Alt and Title Attributes in Anchor Tags
-
Does it hurt to use alt and title attributes inside an anchor tag? Example:
-
That was a good catch Alan and Ryan, I just looked at the Alt and Title and did not even notice the example used them in an anchor. Doh! I would only ever use them in images. Since I develop on the Microsoft platfrom using it anywhere other than img flags a syntax error.
-
Everyone's partially correct. Alternate attributes are for images only. Title attributes in anchor tags can be used in links, however if you are performing SEO best practices, using title attributes in anchor tags is a first signal that you are probably spamming the search engines if not used with extreme caution.
Why? Because the anchor text (the text you wrap the anchor tag around) should suffice to communicate what you're linking to. Title text in anchors is best left to only be used when you're using them as a place anchor on a page, not as a link.
-
To clarify: Alt attributes should not be used in anchor tags, but titles can be. For a full list of anchor tag attributes see: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_a.asp
-
Agreed.
-
Quite the opposite, these are very desirable if used for their intended purpose.
The Alt tag is for accessability handling, so it helps people with visual disabilities to understand the content of a picture.
The Title tag is used to provide tooltip information to the user when they hover over the image.
Both these enhance the user experience as thus are looked on favourably by Google.
BUT, it's an important but - seo's in the past would stuff these tags with useless spammy content. e.g. You have a automotive business so the alt tag:
'car gmh fast cars sports cars red cars porsche' that is bad.
'Our new sporty red porsche makes an easy ride through the windy roads of Denmark' - good
The title tag could say 'Porsche 911 2005 touring the roads of Denmark'
It's all about adding value to the site for the user not manipulating the search engines. So, use alt tag to describe the item in detail and the title to provide extra details. Do not have the same text in both as they have different purposes.
Hope that sheads enough light on the subject.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to add titles to Pardot landing pages
I have 5 URLs that are "missing titles" however, all 5 are landing pages that were created in Pardot. how would I go about adding the missing title? Would I need to add it on our website platform or in Pardot?
Technical SEO | | cbriggs0 -
Product Tags
Opencart allows the use of product tags (please note, these are NOT meta tags) which I believe are used for when customers want to search for a product using the search function. So one of my tags could be ''star wars socks'', and when a customer types this into the search it brings up every product containing the tag for socks. This is all good and well, however, these tags appear on the product page itself, right below the Manufacturer/Brand, and above the price (they created pages but I have canonical links in them so that is a non-issue). Will Google look kindly on this or could it be considered as keyword stuffing? Or will Google know they're for search and ignore them? I just need to know whether or not removing them entirely will be a good or bad idea.
Technical SEO | | moon-boots0 -
Can I set a canonical tag to an anchor link?
I have a client who is moving to a one page website design. So, content from the inner pages is being condensed in to sections on the 'home' page. There will be a navigation that anchor links to each relevant section. I am wondering if I should leave the old pages and use rel=canonical to point them to their relevant sections on the new 'home' page rather than 301 them. Thoughts?
Technical SEO | | Vizergy0 -
Page title tags and joomla/JCE
I'm working with a joomla/JCE website. At the moment, the 'title' field in articels controls the page title, menu item name and H1 tag. I've read that I can stop this happening so that I can name each separately and get my Page title tag back! Is anyone using joomla/JCE and can give any advice on how to do this? Many thanks. Iain
Technical SEO | | iain0 -
Duplicate Title tags vs. View All for search results
I run a directory and some search queries give almost 1000 unique results. My moz campaign tells me that I have around 1,300 duplicate title tags etc. I read online about canonical, rel=next/prev, also about having a 'view all' page just for google (page links, not search queries), but if I do this, wouldn't the slowness mean google won't index it? So the question is what is the best thing to do?
Technical SEO | | tguide0 -
Canoical tags how do i use them
Hi i have this coming up on the report for my url www.in2town.co.uk but i am not sure how to use the canonical tag. I am using joomla and would be grateful if anyone could please give me advice on how to use this. Canonical URL Tag Usage Moderate fix <dl> <dt>Number of Canonical tags</dt> <dd>0</dd> <dt>Explanation</dt> <dd>Although the canonical URL tag is generally thought of as a way to solve duplicate content problems, it can be extremely wise to use it on every (unique) page of a site to help prevent any query strings, session IDs, scraped versions, licensing deals or future developments to potentially create a secondary version and pull link juice or other metrics away from the original. We believe the canonical URL tag is a best practice to help prevent future problems, even if nothing is specifically duplicate/problematic today.</dd> <dt>Recommendation</dt> <dd>Add a canonical URL tag referencing this URL to the header of the page.</dd> <dd>many thanks for your help
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-184886
</dd> </dl>0 -
Duplicate page titles on Ecommerce
Hi, My question is in reference to an E-commerce site- Our SEO MOZ scan is showing many errors for Duplicates- such as Duplicate titles - The majority of these are on the products map- and the page titles are Products Map :: Company Name How do we get correct this or does Google not penalize for it? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | frankrizzo0 -
Having both <title>and <meta name="title"...> on a web page?</title>
Hi All, Client of mine using reversed Meta Tags format in their website and Honestly i never saw such Meta Tags formats. In my opinion having 2 Title tags and wrong reversed description tag is not correct and the needs to be removed, and other tags need to be changed,too But they said that it probably doesn't make a difference because they don't think it affects search engine results and won't remove it just based on opinion. Because weird thing is Search Engines are apparently able to index them. So should i persist on correcting them or just hope for the best and ignore it?!?!?! Thanks!
Technical SEO | | DigitalJungle0