What Is Anchor Tag Text And Is It Important?

[Sharon & Roy]

Here is a post in today's I-Search Discussion List moderated by Detlev Johnson that we felt was well worth pointing out and discussing.

Here is what was written by an SEO professional in response to a question asked about Anchor Tag Text (title wording for individual links) and posted by Detlev, who was just mentioned in this thread (http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums/t722/s.html) yesterday as a very respected SEO (of which we would agree).

Nonetheless, it is still extremely wise, if you get second and third opinions on certain SEO Techniques at all times and to not be to quick to adhere to the advice of any single SEO, no matter how respected or in-the-know they may be thought to be.

(PLEASE NOTE: Please, read this in the positive context of which it is intended, and in no way is this a "knock" against Detlev for posting it or the SEO who answered the question, thank you.)

QUESTION: My question, since most of my web pages are mostly links with little wording, will the search engines pick up on the title wording for individual links like they do for the title to the page or plan wording on a page?"

ANSWER: I tested this last year. Just for a little background, the title attribute of the anchor (link) tag is mostly used to create anchors within a page, so that you can link to areas in the middle of the page. From an SEO standpoint, I tested it to see if putting a search phrase in this attribute would work like it does with the alt attribute in the img tag. My test results were inconclusive. I did not gain any appreciable boost in rankings by inserting a search phrase into the title attribute of the anchor tag, nor did I see the test phrase(s) that I used indexed b any search engine other than possibly Inktomi.

However, as I mentioned the results were minimal. In my opinion, I would not put for the extra effort for those minimal results. Rather, spend your time and effort in creating the best possible page title and content, paying particular attention to that near the top of the page, and finding other web sites to reciprocal link with to boost your link popularity.

Now, if we were to post an answer to the aforementioned question, it would read like this ...

The major search engines (Google, WiseNut, Alta Vista, Fast, Lycos, HotBot) WILL index the title wording for individual links (commonly referred to as ... Anchor Tag Text) and therefore it will return such text when searched for.

Also it would be important to understand that we know for sure that Google and WiseNut will give a Web page a boost in the rankings if it has "Backward Links" (a.k.a. inbound links) that contain the keyword(s) searched for.

As for the other major engines, we would assume that if they are not already adding additional weight to them to help boost a page's rankings at this time, that they would do so in the near future.

We would recommend to always use keywords in your "Anchor Tag Text" and to never just use any generic and non-page-boosting-anchor-tag-text such as "Click Here" when high rankings are your primary objectives.

Please note that we have found this SEO Technique to carry so much weight on Google that recent research has shown that a page ranked at #12 for the highly competitive keyword phrase ... search engine optimization ... got to that ranking WITHOUT even having that keyword phrase ANYWHERE on the page. So why did it rank that high? Well, it had several "Backward Links" (a.k.a. inbound links) that contained the keyword phrase ... search engine optimization.

Also we would like to advise you to not have a page full of just links with keyword anchor tag text, but to also create content/keyword rich text around and about these links. That way you may be able to easily show the engines that it is not like a typical "Link Farm" page that they are so very much against and will penalize and/or ban.

Since we've been in the search engine optimization field since '96, we are well aware that last weeks valid SEO Techniques can be this weeks spam or even no longer relevant.

It is very disheartening to us to see the new folks to SEO who read the above given answer in a very reputable newsletter/ezine/eMail List and then creating their pages in light of the advice given, even if it was clearly stated that the research was a year old, and as we have shown, clearly no longer the case.

Our Advice: Let the SEO reader (whether a newbie or experienced) always beware, no matter where you read the info and no matter who wrote it or moderated it. Get 2nd and 3rd opinions and utilize the respected cutting edge SEO Forums like this one before venturing forward with your various SEO Techniques. It pays to be absolutely sure, as even the smallest mistakes can be very costly to you when it comes to ranking high (if at all) on the major search engines.

We'd love to hear other personal comments and observations on this as well, thank you.

[SubmissoR]

I have included links to the same page (with the targetted keyword) because I coudn't find any place else to link it relevantly except to the same page!! (I felt I needed that keyword in link text) Not as an anchor, it just linked to the same page, and it seems to work!

Hope this helps a little....

[ihelpyou]

I think there is confusion here as to what the question was and what they got as an answer.

It seems to me the answer was to the title that only an IE browser can see. Like this:

<a href="http://www.someonesiteisBad.com" title="click here for good email spam">click here</a>

Do you see what I mean? The answer was talking about the ... title="etc,....... the answer was very right in this case.

The answer that S and R are talking about is about the >click here</a> text that is visible on the page itself. In this case, S and R is very right as well.

[Advisor]

S&R, why not send your post into I-Search where Detlev can respond accordingly, instead of posting it here (or in addition to). That would make the most sense, in my opinion.

And I do think that Doug is correct in what the posts were talking about. In fact, I had just noticed last night that Doug used those Title links in his page. I had never seen them before.

Jill

[ihelpyou]

Yes, and if you use an IE browser, mouse over the links on the bottom of this page as well.

What Detlev was answering was for the title= tag,..... NOT the test that is visible. A big difference.

[Sharon & Roy]

Originally posted by ihelpyou

It seems to me the answer was to the title that only an IE browser can see. Like this:

<a href="http://www.someonesiteisBad.com" title="click here for good email spam">click here</a>

Do you see what I mean?

Doug, YES, we do see that now! Oh Boy, do we feel embarrassed.

The answer was talking about the ... title="etc,....... the answer was very right in this case.

YES, that would surely make sense and our WHOLE post above would no longer apply to this Q&A in the least.

We beg everyone's pardon on this one. We simply thought the question and answer were referring to the "Anchor Tag Text" when we now see how very clearly the words "Title Attribute of the Anchor Tag" were used in the answer. Duh!

In this case the answer given is 100% correct as, we know for a fact that Google does not index the "Title Attribute of the Anchor Tag" so any words there will not help or hinder your page's rankings. We are not sure about the other engines, but our guess is that they probably do not index them either.

Again we are sorry for any confusion we may have caused you.

[ihelpyou]

Oh no s and r,.... that is a VERY good question. I had to read the question and answer two times myself to figure it out.

Those two items get confused ALL the time. Like Jill said, the title tag is rarely used OR even noticed by anyone! I use it for a couple of reasons in that I do think some engines index it. I have NO clue which ones do but it sure does not hurt anything and gives the visitor more text to read when mousing over a text link.

[ihelpyou]

Reading the question again, it says "title wording". That in and of itself makes the question VERY confusing.

kudus to Detlev to know exactly what the question was talking about. I bet MANY readers of that discussion group all think he was talking about the "text" that is visible in the link and Not the title.

[Sharon & Roy]

Originally posted by ihelpyou

Reading the question again, it says "title wording". That in and of itself makes the question VERY confusing.

Yes, Doug, exactly, that is what confused us into thinking it was referring to the visible text.

kudus to Detlev to know exactly what the question was talking about. I bet MANY readers of that discussion group all think he was talking about the "text" that is visible in the link and Not the title.

Yes, a BIG kudus to Detlev. What would have helped is if the answer would have included the actual HTML code as you did Doug, to show what was being talked about to avoid any confusion at all for both the newbies and the experienced alike.

[Advisor]

Had I not just been looking at those Title thingees on Doug's site last night (trying to kick his butt in google remember!), I wouldn't have known what they were getting at in that post either.

I do know since meeting Detlev in real life that he is a true genius! I would be surprised if he posted something that was incorrect!

Jill

[ihelpyou]

LOL. You could copy and paste my entire html and still not go ahead of me. :green: