Using ALT Tag in URL Links

Is it recommended, to use the alt tag in links e.g.
<a href="http://www.asite.com" alt="text here" title="text here">text</a>

or will search engines class this as spamming with keywords?

thanks

 

It wont serve any purpose except increasing the page size by a few bytes.

 

That is not what the alt attribute is for. See here . It is for specifying alternative text for images.

 

As said, it's just for Image tags. I would have thought the SEs will just ignore it...

 

It is recommended to use alt tag on images and title tag on anchors. (<a>).

 

If you want to stuff something else that the search engines currently ignore, you could use the title attribute for your links.

 

i will do it if i have time on hand. It might be uselsss, but at least it won't hurt you. It worth a try

 

for images it will help us lot but for other it is waste

 

The ALT attribute is used for images when they can't be found or loaded for some reason, so the person still knows what the image was showing. Think of it as a place holder. But URLs don't need an alt tag.

 

I think if ALT tags are there then they must be having some use.
Let me elaborate, no one knows Google Algo. so let us write in alt tags in links as well.
ALT stands for Alternative Text which can add value to your site by guiding the customers that when they click on a particular link where willl they be going. So there is no harm in using it.

 

A little perl oneliner let loose on your database or your html files will do the trick

I don't believe stuffing urls with alt tags will do anything. While images are not yet loaded, the alt tag is shown. So google recognizes it. Alt tags in links have no use.

 

The alt attribute is used for images only. It is not valid for anything else.

But if you want to waste time on something that won't help you in the slightest, but will make your pages look like they've been coded by 3 year olds, it's up to you.

 

Please don't reinvent ALT attribute. You misunderstood the definition my friend. But if you want to have your sites become poster child of misuse of HTML tags, so be it. This is a democratic country.

 

Glad you finally said it, the Alt description is not a Tag at all, it's an attribute and it's supposed to be used for accessibility purposes, i.e. for people who have images disabled or can't view them for some reason to show what the image is. for the same reason you should describe the image dimensions or your design will collapse but that's another issue.

However, it's a good idea to use keywords in the ALT desc because search engines do include them when they look for keywords on a page. They are very relevant to SEO.

 

However, if it's a long list of keywords, then 'intelligent' search engines, like Google, will just consider them to be SPAM and ignore them.

 

If it is spam then sites should be penalized.

 

think of ALT tag as a way of helping your visitors, alt tags are used by special browser (link text reading) for better browsing experience. And google appreciates that, definately it would give some importance to it.

 

Yup, but perhaps a lot don't know when is enough. If it should be the exact content in the graphic then so be it, but if a short description is not enough should it be considered spammy?

 

Absolutely, like anything else with keywords, too many is spam.

 

I believe ALT tags are also used by screen readers to help internet users that have a disability. I usually put them in on important stuff like, click here buttons or descibing an image/photo.