Re: Web Page Appearance

["Kristine J. Olberg" <kjolberg -at- IX -dot- NETCOM -dot- COM>]

> From: Shmuel Ben-Artzi <sba -at- NETMEDIA -dot- NET -dot- IL>

> 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,

Not only does it defeat the purpose of the tag, but it defeats the purpose
of standards. Why do we have an HTML standard if it's going to be ignored?

There are many reasons that the current HTML standard is ignored. Here's a
couple of examples: (1) It points to a tag set that doesn't satisfy the
needs of everyone using the web, including those who write search engines.
(2) Some companies want to corner the web market so they have written
browsers and tools that support not only the current HTML standard but so
many proposed versions beyond that. This gives them greater flexibility and
a perceived competitive edge.

Regards...Kris
----------------------------------
kjolberg -at- ix -dot- netcom -dot- com
kolberg -at- actamed -dot- com

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