banner or text links?

So what's better a banner link with good alt tag or a text link?
Consider traffic (from actual visitors viewing the link/banner) and SEO (PR and rankings)

thanks, Mike

 

Persoal view is.........

I would think text link with surounding text, then banner with just alt text.

I tend to think the surounding text adds more power, but could be wrong, as i often am *sigh* ... called been human

 

banners are better if your trying to attract "real" traffic, text links are good for search engines.

 

Not entirely true.

Its known that text links are good for both increasing search engine traffic and clickthrough conversions on the site your advertising.

Web visitors are banner numb, so they don't click on the ads as much as a text link. IMO, banners are good for branding purposes.

 

Disregarding what search engines want and like altogether for a moment, I think the answer for getting click-throughs and visitor from text links versus banners will differ based on a plethora of variables. Most importantly, the type of site you're trying to pull traffic into, the type of site hosting the link/banner, and the text link and/or banner itself.

For example, an entertainment site is more likely to attract a visitor based on a good visual, whereas a research or "authoritative" site will likely get that same visitor based on a well-placed text link.

I get a huge amount of visitors to my female celebrity pictures site from Google Images, not from Google Web Search, whereas my local community site gets it traffic from text links on other sites and SERP in SEs ... not an exact example, but you get the "picture" ...

 

Banners are not effective anymore, because people just omit them and don't see them. Text links are much more attractive, because they look more like a part of the site rather than an advertisement, so people read them.

Note, that even if someone still uses banners, it's usual that they make the banner so that it looks like a text link

Text links are better both for site traffic and SE traffic.

 

I read somewhere that people actually avert their eyes from banners. Ken evoy says that he will give you demerits for using them.
If I go to any site that is full of banners I just move on.

 

Another thing to consider sometimes is that Norton Internet Security and other firewall software can be configured to ignore banners ... the page is displayed sans many of the graphics, banners, ads, etc.

 

I think well placed text links are better that banners. Banners are blatent advertisements, while text links can come off as a friendly gensture.

Although, if your product is highly visual, then a banner may be the way to go.

 

I try to avoid using banners for the same reason - people just don't look at them anymore. To me, they remind me too much of the early Internet days tacky flashing banners plastered all over every site (not that the banners have improved much today). I guess a well-designed and tasteful banner might work, but I haven't seen too many of those.