Warning:
This article is about the title attribute NOT the title element found in the header of your webpage.First a bit of advise
This might resolve the whole issue of title attribute for you. If you're looking at it because you would like to improve keyword density and work on your SEO then there's no need to dig any further: Google and most other search engines do not take the title attribute into account when spidering a website.Yep, that means that all of your title attributes only serve to bulk up the size of your page and give you more typing to do. Since google gives points for smaller/faster downloads, the title attribute will cost you a little in speed. Also, keep in mind that you never have enough time to do all the web design and update you want to do, thus monkeying around with title attributes will take that little bit of time from something else. AND, google will not use the title attribute for keyword density.
Finally Some Info About Title Attribute
W3.org says this about the title attribute: "This attribute offers advisory information about the element for which it is set."The title attribute can be used with all elements except for base, basefont, head, html, meta, param, script, and title. BUT, it is not required for any -- there is no element that requires the title attribute.
Some browsers display title text as a tool tip when the element is hovered over. Thus if you do use title attribute text please keep is small. No one wants to see a huge tool tip. And, besides, some browsers will truncate the tool tip.
Some Possible Good Uses
Title attribute can be used to add descriptive text to links. This could be a situation where the link text does not give the destination. Then the title attribute might provide that tidbit of info. This can be useful for users not in the habit of checking the destination url in the status line of their browser.This could also be used to provide additional information for an image. Remembering that the alt attribute is used with screen readers in mind, it is possible that something like a date which would not be essential for the alt attribute could go in the title attribute.
Another, and perhaps most productive, use of the title attribute is on input elements in a form. You can use the title attribute to explain to your visitors what the intended purpose of an input field in a form is.
Summary
"Could be used," "might be useful," or "allowed" are not stellar recommendations to bother with the title attribute. My opinion is that proper generation of page content and proper use of the alt attribute handle the situation nicely.Since the title attribute does nothing for SEO (at the moment), I suggest to just ignore it. Later when we find out it was the secret, most important attribute on the page we can lament our choice to ignore it. But until then, I think I'll just concentrate on other matters.
