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Does a Title Tag Add SEO Value?

AlexRAlexR Cape Town
edited April 2013 in Bugs
If you use %anchor_text% more than once it is randomising it. 

So that:
<a href="%url%" title="%anchor_text%">%anchor_text%</a>

Gives a different title to the hyperlink! This makes no sense to have a different title to hyperlink. 

Surely the %random_anchor_text% macro should be the only one that randomises? 

Comments

  • SvenSven www.GSA-Online.de
    No, once you used %url% and %anchor_text% it is behaving like %random_*%. That was introduced a long time ago. Just skip this title thing, I see no use in that.
  • AlexRAlexR Cape Town
    Can anyone else comment on the use of the Title tag in an URL if it adds any SEO value? I always thought it was correct to use a title tag on a link. 
  • ronron SERLists.com
    No, it matters only with images.
  • seagulseagul
    Yes it's valuable but most platforms have there own way of constructing the URL which you cannot control. I don't bother about it myself
  • davbeldavbel UK
    I tend to use it on my sites, but I can't say it's ever provided any *real* benefit.  Just an extra place to get your KWs in as long it's not spammy
  • AlexRAlexR Cape Town
    @ron - I thought it was the alt tag that was n.b. for images while the title tag was for links. 

    Stripping these out would simplify things I guess..so will need to do some testing. 
  • MrXMrX Germany
    You can use title and alt on your own site for stuffing in more content and keywords but as far as I can say there is no impact from using it while building backlinks.
    And I agree to @seagul - you never know how a traget site builds up their HTML tag for an external link so the chance to break their algo because of using title is quite high. And you might end up with bad links
  • ronron SERLists.com

    The alt tag and title tag are very similar. The difference is that some browsers only read the alt tag and others read the title tag. Can't remember which ones read which tags.

    These tags are a useful tool for onpage seo optimization. They are best used for images.

    On linking, I have found it to be pointless, and even spammy. Say for example I have a link from a wiki going to my moneysite, and the anchor is weight loss. The last thing I want is a title called weight loss. I already took care of it with the anchor.

    I used to do stuff like that a few years back. I remember taking a hit in rankings. So I de-optimized the site's interlinking among inner pages, and removed title tags on those inner page cross links. And I got my rankings back.

    I can't prove it, but I am pretty sure Google has a little thing in their algo looking for over-optimization techniques like that. It is easy to spot, very unnatural, and completely not needed. So I give it a thumbs down.  

  • theorbitaltheorbital
    +1 @ron
  • AlexRAlexR Cape Town
    @ron - thanks for taking time to explain. It seems that the title tag is for users but then got overused by SEO and now it's dead. Great discussion. 

    Interesting point you made about the deoptimising the interlinking among inner pages. Can I ask what other things you de-optimised on the site? (Curious to know as have a penalty on some sites and trying to find cause!) 
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