Title Tags For Text Links

[ThePokerBank]

How useful is this as a SEO tactic?

8. Title tags for text links. Insert the title tag within the HTML of your text link to add weight to the link and the page where the link resides. This is like the alt tag for images.

It's basically like having an alt tag for text links. Is it something that all good SEOs use, or is its benefit marginal if it does do anything?

source: http://www.ezau.com/latest/articles/0147.shtml

[Ridge]

I do this on my links, honestly hard to say how well it works, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't hurt anything..

[Ozpoker]

been using title for a while now.

Have been waiting for someone to explain to me whether or not I still need to use the "alt" tag as well or not

[PPP]

Originally Posted by ThePokerBank

How useful is this as a SEO tactic?

It's basically like having an alt tag for text links. Is it something that all good SEOs use, or is its benefit marginal if it does do anything?

It's worthless code bloat from an SEO perspective. The bots pay no attention to it.

[Ridge]

Wait, are we talking about the "link description"? That's what I thought you mean.. I use that, and I guess it is useless from a SEO perspective, but I think it's handy for the actual users..

[ThePokerBank]

Originally Posted by Ridge

Wait, are we talking about the "link description"? That's what I thought you mean.. I use that, and I guess it is useless from a SEO perspective, but I think it's handy for the actual users..

Why would it be useful for users? I can understand alt tags on images if visitors are viewing your page in text-only browsers or if images do not load, but what's the advantage of repeating the title of a text link that would appear anyway? Not being funny or anything, a genuine question here.

In fact, what is the purpose of the title tags for text links anyway? Is it just to give an idea of what is behnd the link, which makes repeating the actual anchor text kind of useless?

Appreciate all the replies so far.

[Randy]

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/980111.html

[Randy]

By the way, it's easy enough to test whether or not adding the link attribute has any SEO effect. Just add a phrase to the title element for a link that isn't located elsewhere on the page that's linking to or from, then see if either page ranks for that phrase. Try it on multiple pages and multiple links and see if there's a pattern.

[ThePokerBank]

Thanks, that cleared that up pretty well.

EDIT: And thanks again.

[J S]

Originally Posted by Ridge

Wait, are we talking about the "link description"? That's what I thought you mean.. I use that, and I guess it is useless from a SEO perspective, but I think it's handy for the actual users..

dittod

write compelling text or talk directly to the end user for this description when they roll over the link and see if the ctr goes up, don't 'seo it'.