Google Ranking Benefit For Link Titles?

[Garrett]

My recent article on the power of anchor tags sparked some interesting discussion in the WebProWorld forum (http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=19273), and revealed an aspect of anchor tag optimization I hadn't heard mentioned before.

AussieWebmaster claims to have spoken with Google directly and learned that "placing title tags inside the href tag will improve optimization."

He said that he's "slowly integrating" these link titles and it may be "helping a little with terms that were floating on second pages moving them up slightly."

JayDrake gave an example of what a title tag within an href would look like:
Buy Cheese! (http://www.mysiteaboutcheese.com)

AndiLinks wondered if it would "be better to provide an alternate title rather than just repeating the anchor text?"

Here's her example:
Buy Cheese! (http://www.mysiteaboutcheese.com)

"Titles," she points out, "can be longer and more complex than anchor text because they don't eat up valuable screen real estate..."

Krapulator points out the original purpose of the link titles is to add more information about the nature of the link itself. (Which is pretty much what the W3C have to say on Link Titles (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/links.html#h-12.1.4).)

"Thus correct usage," said Krapulator, "would be closer to:"
Buy Cheese! (http://www.mysiteaboutcheese.com)

If you're feeling high-risk (http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/searchinsider/wpn-49-20040420NoMoreHatsHighRiskvsLowRiskSEO.html) you could stuff your titles with keywords - I wouldn't advise it though, as the overall benefit (if there even is a benefit - I've seen no solid evidence) is liable to be quite small. Though I've never heard of anyone getting banned for link title stuffing, I'd say they're best used in the interest of your site visitors. Mostly.

Thanks to WebProWorld for the tip (http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=19273).

[Curious George]

Garrett,

I think each of your commentator is correct about what goes in the title field. Personally, I think the title field is meant for brief description of the subject matter of the link. I also think that it should be as brief as possible maybe 15 words or less. I agree with you that the space shouldn't be used for keyword stuffing.

Does anyone know if the title tag serves any purpose for the visually impaired like the alt text? I am just curious :-).

Curious George

[kikkertm]

Will this be an optimisation for the site hosting the link or for the target site ??

[janeth]

Will this be an optimisation for the site hosting the link or for the target site ??

I would think the target site. If it is the target site then stuffing key words would not help unless it was an internal page.

[Hurga]

hmmm. I was actually thinking about playing with this on my personal site this past week.

Sounds like it's go-time.

[Mel]

Nothing really new in this, the owner of one well known forum has been using title attributes in his affiliate links for two years or more. Can' say that I have taken the time to do a thorough analysis, but he ranks better for the title attribute than for the anchor text in his links, but that could be due to other factors also.

[Dave Hawley]

As with many aspects of Web sites, the question for me is, why wouldn't you use them?, I cannot think of any reason not to. If used correctly (not keyword stuffed) they will do nothing at worst and boost rankings at best.


Will this be an optimisation for the site hosting the link or for the target site ??

I would say both. Which benefits more (if at all)....who knows?

[paulhiles]

Does anyone know if the title tag serves any purpose for the visually impaired like the alt text?
I believe some, but not all screen readers are able to read the title tag. So it's best not to stuff it with meaningless keywords.
Ideally, the 'title' attribute should provide further information for the visitor... and help them decide whether or not the link is of interest.

[fathom]

Does anyone know if the title tag serves any purpose for the visually impaired like the alt text?
I believe some, but not all screen readers are able to read the title tag. So it's best not to stuff it with meaningless keywords.
Ideally, the 'title' attribute should provide further information for the visitor... and help them decide whether or not the link is of interest.

Paul's got the right idea... adding Title is your friend in SEO circles! :-)

[sudhani]

I've been using this with a good effect (IMO). What I do is in the link title tag is to give "exact phrases" that I use in the <title> and <H1> tag in target page. (Most of my pages have the same <title> and <h1> tags)

[angelpure]

This seems like duplication to me. If you have the target page properly titled, and then you title the link to it, won't the SE see the title on the target page and rank it according to that title and not the link title?

Seems like you could get your index page ranked ahead of your Gouda Cheese page. I thought that the idea was to get the buyer to the Gouda Cheese page instead of a site entry page, if he/she were looking to buy Gouda Cheese.

Just my thoughts, this ranking thing drives me to eat cheese!

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[Sheezwack]

On a slightly side topic....

I have noticed that my websites are treated differently depending if the URL has the www. in front or not.

For some reason some of my sites without the www, do not get indexed in google or have a pagerank. When you check the same site with a www in front all of a sudden it has a pagerank, backward links and is indexed..

Alternatively some of my other sites are treated the other way round and only show pagerank etc when the www. is ommited.

I'm wondering if anyone knows why this happens? and what is best practice when linking to internal pages, should i always include the www or not?


Any ideas?

[Will.Spencer]

I set up a test bed at the Search Engine Reverse Engineering Project for title attributes on links back on 20 April.

The test bed for this question is here: Do search engines index title attritubes on links? (http://www.internet-search-engines-faq.com/title-tags.shtml)

If you are the trusting type, you can believe me when I tell you that no major search engine indexes title attritubes on links and that adding these is a waste of your time.

You, if you are the more adventurous type, can go to the test bed and test the results for yourself instead of believing what anyone tells you.

That's what the test bed is there for.

[Dave Hawley]

that adding these is a waste of your time.


Absolutely not! Why is everyone ONLY thinks of googlebot, what about you site visitors that pay your bills. Like I have said, the question should not be "should I use Title tags" but rather "Why wouldn't I use them".

BTW. I stil believe they are used by Google. Also, to do a proper test you should NOT use: "AISEFTitleTagOnLinksTest" but rather some human readable text that aptly describe the landing page of the link.

