G4 · Security & HTML Quality

    Image Alt Text Checker — do your images have alt text?

    Alt text is the written description of an image — what screen readers announce, what engines read, and what shows if the image fails to load. This check looks at how well your images are covered by descriptive alt text. Missing or empty alt text leaves screen-reader users and engines with no idea what an image conveys, while decorative images should be explicitly marked as such.
    Updated June 2026 · Technical SEO & GEO · Part of Security & HTML Quality

    Check your image alt text

    Paste a URL — GEObubbly checks whether your images carry descriptive alt text or are missing it.

    ✓ Free check✓ 1 signal✓ No signup required
    In short: Every meaningful image needs concise, descriptive alt text. It's the only way image search, AI crawlers and screen readers know what an image shows — and missing alt text loses traffic, context and accessibility at once.

    What does the alt text check look for?

    It checks how completely and well your images are described with alt text. Specifically:

    • Coverage — whether meaningful images have an alt attribute at all.
    • Descriptiveness — whether the alt text actually conveys the image's content or purpose, not just a filename.
    • Decorative images — whether purely decorative images use empty alt (alt="") so screen readers skip them.

    Good coverage with descriptive alt text passes; some images missing or with poor alt text is a warning; widespread missing alt text is a fail.

    How is it evaluated, and how is it scored?

    GEObubbly checks the page's images for the presence and quality of alt text. It's a core, scored Security & HTML Quality check that runs directly against the page's image markup.

    Why image alt text matters for SEO and GEO

    The alt attribute provides a text alternative for an image, and it does three jobs. For accessibility, screen readers announce the alt text so blind and low-vision users know what an image conveys — without it, they hear nothing useful or just a filename. For search, alt text gives engines context about the image (helping it appear in image search) and contributes to the page's overall topical understanding. And for resilience, alt text displays in place of an image that fails to load. The key is matching alt text to the image's role: meaningful images (a product photo, an informative diagram) need concise, descriptive alt text that conveys what they show; decorative images that add nothing informational should use empty alt (alt="") so assistive tech skips them rather than reading out clutter. Avoid keyword-stuffing alt text — describe the image honestly. This is both a core part of accessibility and a small but real SEO signal. For GEO, alt text is how an AI engine understands what's in your images, which matters as engines increasingly reason over visual content.

    How this check scores
    Pass: All meaningful images have descriptive alt text; decorative images use empty alt="".
    Warning: Up to about half of meaningful images are missing alt text.
    Fail: Most or all meaningful images have no alt attribute.

    FAQ

    Alt text (the alt attribute) is a written description of an image that serves several purposes: screen readers announce it so users who can't see the image understand what it conveys, search engines read it for context about the image and the page, and it displays in place of the image if it fails to load. Good alt text concisely describes what the image shows or its purpose in the page. It's a foundational accessibility feature and a modest SEO signal, making your images meaningful to people and engines that can't see the picture itself.

    Related checks in Security & HTML Quality

    G3
    Accessibility basics
    G5
    Valid & semantic HTML

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