How to use title tags without having the title popup when hovered over?

Question

Hi everyone,

I have a question regarding title tags. I have been using them on every link on my site in the hope that it will be good for SEO. Because I have so many title tags in use it looks very crazy to actually visit. No matter where you point there's another title popup. Is there any way to prevent these hovers (the ones that show the content of the title tag) while still using title tags?

Thank you for your answers.

Answer 1

1. Quit overobsessing about "SEO".
2. The title tag is for information about the link (target). If you use it for keyword lists or something like that, then stop. If you simply duplicate the link text, there's no need. If you use it correctly, you shouldn't worry about the tooltip that browsers display.

Answer 2

I fully agree wuth Joel (+1), imho now you achieve reverse effect: your site looks like one big fake to google without real content :)

Answer 3

You could use JavaScript to remove the title attribute (not tag).

But as the others said, the title attribute is intended to provide “advisory information about the element for which it is set”. So don’t spam the user with useless information just because you heard/read that search engines love that.

Answer 4

The best "rule of thumb" I have heard and experienced in a positive way with SEO is to make a great site for your visitor and let the search engines take care of themselves. It sounds like you are making a site for Google and making the visitor miserable which is the exact opposite of successful SEO.

Remember, without the visitor it doesn't matter what your SE placement is.

Answer 5

<a onMouseOver="javascript: this.title='';" href="../path/to/image.jpg" title="some title here">link</a>

I agree with others though, you should not sacrifice usability, integrity of content and the site's design in order to achieve better SE ranking.

Answer 6

As Andy (and others) note, you may be confusing the Page Title tag with the Link title attribute.

To clarify, in terms of SEO:

• Page Title tags on pages ARE very important for SEO
• Link title attributes are very minor and not worth upsetting user experience with.

Answer 7

I have not tried this myself, and I am not sure how Google feels about it:

But what about putting all your title tags where you want them, for the SEO, then after the onload event is fired, simply null them all at once by finding all elements that have the title attribute and setting them to "". This way, the user is not beaten-to-death by title tags as they try to stumble their way through your page....?

In Prototype, I use the $$() function to get all items of a specific class and it works like a champ.