A test worth doing is worth doing properly

[Will.Spencer]

I stil believe they are used by Google.

Well Dave, the test results show the exact opposite of your internal belief.



Also, to do a proper test you should NOT use: "AISEFTitleTagOnLinksTest" but rather some human readable text that aptly describe the landing page of the link.

No Dave, the exact opposite is true. A test string should be a unique string. The string should be unique to differentiate it from all other text on the Internet.


A test worth doing is worth doing properly

Dave, that is simply an insult delivered out of ignorance. When you speak that way, it says a lot more about your character than it does about the person whom you are assaulting.

[Dave Hawley]

Apologies if it came across as an insult, it was not intended that way.

To perform a proper test Will, it must be conducted in a controlled and meaningful way. The test you have used in quite possibly meaningless for 2 reasons.

1)It is not a word and has no meaning or relation to anything.

2)It does not describe the landing page that the links point to. This is the whole point of title tags and must be done.

For these 2 reasons it is likely that Google would ignore the Title tags. If you really want to do a proper test try this.

Add 2 standard .html or .htm pages to your site which fits your site theme. let's say they are about apples.

Link these pages to each other with some anchor text like: See also

In the title tags place some meaningful human readable text like: "Big red ripe juicy apples" and "Ripe Granny Smith apples"

Ensure the word apples is on both pages. BUT not the search terms to be used later. Then wait up to a month or so and serch for "Big red ripe juicy" and "Ripe Granny Smith"

[jitender]

Hi there,

i think if you are target the google visitor then it's works, and link title more closer to the anchor

Jitender

[jok]

Well Dave, the test results show the exact opposite of your internal belief.
Yes - my experience is also like your one: Google doesn't payany attention to title anchor attribute or it's influence is insignificant. ;)

[Dave Hawley]

How was your test done?

I don't think anyone is suggesting they are a silver bullet. The use of Title tags is good Web design practice, helps your blind and non-blind visitors. Even if they help minutely it's worth it.

Based on the above, I can think of no reason not to use them.

[Gary Golden]

Use them to benefit customers as opposed to search engines, I use title tags to guide customer through my site. Proper optimization of your web pages will eliminate the need for loading your title tags, if it indeed does any good anyways.

If you spent as much time on your pages as you spend going over tests you would not be asking these questions.

[Dave Hawley]

If you spent as much time on your pages as you spend going over tests you would not be asking these questions.


ROFL!

[bwelford]

I skimmed this thread rapidly and did not see any comment on an aspect that I am always puzzled by.

If you have an image and an associated link, is it better to use a Title for the link or an <ALT> for the image? ... or both? I'm particularly interested in how this might work with say Google and with Yahoo! Does anyone have any hard data on this?

[Dave Hawley]

IMO it should be Alt for images and Title for links.

[paulhiles]

If you have an image and an associated link, is it better to use a Title for the link or an <ALT> for the image? ... or both? I'm particularly interested in how this might work with say Google and with Yahoo! Does anyone have any hard data on this?
If I've got a linked image, I tend to use both ALT and TITLE attributes. I know this might seem like needless duplication, but Macs don't seem to display the text held in the ALT, so I use title as well.

As has been mentioned, I don't think the link's title attribute has a marked benefit in terms of SEO, but for accessibility reasons alone it's definitely worthwhile, and if there's even the slightest possibility of additional keywords being picked up.. why would you not want to use it?

[MarcThai]

I have always put in the ALT text, often stuffing it with keywords, but in a way that it reads like a description. This seems to work as I get very high rankings.

I also us ID='image1' for some images, especially when I'm calling a drop down menu (as in www.holt-realty.com)

I have never used Title before, so you have inspired me to do so now. It will be interesting to see what effect adding them will have on my rankings. Thanks for the tip.

[angelpure]

As I have said before, I am fairly new to the whole SE thing, but I have two sites currently at #1.

It seems to me, as I read all these posts, is that some things work some times, and not others.

How can you figure that out? I use a clear descriptive title on each page, alt tags on the images and seed the text with the main keyword for that page.

That technique alone has two of my sites at #1 for most keywords and no lower than #3 on others.

Seems the basics still work well.

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[CLBridges]

Hmmm..

I think I've got a good reason for using both!! Netscape vs. IE and the text displayed when hovering over images, image links and text links..

Netscape (7.1) doesn't display alt text when hovering over images at all.. whether linked or not, but DOES display title text

IE displays the alt text on regular images and linked images.. even if there's title text provided.

Text Links: Both browsers display the title text.

I noticed something different in the source code of the page I used for double checking this observation. There was a "table summary" with a keyword phrase?? Posted like this:

<table summary="keyword phrase" width="100%" height="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">

Anyone know of any boost or benefit?

Carrie**

[fathom]

Hmmm..

I think I've got a good reason for using both!! Netscape vs. IE and the text displayed when hovering over images, image links and text links..

Netscape (7.1) doesn't display alt text when hovering over images at all.. whether linked or not, but DOES display title text

IE displays the alt text on regular images and linked images.. even if there's title text provided.

Text Links: Both browsers display the title text.

I noticed something different in the source code of the page I used for double checking this observation. There was a "table summary" with a keyword phrase?? Posted like this:

<table summary="keyword phrase" width="100%" height="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">

Anyone know of any boost or benefit?

Carrie**


While probably a little benefit it should be used to relate what the table is about.

Additionally, title="" works well in td & tr that are defined (width or height).

[CLBridges]

While probably a little benefit it should be used to relate what the table is about.

Additionally, title="" works well in td & tr that are defined (width or height).

So something like this?
<td width="275" height="150" title="keyword phrase" align="center">

Could a td/tr "summary" be included as well? What about including a title tag (with or without the summary definition) in the table?

Carrie**

[kservik]

Still no effect on the search term.

This thread showed up thou :)