Comments on: SEO for sake of SEO misses the point http://www.onenaught.com/posts/33/seo-for-sake-of-seo-misses-the-point A blog on web standards, accessibility, css, javascript, xslt, and more Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:19:51 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 By: Anup Shah http://www.onenaught.com/posts/33/seo-for-sake-of-seo-misses-the-point#comment-1406 Anup Shah Mon, 17 Dec 2007 17:43:59 +0000 http://www.onenaught.com/posts/33/seo-for-sake-of-seo-misses-the-point#comment-1406 Just came across <a href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/12/using-alt-attributes-smartly.html" rel="nofollow">a post by Google, which included a video from Matt Cutts showing how to use the alt attribute in an image</a>. The basic rule of thumb seemed to be to use a short description (he said 20-25 words may be too much). He kind of mentioned keyword stuffing not being helpful to anyone, etc. It seems like it is useful for Google Images. I am still not clear on if it is useful for general searches (and if so, how much compared to other factors, especially the top 10 factors mentioned earlier. Just came across a post by Google, which included a video from Matt Cutts showing how to use the alt attribute in an image.

The basic rule of thumb seemed to be to use a short description (he said 20-25 words may be too much). He kind of mentioned keyword stuffing not being helpful to anyone, etc.

It seems like it is useful for Google Images. I am still not clear on if it is useful for general searches (and if so, how much compared to other factors, especially the top 10 factors mentioned earlier.

]]> By: Anup Shah http://www.onenaught.com/posts/33/seo-for-sake-of-seo-misses-the-point#comment-1258 Anup Shah Fri, 14 Dec 2007 21:55:50 +0000 http://www.onenaught.com/posts/33/seo-for-sake-of-seo-misses-the-point#comment-1258 Going Natural 2.0: thanks for your comment. You mention a general consensus that image alt attributes are beneficial for SEO. Do you have further information on that? I find the general consensus is that it does NOT help. Years ago this was one of the first ways to try and trick search engines, by stuffing the alt attribute with any old keywords (like meta keyword stuffing), so search engines stopped using that for SEO purposes. If you follow the top 10 ranking factors link mentioned in <a href="http://www.onenaught.com/posts/30/explaining-natural-seo-search-engine-ranking-vs-indexing" rel="nofollow">in an earlier post on SEO</a> you will not see image alt attribute mentioned as a factor. However, I agree with you that it is important for accessibility. About the excessive use of title attributes for SEO on all sorts of elements, I found more than one person saying this on their CV/resumes when interviewing them for positions where I work. I was very surprised to hear anyone mention this! Going Natural 2.0: thanks for your comment. You mention a general consensus that image alt attributes are beneficial for SEO.

Do you have further information on that? I find the general consensus is that it does NOT help. Years ago this was one of the first ways to try and trick search engines, by stuffing the alt attribute with any old keywords (like meta keyword stuffing), so search engines stopped using that for SEO purposes.

If you follow the top 10 ranking factors link mentioned in in an earlier post on SEO you will not see image alt attribute mentioned as a factor.

However, I agree with you that it is important for accessibility.

About the excessive use of title attributes for SEO on all sorts of elements, I found more than one person saying this on their CV/resumes when interviewing them for positions where I work. I was very surprised to hear anyone mention this!

]]> By: Going Natural 2.0 http://www.onenaught.com/posts/33/seo-for-sake-of-seo-misses-the-point#comment-1257 Going Natural 2.0 Fri, 14 Dec 2007 21:39:19 +0000 http://www.onenaught.com/posts/33/seo-for-sake-of-seo-misses-the-point#comment-1257 "I have talked to in recent months about SEO who say they would put extra title attributes (tooltips) on links, images, and even headings and paragraphs! To me that is excessive (and way out-dated); if it doesn’t help the end user, it is very likely not to be useful for search engines." It seems to a general consensus that alt tags on images are beneficial to your SEO efforts. Of course, there's the accessibility factor for using alt tags as well. As far as title tags, I've never heard of anyone stressing the importance of these other than to as you say "help the end user". They are also helpful to drive click throughs with a message for example "Click here for you free report!" or something of the like. I've never heard of anyone using them thinking that it will help them in terms of SEO. “I have talked to in recent months about SEO who say they would put extra title attributes (tooltips) on links, images, and even headings and paragraphs! To me that is excessive (and way out-dated); if it doesn’t help the end user, it is very likely not to be useful for search engines.”

It seems to a general consensus that alt tags on images are beneficial to your SEO efforts. Of course, there’s the accessibility factor for using alt tags as well.

As far as title tags, I’ve never heard of anyone stressing the importance of these other than to as you say “help the end user”. They are also helpful to drive click throughs with a message for example “Click here for you free report!” or something of the like. I’ve never heard of anyone using them thinking that it will help them in terms of SEO.

]]> By: Anup Shah http://www.onenaught.com/posts/33/seo-for-sake-of-seo-misses-the-point#comment-247 Anup Shah Tue, 02 Oct 2007 08:03:03 +0000 http://www.onenaught.com/posts/33/seo-for-sake-of-seo-misses-the-point#comment-247 Thanks for your comment Jill. Yes, it I was astounded when I heard this -- from people who put SEO down as their speciality :) Thanks for your comment Jill. Yes, it I was astounded when I heard this — from people who put SEO down as their speciality :)

]]> By: Jill http://www.onenaught.com/posts/33/seo-for-sake-of-seo-misses-the-point#comment-242 Jill Mon, 01 Oct 2007 23:48:27 +0000 http://www.onenaught.com/posts/33/seo-for-sake-of-seo-misses-the-point#comment-242 Glad you liked it! Regarding link title attributes, if those people would ever test things for themselves instead of just listening to what others say, they would know that the search engines all ignore title attributes, so they cannot therefore help rankings. Jill Glad you liked it!

Regarding link title attributes, if those people would ever test things for themselves instead of just listening to what others say, they would know that the search engines all ignore title attributes, so they cannot therefore help rankings.

Jill

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