Using text within 'title=' tag in images

Will google see this as keyword stuffing?

[zammo]

Hi

We have a site which sell widgets which is a very visual product and as a result has to be havily image based so people can see what they are purchasing. The current layout of most of the product pages are purely images with no text but we do include a title='descrition of individual widgets' within each image which if the user rolls over they can see.

We are also using this same text within the alt tag.

All the text we use is a relavant description and only a sentence long by I am worried that Google might see this is as us trying to hide text.

My gut feel is that we should remove the text from the alt tag, but I am not sure what Googles take is on the title= tag.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Cheers

[tedster]

You're talking about the title attribute, correct? In my testing, Google didn't use that content at all when ranking a page.

[Robert Charlton]

The current layout of most of the product pages are purely images with no text but we do include a title='descrition of individual widgets' within each image which if the user rolls over they can see.

I'd suggest you folks bite the bullet and include some visible html text on the page. As tedster mentioned, Google doesn't use the title attribute... and the alt tag, on non-linked images, won't help you either. Google gives weight to text that is visible.

I'm always amazed at designers who feel they can't manage to incorporate a few short paragraphs of text into a page and make it visually pleasing.

If, on the other hand, you can't find much to say about your products that would be unique from page to page, it may well be that searchers can't distinguish among your products on a verbal level either... in which case you need to research what they do search for, and incorporate more general higher level pages in your site that include this vocabulary.

[Marshall]

The title and alt tags are intended for accessibility compliance. Using them as a supplement descriptor for visitors is a huge mistake. Not all browsers will support the mouse-over display. I suggest leaving the text and alt for accessibility then add a line of text under your images.

Marshall

[jomaxx]

No matter how visually oriented a subject may be, nobody likes having to mouse over everything in order to see what it all means.

[SEOMike]

The title and alt tags are intended for accessibility compliance.

Yep. There have been a couple of lawsuits about website accessibility [webmasterworld.com] lately. There is potential for future value of these tags. Might as well start now...

I agree with jomaxx... mouseover for info is not something you want to tell your users to do. Incorporate some pagetext.

[edited by: SEOMike at 7:02 pm (utc) on Oct. 15, 2007]

[HarryM]

I suspect that if the proportion of text in alt or title tags compared to the page text is higher than what Google considers normal it may be used by Google as an indication of spamming.

Naturally I can't prove it. But I have one site which is image based where I used alt and tiltle tags heavily, and one day it disappeared from serps. I took out all the hidden text except on one image per page, and the site recovered. Coincidence possibly, but I am now very careful about doing anything that would make a site appear unusual.

[Reno]

but we do include a title='descrition of individual widgets' within each image

I had thought that alt=" " was for images and title=" " was intended for links, as in <a href="widgets.html" title="Widget"> ... is that not correct?

........................

[Marshall]

If you want to get technical and for proper usage:

alt tag - use only with images to display text describing image when image does not download.

title tag = use on links to describe link purpose or destination. Can be used on images that links.

tags such as abbr, londesc and acronym are for accessibility. alt and title tags are supplemental accessibility tags primarily for the benefit of screen readers.

The display of the information contained in an alt tag on mouse-over is not standards compliant.

Marshall