For Images: title versus alt tags? both?

[davebarnes]

I have a website where every image has an alt tag.
For example: alt="Deploying a Call Detail Record (CDR) Retention System"

Now, my client has an "SEO expert" stating that one of my "questionable tactics" is "Lack of Title tags on images throughout the site".

So, my question is: from a SEO perspective, do I need to have both alt= and title= ?

[tamecrow]

It's not a case of needing to, but it's advisable. I'd ask the "SEO expert" what he plans to populate these title and alt attributes with. If each one is going to use keywords, don't. Only use them where necessary. The alt attribute should describe what the image is about. If a keyword can be used naturally here, go for it. However, the alt attribute has little SEO value unless the image is a link, in which case it acts as anchor text.

[davebarnes]

I can't ask the SEO Expert as they really are a competitor to me in my role as webmaster.

What is the difference between title and alt?
I read up on both and still don't understand.
If you make both the same have you gained anything vis à vis the search engines?

thanks,
dave

[weegillis]

My understanding is that alt is strictly intended as alternate text. The spec does not provide for alternate text appearing in the tool tip, which IE seems to have wrong. While images are loading, or if images are turned off, alternate text should be visible. It is meant to describe the image, or to provide link text if the image is used as an anchor.

title on the other hand, is intended as annotation, and is the rightful owner of the tool tip. It makes good sense to provide some caption text for pictures that (a) lack caption, or (b) justify some annotation.

The cross browser support for the correct spec is varied. Firefox has it right. IE doesn't. If you have both a title and an alt on an img, IE will still display the alternate text in the tool tip. This is just plain wrong, and defeats the purpose of the title attribute but not using it in the tool tip.

For years I have grappled with this, and recently began a massive audit to seek out all duplicate text, in which case the title was removed. If an annotation is used, then the title remains, but the alternate text is reduced to bare minimum.

Long annotations are not a good thing, but the spec provides us with longdesc to provide a url to a long description. Unfortunately, there is not universal support for this attribute (very few user agents can 'see' the url) much as there is poor cross browser url support for <blockquote/>, <q/> and <cite>.

Something I did for years, though now have to rethink, for links on images, was to put alt in the <img/>, and title in the <a/>. The result was thousands of duplicate text phrases. Gradually, I have replaced title text with domain of external link, or additional information for local links, where the link phrase was perhaps not adequate enough to describe the target.

From the standpoint of SEO, I think that Tamecrow has a good point: avoid 'unnatural' use of keywords. As for real SE value, I have not the foggiest idea. Hopefully some of the replies will clear up this question.

From an accessibility point of view, one supposes we should be make an effort to provide annotations with every image that lacks information within the context of the page. We might expect that screen readers do properly interpret the spec, and perhaps depend upon title text. But this is a gray area, to be sure. Hopefully some of the replies will clear this up, also. (Webnauts, where are you?)

From now on, I will be giving very careful consideration to use of title. If it's mostly superfluous (IE doesn't see it) then what's the point in having it bulk up a page? So far, I've eliminated about 90% of all occurances, and rather like the lighter weight pages.

[davebarnes]

Foolish me. I wrote alt tag when I should have written alt attribute.

The answer to my question is at Alt Vs. Title - Battle of the Attributes

[weegillis]

Originally Posted by weegillis

The cross browser support for the correct spec is varied. Firefox has it right. IE doesn't. If you have both a title and an alt on an img, IE will still display the alternate text in the tool tip.

Okay, now who's wrong? I take that back.

Reading the thread, again, that the OP pointed to I've stumbled onto the phrase "will always override alt," and have gone and retested... Yup! It does override. Guess I'll never tire of being wrong, wrong, wrong.

Taking this back to the drawing board, let's consider an image combined with text in a single anchor, such as

<a title="thisurl" href="thisurl"><img src="someimg.jpg" title="Some annotative text" alt="alternate text" />Some link text</a>

The title in the img tag overrides the title in the anchor when you mouse over the image, but does not override when you mouse over the link text. By some miracle, Firefox and IE (7) actually do the same thing.

Is this what we should expect? Why doesn't the anchor title hold sway over the entire link?

Now, let's remove the title from the img... What will happen then?

FF now shows the title on both the image and the link text. IE, on the other hand, displays the ALT text on the image, and the title on the link text. If ALT is empty, IE displays nothing over the image. In a case like this, where link text exists, is the alt text redundant? When the attribute is removed, IE displays the anchor title on both image and link text, just as FF. Which is the correct method?

Small details to be sure, but it's these kinds of inconsistencies that tend to confuse some (or many) of us. Compounding the confusion, judgment calls made years ago are AGAIN coming into question, and the reasoning of ages ago is long forgotten. All we want is to get this right, once and for all.

Accessible? Semantic? Text readers, screen readers, SEO, USERS. I don't know how Webnauts keeps up with all these. Who are we attempting to satisfy?

What would be excellent to have, on this we might all agree, is a page of really good examples that passes the scrutiny of all the experts and takes into account all the confusing questions we have. Examples usually go a lot further than explanations by themselves.

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by davebarnes

Foolish me. I wrote alt tag when I should have written alt attribute.

Yes, technically, these are attributes as they essentially define a tag; in this case, the image tag - and I call them attributes when talking with Webnauts, but the rest of the time I still call them tags.

I do believe it's best to have both - for accessibility and for SEO reasons ... it's a win win! But no, don't have them the same ... use them as they are meant to be used; and use keywords in them only when it truly fits.

Cheers, MJ

[Webnauts]

Dave, from the SEO perspective the title attribute is not necessary, as no major SE give them any weight.
If you want to make sure that the images descriptions show up in Firefox browsers, the you may use the title attribute in the image source, but if the images are linked, you better add them in the anchor hyperlink reference.

I think these two tutorials can guide you about the appropriate implementation of the the images descriptions for SEO, accessibility and overall web style:

Alt Attribute & Search Engine Optimization - SEO Workers
Too much accessibility - good intentions, badly implemented / Public Sector Forums / 8 August 2007 / splintered - random sparks of creative insight / the portfolio and experimental playground of patrick h. lauke aka redux

I hope this helps.