So much for standards - small signs

Standards based HTML <img> tags generally have a minimum of two components, a src="http://some.url" part and an alt="some text" part.  As far as I can tell, there isn't a web browser in the world that cares which comes first, the src or the alt. It works fine either way.

It just so happens that I learned to use the HTML <img> tag putting the src= part first and the alt= part last, and that's the way I've done it ever sense out of habit.  That is the way I've done it unquestioningly until recently while working with the Google Blogger post editor, which is built to check user supplied HTML.  Also, it seems, the Blogger post editor was built to re-write user input HTML for no obvious reason.

The Google Blogger post editor re-writes the sequence of the <img> tag components so that the alt= part is first.  When I input <img src="http://some.url" alt="some text" /> to the Google Blogger post editor, it changes it to read <img alt="some text" src="http://some.url" />. Every time.

My current mindset is that Google is the benchmark for how things ought to be done, and my pragmatic philosophy is to give a huge, powerful, and impersonal bureaucracy (read Google) exactly what it want in the way it wants it.  Accordingly, I shifted my habit and reversed the <img> elements sequence when writing HTML.

Then I went to post on a Wordpress blog, and the Wordpress post editor did precisely the same thing as the Google Blogger post editor, except in reverse. Wordpress re-wrote my <img alt="some text" src="http://some.url" /> to read <img src="http://some.url" alt="some text" />.

The only effect this has for me is to re-enforce the observation that the sequence doesn't make any difference.

But, if it doesn't make any difference, why do Blogger and Wordpress re-write this code?  Moreso, why do they do it in opposite directions? I'm sure there's a compelling reason somewhere, but I'm not going to put any time into finding it.

The important point for internet marketers and search optimizers is to use the <img> alt tag.  Forget about the sequence.

Google Blogger: Tips and tricks

This blog is hosted for free on Blogger.com. One of the nice feature of Blogger that I really appreciate is the ability to write a post and then schedule it for later posting.  For example, I am writing this post on Monday afternoon and I will schedule it to the posted online at 3 AM Thursday morning.

It might make you think I was up all night working.

Tumblr.com blog tip:  Tumblr blogs also have an option for delayed posting.  Tumblr's system is set by frequency of posting from a queue, whereas Blogger.com's system is based upon setting a specific date and time for each post.

Tom Fox
Louisville, Kentucky
Tom Fox on Twitter

Blogger comments RSS feed channels

Blogger.com is the free blog hosting service for this blog.  Blogger is owned by Google, and Google has introduced a steady stream of improvements to Blogger since its acquisition by Google a few years back.  I don't remember when RSS feeds for Blogger were introduced, but as it stands now, Blogger provides one RSS Atom syndication feed for the blog posts as a whole, and one separate RSS Atom feed for each post's comments.

The usefulness of an Atom RSS feed for the blog as a whole is apparent once you take a look at syndication, and this is a topic I plan to discuss in detail.  Yet, the usefulness of as many different separate comment feeds is still not obvious to me.  Maybe if all the comment feeds were merged into one aggregate feed, they might have vale.

Tom Fox
Louisville, Kentucky
Tom Fox on Twitter

Analytics - Blogger statistics

A new analytics feature was announced for Google's Blogger.com earlier this month in Blogger in Draft. Although this new component to Blogger is a quick and easy way to view a summary of blog activity, it is no substitute for the power and flexibility of Google Analytics.  The Blogger stats package is comparable to the stats feature of Wordpress blogging software.

For a full-featured analytical view of Blogger blogs, including conversion tracking, I'm sticking to Google Analytics for the big picture. There is much more detailed information available.

Tom Fox
Louisville, Kentucky
Tom Fox on Twitter