The standard
HTML (i.e. non-
JavaScript) way to provide the title of a linked page, or other information about a
link, is to use the
TITLE attribute of the
A tag, as such:
<A HREF="cat.html" TITLE="All about my cat">
This has the advantages of being standards-compliant, working for users who disable JavaScript for security reasons, respecting encapsulation, and being a lot less to type.
On some browsers, this will generate a tooltip effect rather than altering the status bar. This may be configurable, which is a good thing.
I picked up this tip from Jakob Nielsen's Web site useit.com, home of many other useful ideas to improve the usability of your Web pages.