Slideshow anchor text for Google images

[ianevans]

Just wondering what the issues are surrounding slideshow anchor text and google image results.

Our site currently uses a generic Start Previous Next End type of navigation.

Is it too wordy if I change that to:

Photo of tedster - photo of Robert Charlton, etc? Or does it matter to google if I added that info to the anchor text's title attribute like:

<a href="" title="photo of tedster">Next<a/>

[tedster]

Google doesn't currently use the title attribute in their organic alogrithm, and I assume the same is true for Image Search - but I've never tested it. It sure wouldn't hurt to add it to your slideshow - in fact it could be a nice enhnacement for the visitors.

However, the alt attribute for the img element is quite important in Image Search - some go as far as saying it's "mandatory", although I feel that participation in the enhanced image labelling project might bypass that a bit.

If you are trying to get images from a slideshow into Image Search results, I'd suggest making sure that a visitor could come to that page from search and see the correct image on display.