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I'm relatively new to the SEO game so please bear with me!
I'm currently building and optimising a site and have included the title attribute on my text links for useability purposes.
I have a large number of internal text links on my home page and am worried that if the SE does take these into account I might get penalised.
For example, if the tags read: -
blue widget quote
red widget quote
yellow widget quote
green widget quote....and so on, would this be classed as spamming?
Thanks in advance.
The title attribute should only be utilized when necessary and more from a usability standpoint as you indicate above.
I believe the general consensus is that the title attribute is not taken into consideration when calculating the relevancy of a page.
If the link text is descriptive enough to tell the user where they are going when they click the link, then the title attribute would not be required.
One of the important things to think about are your users who may be using a screen reader type device. If this is the case, having a title attribute that is an exact replica of the link it is assigned to will create duplicates for those users. So, if their screen reader was configured to read out loud the title attribute, they would hear that immediately followed by the link text, ack!
I run a site that gets tremendous Screenreader traffic, and have been involved in development of several very popular screenreader devices.
If the title attribute in fact simply repeats what the link text says, it's an absoulte waste of time. However, many, many websites are full of hyperbole and descriptors that simplify for the sight-enabled surfer what a set of following links are pointed at,
e.g.
"See our collection of dissigating widgets below!
> Blue Widget <
> Green Widget <
> Red Widget <
See our collection of magmagating widgets below!"
> red widget <
> Blue Widget <
> Green Widget <
etc., etc.
OK: if the user's screen reader is set to parse links only, or the user is sophisticated enough to begin skipping to the links, and/or the "See our collection" is a graphic (most likely w/o an alt attribute) then if the titletags separate/specify link (a) is a red Dissigating widget and link (b) is a red Magmagating widget then they are invaluable.
A quick aside - I've listened very "hard' to posts from senior members/moderators like Hissingsid, PageOneResults, Brett Tabke, Marcia, ciml, etc., etc...
Coupled with intensive source examinations of the pages in the Top 10 in my categories.. The use of either alt tags and/or title tags is tantamount to suicide for top rankings.
This lack thereof of both alt & title tags is a common denominator in 16 different search term categories I'm competing in, so I'm pretty convinced that using either results in bad relevance calculations for Google, Yahoo! and MSN.
Just my 3 cents, is all..
