Naming Banners with anchor text

[sparky_t]

Hi all,

We have a banner ad on a static html directory, and get a lot of traffic from it. From an anchor text point of view - does it matter what the gif file is called?

At the moment it is currently bannerad.gif - should it be commercial-double-glazing.gif? Would it make a difference?

Sparky

[bhartzer]

No, I really don't think it matters at all what the file is called. You could be showing a photo of a horse running on the banner ad and it could be called "bunny-rabbit.gif" so it' really not relevent.

[Martin Smith]

Are you saying that image names offer no SEO benefit Bill?

It seems to me that if there is an seo benefit to the image name, then a well chosen image name will increase the relavence of the link.

I would be very interested to hear everyone's opinions as to the importance of the alt attribute and the title attribute on a banner.

[Mel]

IMO alt tags of linked graphics are given some ranking consideration, but I would have my doubts about the name of the file itself.

[cbp]

Are you saying that image names offer no SEO benefit Bill?

I think there is a benefit from image names, but its so damn small in the grand scheme of things I do not worry about it anymore. All I now worry about are the keyword(s) in title, H1 tags, meta description, highest keyword density and anchor text of links - thats all I spend time getting right these days.

CBP