Title vs. ALT with images?

[ergobob]

Hello,

Most of my images have ALT= with descriptive text. However, my navigation buttons and navigation images all have Title= with descriptive text.

I like the ALT's for accessibility purposes in addition to their SEO value.

Would there be any benefit to changing all Title= to Alt= from an SEO viewpoint?

Thanks,

Bob

[wige]

One thing to note (more from a user perspective than an SE perspective) is that alt tags are not always shown. They are intended in the specification to only be displayed if the image is not shown. Although right now IE always shows the alt text when you mouse over an image, Firefox will only display the title text unless the image is not being displayed.

[benc007]

Can you use both ALT and Title for your buttons and images?

[Orion]

title tags and alt tags are both major for accessibility...
alt tags are 'alternative' for images, they tell a speech browser what to say for example "Web Pro World Logo" or "top right corner" they describe the image.
title attributes are to be displayed in the mouse tool tip (yes they override IE's display of the alt attribute) and they provide additional information to the site visitor, example: "view the home page" "Contact Web Pro World" on images they are not always required, and tend to be more advantageous when used with links <a>.

Images only (not links) you might have alt="company employees" title="from left to right: names of employees in photo"... on mouse over the title will show, in a speech browser or text only browser the user would see company employees.

both alt and title can be picked up in search engines. Do not use either to stuff your site with keywords..

hope that helps!

[SemAdvance]

alt tags are not displayed to search engines and likely any scoring of keywords within this tag would be minimalistic.....If you are not on the front page without the use of these tags you will not get there using them either.

The alt image tag is used as Orion noted for text to speech reading software.

IMPORTANT NOTE

capitalizing words or keyword stuffing in this tag is a clear indicator to the search engines that your are trying to optimize your site for rankings and NOT users.

Use alt="keyword image" once or twice at the beginning of your page and from there alt="image"

Nobody wants to hear your keyword jammed tags repeated to them over & over.....

Peace

[Clarrie]

Originally Posted by benc007

Can you use both ALT and Title for your buttons and images?

Yes you can. We use both because of the way different browsers use them. Because these are visible (and audible!) use them correctly to describe the image. Keep them concise and to the point, and don't stuff with keywords.

[DrTandem1]

Both alt and title attributes are read by the SEs. Title tags can also be used with hyperlinks. Since SEs can not "see" images, they rely on the alt attribute as well as the file name of the image. This can be observed by searching images on the major SEs.

[Matteo]

Back to the original questions. If you change the title to alt, in most nav systems you will lose the words on your buttons. The title is the actual phrase on the button itself. When the JS or whatever script your running tries to display the title, it will not find a title tag and the button will be left blank....in most cases.

[ronparrs]

Just DO IT. Dittos to everyone else's comments. By systematically adding proper tags to images has helped in searches, therefore rankings, therefore SALES!

Like others have noted, be smart with them. Take your time.

[Clarrie]

Originally Posted by benc007

Can you use both ALT and Title for your buttons and images?

Yes you can. We use both because of the way different browsers use them. Because these are visible (and audible!) use them correctly to describe the image. Keep them concise and to the point, and don't stuff with keywords.

[jordanmcclements]

I have had a lot of success just using alt tags and anchor text - I have not used title tags or LONGDESC or anything like that. I agree that you can overdo it with keywords. But it is not true that

"alt tags are not displayed to search engines and likely any scoring of keywords within this tag would be minimalistic....."

for an example:-

Google Image Search for 'Omagh Ireland Wallpaper'

'Ireland Wallpaper' was in the alt tag for this image but not the anchor text.

[joomx]

Originally Posted by SemAdvance

IMPORTANT NOTE

capitalizing words or keyword stuffing in this tag is a clear indicator to the search engines that your are trying to optimize your site for rankings and NOT users.
Peace

Just a question about what said above: why should the words not be capitalized?
They are also for better understanding (reading) the website and if all words not capitalized, reading is not so easy.

Thx.

[mjtaylor]

Google also uses occasionally uses Alt tag text as the description in SERPs, so write them with that possibility in mind, too ... but no stuffing! Remember, eat a turkey, don't be one.

[deadhippo]

Everybody keeps saying "No stuffing" but what constitutes stuffing? I am considering designing a new storefront where there would be text with an image of a flag beside it. I thought I would describe the image with the alt tag eg. alt="USA Flag" and title="USA T-Shirts and American Gifts and Souvenirs" The image and the text would also be links to the same pages which would lead to a page selling USA t-shirts and other items.
Is this considered stuffing? Is it a bad idea?

