Image alt text checker for any page

Why alt text matters

Alt text is the short description in an image's alt attribute. People who use screen readers hear it instead of seeing the picture. Browsers show it when an image fails to load. Search engines read it to understand what the image shows, which matters for image search and for the page as a whole. Many accessibility laws also expect it.

What this checker flags

• No alt attribute: screen readers often read out the file name instead, such as "IMG underscore 4032 dot jpeg".
• Empty alt on a linked image: if an image is the only thing inside a link, its alt text is the link's name. Empty, the link has no name at all.
• Just the file name: "banner-final-2.jpg" tells no one anything.
• Too long: over 125 characters. Alt text should be a phrase or a sentence, not a paragraph.
• The same text on several images: each picture shows something different, so each needs its own words.
• No width and height: not an alt text problem, but images without their size make the page jump as they load.

Writing good alt text

Describe what the picture shows and why it is on the page, in plain words: "Three-tier wedding cake with white roses" rather than "cake" or "image of a cake". Skip "image of" and "picture of", since screen readers already say it is an image. Use a keyword only when it truly describes the image.

Pictures that only decorate (a divider, a background pattern) should have an empty alt (alt="") so screen readers skip them: the checker marks these as decorative rather than missing.

Images are one part of page structure: check the headings too with the heading checker. The AI Website SEO Checker counts images without descriptions on your main pages as part of its score.