do you know if these (images file name or alts) are given any weiught? eg <td background="../images/billiard.gif"> is it even ok to add an alt tag? would it make any diff if that was named 3948753498.gif??
The alt attribute can only be used with the <img>, <area> and <applet> tags, so you can't use it with a background image. I've never tested for the benefit of keywords in file names in this situation, but I'd doubt it's of any value.
Thanks patric, i didnt think so either but thought id ask. also - what about the title attribute in <a href="blah" TITLE="sometitle"> blah </a> any weight there? sorry to be picky, but its oft the small things that get your #1 instead of #2.
the proper way to display it would be <td style="background-image:url(../images/billiard.gif); "></td> Code (markup):
The tests I've done to date show that the major search engines don't give any weight to text used in the title attribute. I can't see them doing so in the future either, as it would become spammers heaven.
Some keyword density tools include href titles in their report so I would assume some engines might use them. I would recommend using href title related to the anchor text and url-keyword. Example: <a title="Keyword" href="http://www.somewebsite.com/keyword.html">Keyword</a>
All I know is that I'm changing all my image file names one by one so they don't resemble what they are. For example, a lily won't be lily.jpg. I got sick and tired or my images being hot linked to in myspace, various forums, etc.. The worst ones were forums in foriegn countries. I was unable to read the site's text to send a message requesting that they delete the link. My other concern was that the same problem might happen with the alt tags - search engines displaying images for image searches based on the tags in addtion to file names.