Alt text is a short written description of an image, read aloud by screen readers and shown if the image fails to load. Every meaningful image should have specific alt text; purely decorative images should have an empty alt attribute (`alt=""`), not a missing one.
Why it matters
Alt text is how a screen reader user knows what an image shows. Without it, images are either skipped silently or announced by their filename (`IMG_4213.jpg`), which is not useful information.
Search engines cannot see images the way a person can. Alt text is one of the few signals Google has about what an image contains, which also matters for image search visibility.
This is a genuine accessibility requirement, not only an SEO tactic: sites serving the public are increasingly expected to meet basic accessibility standards, and missing alt text is one of the most common and easily fixed failures.
How AuditCrow checks this
AuditCrow samples images across the site and checks each `<img>` element for an `alt` attribute, flagging images with no attribute at all and images where the attribute is present but looks like a filename or is suspiciously generic across many images.
How to fix it
- 1For each meaningful image (product photos, team photos, diagrams, anything conveying information), write a short, specific description of what it shows: not "image of a plumber" but "plumber fitting a boiler in a domestic kitchen".
- 2For purely decorative images (background textures, spacer graphics), set `alt=""` explicitly rather than leaving the attribute off. This tells a screen reader to skip it silently, which is the correct behaviour for decoration.
- 3Do not stuff alt text with keywords. Screen reader users hear this, and Google's algorithms treat it as spam. Describe the image, not the page's target keyword.
- 4In WordPress, the alt text field sits in the Media Library, on each individual image, and in the block editor's image block settings. A common cause of this failing site-wide is images uploaded once in bulk without ever setting alt text there.
- 5Check the images your theme inserts automatically (logo, icons in a menu, background images in a page builder), not just the ones you upload yourself; template images are a common blind spot.
Related terms
Want to see whether your own site passes this check, and everything else?