images, they can read the ALT text that you put in those images. The smart thing to do, would be to use alt text on your images, and place your keywords in there. Then at the bottom of the page, use a TEXT only footer as a second way to navagate. A good site should have many ways to Navagate a site. So mix it up. I usually have images, flash, text, and content links on all my sites. That way I know the spider can't help but crawl my site and see keywords. Hope this helps.

[CLBridges]

See thread:

http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic...=111766#111766

for additional tips on optimizing links (both image and text links) using the title tag.

Carrie**

[greeneagle]

Yes you still need textural links on your site.

Yes you can achieve nice textural effects with CSS.

Yes many people prefer image links (myself included) for primary navigation.

Yes it is a good idea when doing so to have textural links horizontally displayed at the bottom of the page in a secondary navigation schema. It's not only good for the search engines, but considerate for visitors that have to scroll to the bottom of the page.

Here it is straight from the GOOGLE WEBMASTER GUIDELINES:

Design and Content Guidelines:

"Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link."

Regards,

Ken