When I search for Ride On + my site's name, I see that it's indexed. But when I search for Green Horse + my site's name, I don't see my site appearing in the results anywhere!
Here's my code:
<td><a href="#" title="Green Horse Ride">Ride On</a></td>
Does this mean that title attributes are not indexed/shown by Google at all? What is better to use, alt? What are the other alternatives except title and alt?
Based on the code sample you used there could be a few reasons for this:
1) The hyperlink essentially points to the page it is on and only as a technicality because you only have a hash as the URL and not an otherwise valid URI. That really has no meaning and probably carries no value as a hyperlink.
2) If the page in question is not indexed then it will never appear in the SERPs
3) The title attribute is so abused for SEO purposes that it is easy to see it being devalued to the point of being worthless just like meta tags.
Use the title and alt attributes for what they are designed for: usability and accessibility. Don't be writing code just for the search engines. They don't want that and it never ends well.
It is generally considered that title attributes are not indexed, while the alt attribute is.
The alt attribute is only valid on img tags while you can place the title attribute on any tag.
Use title for enhancing user experience. It controls the tooltip when you hover over the tag in question.
Use alt on images when the image needs explaining so that people who can't see the image can still understand the page. Otherwise it should be blank.
