Image Links Vs. Text Links, Questions About PR & Anchor Text Value

[abernhardt]

I am searching for testing results to find out the value of text links versus image links with alt text.

Do any of you have testing results that can answer or discuss these questions?

If 2 separate pages on the same domain were to have the same Page Authority, same amount of internal and external links and virtually carry the same strength and the location of the image or text link is in the same spot on both pages, in the middle of the body within paragraphs.

1. Would an image link with alt text pass the same amount of Page Authority and PR as a text link?

2. Would an image link with alt text pass the same amount of textual value as a text link? For example, if the alt text on the image on one page said "nike shoes" and the text link on the other page said "nike shoes" would both pass the same value to drive up the rankings of the page for "nike shoes"?

3. Would a link wrapped around an image and text phrase be better than creating 2 links, one around the image and one around the text pointing to the same page?

The following questions have to do with when you have an image and text link on a page right next to each other, like when you link a compelling graphic image to a category page and then list a text link underneath it to pass text link value to the linked-to page.

1. If the image link displays before the text link pointing to a page, would first link priority use the alt text and not even apply the anchor text phrase to the linked page?

2. Would it be best to link the image and text phrase together pointing to the product page to decrease the link count on the page, thus allowing for more page rank and page authority to pass to other pages that are being linked to on the page? And would this also pass anchor text value to the link-to page since the link would include an image and text?

I know that the questions sound a bit repetitive, so please let me know if you need any further clarification. I'd like to solve these to further look into ways to improve some user experience aspects while optimizing the link strength on each page at the same time.

Thanks!
Andrew

[RyanKent]

Search engines are constantly changing their algorithms but to the best of my knowledge the below is accurate:

• the first link to a given URL on a page is what's counted. The anchor text from the 2nd and further links would not offer value.

• the order search engines go by is the order the links are seen as they read the page's code which may differ from how you see the links on the page

• I believe link text offers more value then alt text. We know Google would prefer to weigh factors that a user can see such as text on a page, over a tag which can be stuffed with anything. With that said, since Google cannot see an image they are vulnerable and have to rely on us to tell them what is in the image. Lindsay offers a different opinion, see link below.

Additional reading:

http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/26507/alt-text-vs-anchor-text

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/results-of-google-experimentation-only-the-first-anchor-text-counts

[abernhardt]

Thanks for the solid reply Kent. I agree with your feedback and I'm looking a bit deeper to see if it would be smart to link an image and text phrase together.

Any thoughts on that? It could be easier for the user because they could click on both, and there would be less links on the page which could be good. But I wonder if search engines would attribute the anchor text to the link if it also includes an image?

[RyanKent]

I thought about this same issue recently. On my next project where I encounter this topic, I plan to experiment with creating a div which contains the text and the image, then providing a single link for the div.

Basically, if you have a page with a linked image, and then a text link below the image, I would rather make that area a single clickable link rather then two separate links. I would need to do a bit of experimentation from a SEO perspective but it is something to think about.

[abernhardt]

Exactly, same idea that I'd like to test out too. Hopefully we'll hear feedback from others too on this.

In regards to PR and Page Authority going through and image link or text link, do you feel like the same strength would be passed through either form of link? (Not taking anchor text into consideration, just PR/Page Authority)

[RyanKent]

I am not aware of any search engine throttling the amount of PR or authority that is passed on by a link based on link type. If you or anyone else has any information on this topic, I would love to take a look at it.

[randfish]

Hi Andrew - it's been a while since I ran this particular test (almost 2 years!) but, back then, we saw that a straight HTML text link with anchor text appeared to pass slightly more ranking ability/value to a page than the same link with an image + alt text. Now, that said, I'm still a huge fan of image links - they're natural, they make sense in a backlink profile, etc. - and it certainly could have changed since then.

Honestly, from a practical standpoint, I usually wouldn't sweat image vs. text (get what you can if it's a great link source!), but from a technical level, my guess is that anchor text in HTML text is still slightly more influential than an image + alt attribute.

[abernhardt]

Hi Rand, thanks so much for the feedback. I agree and see it the same way.

For sites with great images and compelling media, it would make sense that a lot of their back links are image links pointing to their home or internal pages where the images are located. Anchor text links likely influence keyword rankings a bit more since they likely add more context to the link than an alt tag and the surrounding content around an image link. But a link from a great source is ideal indeed.

The question that I guess I haven't fully answered is whether or not Page Rank, Page Authority, Link Juice. etc gets passed as the same AMOUNT when flowing through an image link versus a text link. Using the page example I mentioned above, would an image link that flows from a Page Authority 50 page pass the same AMOUNT of Page Authority as a text link from a Page Authority 50 page? It's a geeky question, but so are so many elements of SEO

And the effectiveness of wrapping an image with text link are still kind of unknown by our crew or others I've talked to about it. At a glance, it's less code on the page, less links, and a good user experience, so on paper I think doing category grid links on ecommerce sites might serve the user and bots well if more sites would link the image AND text link together.

Thoughts?

• Andrew

[randfish]

Gotcha. This is a total guess, but I'd venture to say that PageRank is probably passed in the same quantities (mozRank definitely is).

Page Authority is harder to say because it doesn't actually "flow" - it's a metric we calculate AFTER the rest of the link graph and the metrics are done processing and represents a machine-learning based algo with inputs of every other kind of link metric. One of these could certainly be the ratio of images to text links or the existence or non-existence of both, but as with any machine learning system, it's hard to know what's actually (even for the folks who wrote it!)!