TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: Web Page Appearance From:Shmuel Ben-Artzi <sba -at- NETMEDIA -dot- NET -dot- IL> Date:Sun, 19 Jan 1997 07:43:27 +0200
Matt and all,
I am personally a great believer in using ALT tags. Use them all the time.
But I recently saw a posting either here or on my Web development list
which stated that this creates a problem with at least some of the search
engines. It seems that the search paradigm used by the spiders adds the ALT
definitions, at least those found in the opening part of a site, into the
database. For this reason, the poster said that they have gone to defining
all ALT tags as ALT="".
Any comments on this? This certainly defeats the purpose of the tag. But,
at the same time, nobody wants to see their site being indexed on
meaningless terms like "xxx banner". Would this also be a problem for
sites, such as those maintained by many of our people, which use onsite
database engines to index massive document libraries?
Shalom,
Shmuel Ben-Artzi
Netanya, Israel
sba -at- netmedia -dot- net -dot- il
----------
> Many of those seem to be created and tested only on the author's local
> machine, as well, with no regard for people loading them over links as
> slow as 9600bps; graphics are huge, expansive, and often full 24-bit,
> making for page transfer times counted in minutes rather than seconds.
> Of course, the user can disable image loading, but chances are the
> author has also neglected to use <ALT> tags or make any kind of
> compensation for those without graphics-capable browsers.
>
> Your friend and mine,
> Matt
TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a message
to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot- Send commands
to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/ or search and
browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html
