Use of Title attribute and alt attribute

[seolearner]

Hi everyone,
I want to know how important is it to use the following attributes:
We use 'title' property in <A> tag for browsers other than IE and 'alt' property in <img> tag for IE browser.

[img]graphics/06.gif[/img]

Is this correct/valid from SEO point of view or can this be called a Spam.

[ADAM Web Design]

Anything can be spam if you do it right.

Watch as I repeat this sentence over and over again. Watch as I repeat this sentence over and over again. Watch as I repeat this sentence over and over again. Watch as I repeat this sentence over and over again. Watch as I repeat this sentence over and over again. Watch as I repeat this sentence over and over again. Watch as I repeat this sentence over and over again. Watch as I repeat this sentence over and over again. Watch as I repeat this sentence over and over again. Watch as I repeat this sentence over and over again. Watch as I repeat this sentence over and over again.

See? Spam.

Basically, the tags themselves aren't spam. In fact, using alt and title for images is good practice. However, it can be spam IF you do something like what I just did above.

[Mel]

To the best of my knowledge the title attribute is not read for ranking purposes by any major search engine, but the alt tag is read and if the graphic it is used on is linked to a URL then it is used almost like anchor text.

By themselves they are useful tools for your viewers too.

The title attribute is the correct attribute to use to create those nice little popups when you mouse over an object, which can be quite helpful to viewers (say on a menu link where you can more fully explain what a user will find when he clicks on the link).

The alt tag is used by screen readers to help the visually disabled to know what a graphic is about.