The Underscore Archives

2009/12/8 Richard Dennys <richard.dennys at gmail.com>:
> It's not a bad thing. at all. misinformation reins on [_] once again.
>
> There is an argument you don't need a home button at all. Just your
> logo linked to the index page, with Alt text in it of course,
> containing a few handy concise keyword phrases.
>
> http://www.sunshine.co.uk/ for a good example of this. does well on
> hundreds of thousands and SERPS results. See how they have matched
> links and themes right at the top of the page.
>
> Read googles webmaster start up SEO guide. It tells you everything and
> clears all this up.
>

Controlled, empirical experiment would be very interesting to test
some of these hypotheses... although I cannot imagine how it would be
done in practice. Without wishing to sound like I am backing out of
the discussion, and while I think it is important to pay attention and
to think about details like these in the context of SEO, the real
purpose of alt text is as a help for screen readers and those without
access to images. It is right that search engines should use it, but I
think one's primary concern should really be the actual purpose of the
attribute. After all websites are for people, not search engines.

R