Does Googlebot (Google spider) follow the links given to images or does it require only text links for indexing. eg. I have pages on my site which gives the details of the registered member. I have put link to an image and if the user clicks on the image he will get to see the details of the registered member. or should i instead of image put a text link which says "Click for more details" Harish
That's a good question. I don't have a difinative answer for you because that is something I have been wondering myself recently too. I know that the Gbot can follow the links, but I wonder if they have any relevance in terms of SERP's. If so, how is this judged. Anchor text? I have no doubt that using text links is better for SEO, but I would still love to know how successful it would be to use images and what kind of inpact that might have on your PR/ SERP's.
Googlebot has no problem following image links. But the avantage of a text link is that you can use keywords (for the linked page/site) in the anchor text. You could also use the "alt" and/or "title" tag on the image to specify the keywords for the link, but I don't know if it is as efficient as a normal text link.
I have read many posts from COMPAR saying that for image links, the alt text is the achor text. Ajeet
i think he is probably saying it in a relative way - i'm sure that anchor text in a text link will be given alot more weight than alt in an image link. also i think g treats image maps in the same way.
If you were to change to a text link using the anchor text "Click for more details" I don't think it'd make any difference to your ranking - if that's why you're considering changing it.
Side question. If your image is hosted at www.domain1.com and the <a> tag goes to www.domain2.com will both domains get a backlink, or just the one with the <a> tag? I ask because I have a google backlink showing up; and the only possible reason for it is that they stole an image from me (I still host it) and they have no other links to me.
Yes, GBot can easily parse links in images and it uses the alt tag as a substitute for the the anchor text. I personally like text links... 'cause they do not bog down the download time of the page and there is the precious anchor text in them.
So, if I had the text Celica Tuning on the alt text of a banner or something that would count as anchor text? Does anyone have any proof about this? I've haven't found anything about that yet and I have quite a few websites linking to me in that manner...
I would almost wonder if google applies less weight, since mist image links are banner ads that have been purchased - and a purchased ad doesnt give rise to 'popularity'
Many websites use images as links (not sure about the alt tag) and they all are spidered by Google. That's not a banner, and much less a purchased one...
I have a domain which has more than 200 IBLs from button images. With the anchor text as alt, of course.
I think alt text works as an anchor text in image tag. but i m not 100% sure about it. But this thing is clear that SEs uses alt text in image tag to identify the image and some weightage is given to that alternate text.
Recently I was doing some ROS advertising comparisons. The advertiser had the same ROS image link on three different directories. All used the standard format with alt text. One however also used a text link under the image as well. The directory with the text link gave over 900 back links on Google and the two without the text link offered no visible backlinks. Since then the two directories that did not have the text link under the image have added text links and show comparable results. It brought me to the conclusion that Google weighs the importance of links from images differently.
Not true. Zero weight is given to the alt text, unless the image is being used as a link (In which case the alt text acts as the anchor text). Alt text WILL NOT help you rank a page (Or an image for that matter in google image search). The image search weighs it's rankings on the file name and a few other factors, but the alt is not taken into consideration due to the huge amounts of alt text stuffing that went on in past times.