Can anyone point the difference between

Between "image tags" and "alt tags"?

 

alt isn't actually a tag in itself, it's an "attribute" of the alt tag e.g.

<img src="lever.jpg" alt="blunt instrument">

Code (markup):

I have to admit I've been in the habit of calling 'em alt tags; must snap out of it, bad habit

 

The alt tag is just a description of the image just in case it doesn't show. In case someone has images turned off, wrong file path, and or they are using a screen reader. It will just let them know an image was there and what it's about.

 

Not to make it any more confusing, but there is the TITLE tag (attribute) as well. Some browsers like firefox do not display alt tags. So if you want the 'tool tip' like pop up you get in ie, you'll need to use the title tag.

 

I purposely use the "Title" and "Alt" attributes on images with my anchor words. Doesn't everyone else?

 

I know I should use the ALT and TITLE tags, but I don't yet. Of the ~380 search terms I'm targetting for my main Web Marketing client we're ranking #1 for about a third, and I haven't even gotten into fine tuning yet.

Hurrah for niche markets that are populated by folks that aren't web savvy!

(And yes, all the terms we're targetting are real terms that Overture and WordTracker show traffic for)

 

I'll second that.

I'm always suprised at how easy it can be to get to the top of the SERPs for some common terms (regional) for my industry.

 

Title tag it! Otherwise WHY will anyone click your link? Seeing blank and "Untitled" title tags drives me nuts

 

Not exactly true. Firefox supports alt tags but alt tags are not meant to be used as title tags. However IE does. It's not that Firefox doesn't support them, it just supports them correctly.

 

It is entirely true. I never said firefox does not support them. I said it does not display them as IE does. Firefox is a standards compliant browser, IE is not, that's why IE show them. So we are actually in agreement here, it was just a matter of semantics.

Carry on...

 

Just making sure. Go Firefox!!

 

Sparingly yes, and I'm very careful not to overload either. I did an experiment about 3 months ago, and loaded the links ‘title’ attribute very heavy with keywords. I fell in position with both Google and Yahoo. Of course I couldn't be sure that title stuffing was the reason, but I replaced the page with my original anyway. A couple of weeks later, I returned to my previous (higher) position.

I repeated the test one more time with similar results. Was it a coincidence or a penalty? I can't be sure, but it seems like more than just a coincidence.

 

Ok, so quite a few of my client sites have web badge images that point to my website. Currently they use ALT tags only with my #1 key phrase as the text. I am going to update these all to also use Title tags, but apart from that make no other changes. I'll let you know if I see anything interesting in my SERP for that term.

 

I use alt on images and title on links, works just as well for SEO.