Image vs Text Link

or both together

[DavidT]

I'm wondering how search engine robots view this:
<tr>
<td><a
href=
"http://site.com/widget.html">
<img
src="images/widget.jpg"
alt="widget"></a> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a
href=
"http://site.com/widget.html">
Widget Emporium</a></td>
</tr>

So I link to the same page twice, once with an image and once with text below the image. No problems there.

Compared to this:

<tr>
<td><a
href=
"http://site.com/widget.html">
<img
src="images/widget.jpg"
alt="widget">
<br>
Widget Emporium</a></td>
</tr>

So I link to one page with an image and text together in the same 'a href' tag.

Given that link text is very important in seo would the link text in the second example be given the same weight by a robot as in the first example?

[JamesR]

I don't have any proof but my feeling is text is text and both would count the same, IMO.

[Ryan8720]

Just use what you would use as your text link and make it the alt for the image.

[2_much]

DavidT, if you want to have image links, be sure to add text links as well. Text in alt tags isn't enough, you have to have keywords in the anchor text too. One way to do it is to have the main nav in buttons, and text links at the bottom of the pages.

[DavidT]

It's for a thumbnail product gallery with 16 small images per page each linking to a page with a larger image. It forms the backbone of my site, it's what people most want to look at and I am always concerned to keep the pages as fast loading as possible with all those pictures hence I would actually like to combine images and their text into one cell each to cut down on code bloat. But if that means losing or reducing the effect of the anchor text then I wouldn't want to do it for just a handful of kb's saving.

[Marcia]

I do them separate; it just seems more correct that way, like the code is intended.

[g1smd]

Don't forget to add a title attribute to the <a> anchor tag too, as that gives a popup tooltip text on modern browsers.