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by deadhippo

Everybody keeps saying "No stuffing" but what constitutes stuffing? I am considering designing a new storefront where there would be text with an image of a flag beside it. I thought I would describe the image with the alt tag eg. alt="USA Flag" and title="USA T-Shirts and American Gifts and Souvenirs" The image and the text would also be links to the same pages which would lead to a page selling USA t-shirts and other items.
Is this considered stuffing? Is it a bad idea?

IMO, the Title should be descriptive of the image, not of the business.

[DrTandem1]

Yes, the image should be descriptive of the image and, if it is a link, where it is taking the visitor. However, since images used should be relevant as well as links, a descriptive alt/title tag using relevant keywords would be in order.

If you start using such tags with keywords for border graphics and the like, then that is not recommended. Simply use the alt="" to make the image validate. Also, if the alt/title tag looks like "spam spam spam and more spam", then you are over doing it. Just use common sense and you'll be fine.

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by deadhippo

Everybody keeps saying "No stuffing" but what constitutes stuffing? I am considering designing a new storefront where there would be text with an image of a flag beside it. I thought I would describe the image with the alt tag eg. alt="USA Flag" and title="USA T-Shirts and American Gifts and Souvenirs" The image and the text would also be links to the same pages which would lead to a page selling USA t-shirts and other items.
Is this considered stuffing? Is it a bad idea?

That doesn't sound like stuffing to me. And while alt and title attributes of an image should be a description of the image, chances are that graphics on a given page can be appropriately named using a keyword, as they are likely to be relevant, as DrT pointed out.

For example, a fishing charter company logo can reasonably be named 'fishing charter logo' and a photo of the boat can reasonably be named 'fishing charter boat' ... and so on.

Cheers, MJ

[incrediblehelp]

Google little post from Yahoo on ALT tags:

Can you hear these images? - Yodel Anecdotal

[deadhippo]

What is the function of the title tag?

[wige]

According to the specification, the alt tag is intended to display text when the image could not be shown, either for non-graphical browsers or assistive technologies. The title display is intended to be used at all times as a tooltip to be displayed when the image is hovered.

[jordanmcclements]

except that IE displays the 'alt' text instead of the title text - so very few people actually use the title text (thanks MS)..

[SemAdvance]

Originally Posted by deadhippo

Everybody keeps saying "No stuffing" but what constitutes stuffing? I am considering designing a new storefront where there would be text with an image of a flag beside it. I thought I would describe the image with the alt tag eg. alt="USA Flag" and title="USA T-Shirts and American Gifts and Souvenirs" The image and the text would also be links to the same pages which would lead to a page selling USA t-shirts and other items.
Is this considered stuffing? Is it a bad idea?

The alt image tag should be used sparingly as possible given that it is read to users with vision impairments.

K.I.S.S. S.E.O.

Capitalizing keywords in this tag makes it obvious to search engines, that you optimized for the search engines, and not users, since text to speech readers do not care about capitalization.

so in the Keep It Simple, Stupid! implementation of SEO.

alt="blue widget image"

best to use for 1 or 2 images per page.

E-commerce should use make & model #s where realistic.

[wige]

I disagree about capitalization. Because alt tags are displayed (incorrectly) to the user by MSIE and older versions of other browsers, users can see what is there and so proper capitalization is reasonable. In addition, some SEs show the alt tag contents in image search, so proper formatting may be beneficial to users viewing these results.

Also, the latest specs for XHTML require the alt tag for all images, although it is recommended to leave the tag blank (alt="") for placeholders and general design elements.

[SemAdvance]

Originally Posted by wige

I disagree about capitalization. Because alt tags are displayed (incorrectly) to the user by MSIE and older versions of other browsers, users can see what is there and so proper capitalization is reasonable. In addition, some SEs show the alt tag contents in image search, so proper formatting may be beneficial to users viewing these results.

Also, the latest specs for XHTML require the alt tag for all images, although it is recommended to leave the tag blank (alt="") for placeholders and general design elements.

Well it is fine to disagree but the main purpose of the tag is to enable text to speech readers to read what the image is to users. Nothing I know of that goes into MSIE or other such since it is to due with web access and not browser compatibility issues.

From the W3C.org

While alternate text may be very helpful, it must be handled with care. Authors should observe the following guidelines:

* Do not specify irrelevant alternate text when including images intended to format a page, for instance, alt="red ball" would be inappropriate for an image that adds a red ball for decorating a heading or paragraph. In such cases, the alternate text should be the empty string (""). Authors are in any case advised to avoid using images to format pages; style sheets should be used instead.

* Do not specify meaningless alternate text (e.g., "dummy text"). Not only will this frustrate users, it will slow down user agents that must convert text to speech or braille output.

keyword inject at will, but it is easy to write into the algorithm, to devalue such tactics.

Peace

[tushar123]

Both of the tags can be used, as they have importance in the different browsers

Regards
Tushar
TUSHARVICKKIE