kaled - 10:42 am on Sep 8, 2010 (gmt 0)

the title is not part of the semantic structure of the document.

As John McEnroe would say "You cannot be serious". What definition of semantic are you working with?

The title is displayed at the top of the browser window, and typically in the tab and on the taskbar. It's at the top of the tree and to say that it's not part of the semantic structure of the document is nuts. In javascript there is a document.title property but I'm not aware of a document.firstHeading property or anything of that sort.

Search engines may interpret <img alt> text and weight it according to location, however, I doubt any publish such details of their algos so reliance on guesswork is pretty silly (also reliance on experimental evidence is silly too since such details may be subject to change).

1. Use headings sensibly and ignore silly rules made up by silly people.
   
2. If, for purposes of alignment, you wish to place an image with other text in a heading then do so.
   
3. If you want to place an image on it's own in a heading, ask yourself why - the chances are you don't have a good reason.