Link Title

What Is the Link Title?

The link title is an HTML attribute that provides additional information about a link and its destination. It is specified using the title title attribute. For example:

<a href="https://yourdomain.com/" title="This is a link to your website">Your domain</a>

In the code above:

• a indicates this is an anchor element
• The href attribute specifies the URL
• The title attribute specifies the link title
• Your domain is the anchor text

The link title is optional and should only be used if it provides additional context about the link. This is because the anchor text is the primary method for describing the destination of a link. 

However, it may not be possible to use a descriptive anchor text in some cases. In such situations, you can provide additional information using the link title.

This allows you to provide additional information about the link’s destination to search engines without affecting your content’s readability and user experience.

How to Use the Link Title

This is how to use the link title:

<a href="https://example.com/" title="Visit the Example website for expert yoga poses, tips, and wellness articles">Example's website</a>

In the above example, “Example’s website” is the anchor text. However, this anchor text provides very little information about the link’s destination. So, we include additional information using the link title. 

Importance of the Link Title

The link title allows visitors and search engines to better understand the context of your links. However, visitors typically cannot or do not try to access it. 

Google itself does not consider the link title the primary method of understanding a link and prioritizes other link elements such as the anchor text, link attributes (dofollow or nofollow), and even the visible text around the anchor text.

The elements Google prioritizes have more importance than the link title and are sometimes ranking factors. On the other hand, the link title is not a ranking factor and does not have any impact on your SEO.

This makes the link title a secondary method of providing information about your link. You should keep it at that and ensure to optimize the primary and more important factors rather than focusing your efforts on the link title. 

Overall, the link title is just an addon and is not required with your links. It is not necessary in most cases and you can create links without using link titles.

However, you can include a link title when you want to provide additional information that cannot be added to the anchor text or surrounding text. For example, if your anchor text is a generic word like “Click here,” you can provide additional information about the URL using the link title.

Why Bloggers Don’t Use the Link Title

Bloggers do not use the link title because it is usually not accessible to users and does not impact rankings.

For one, many browsers do not show the link title and those that do require the user to hover over the anchor text. However, this is limited to desktop users as mobile users generally cannot hover over a link.

Some also argue that the link title can be useful for users who rely on screen readers. However, others note that it can actually interrupt the reading flow, which ends up hurting rather than improving the user experience.

Instead of using a link title, most bloggers use descriptive anchor texts that provide information about the link’s destination. They also include additional relevant information in the visible content around the anchor text.

However, if you decide to use the link title, ensure that it provides new information about the link and is different from the anchor text and other text on the page. You should also follow content creation, link, and keyword best practices, such as:

• Keeping it concise and descriptive
• Creating unique link titles for each link
• Keeping the link title below 60 characters
• Ensuring the link title remains meaningful to human visitors
• Including relevant keywords naturally and avoiding keyword stuffing
• Ensuring the link title matches the content the link points to

You should also avoid adding a link title to all your links and should only include it in links that do not contain descriptive anchor texts. Most importantly, you should create your link titles for humans and not search engines.