ON-PAGE SEO
Image Alt Text Checker
Alt text is what screen readers say instead of an image, and what search engines read to understand it. Pages built over years collect images with no alt, or alt text that is just a file name. This check lists every image on a page so you can fix them in one pass.
- Checks the live page
- Public addresses only
- Free, no sign-up
- CheckImages with no alt attribute
- CheckEmpty alt text (decorative images)
- CheckAlt text that is a file name or a single generic word
- CheckVery long alt text
Free
no sign-up
Live
fetched when you run the check
5 checks
what the tool looks at
30 a minute
checks per visitor, to keep it free
Loading the tool…
HOW IT WORKS
How to use the Image Alt Text Checker
One public page URL.
Enter the page’s URL.
Sort out the images marked as having no alt attribute first.
Download the CSV to share the list with whoever edits the page.
WHAT IT CHECKS
What it looks at, and how to read it.
Every image with its alt text and status, checks for the page, and a CSV download.
What it checks
- Images with no alt attribute
- Empty alt text (decorative images)
- Alt text that is a file name or a single generic word
- Very long alt text
- Images whose address is set by JavaScript
How to read the results
- No alt attribute fails accessibility guidelines (WCAG 1.1.1); screen readers may read the file name.
- alt="" is correct for purely decorative images, and wrong for anything that carries meaning.
- Good alt text says what the image shows in a short sentence, without repeating the caption.
GOOD TO KNOW
Common mistakes, an example and the limits.
Common mistakes
- Stuffing keywords into alt text ("best phones Kenya cheap phones").
- Starting with "image of" or "picture of"; screen readers already say it is an image.
- Leaving product photos with the camera’s file name.
A worked example
A store’s product grid has 48 images with alt text like DSC_0042.jpg. Replacing them with the product name and colour makes the grid usable with a screen reader and helps image search.
Limitations
- Checks the HTML the server sends. Content a page adds with JavaScript after loading is not seen.
- Some sites block or challenge automated requests; then the result shows what a crawler without a browser would get.
- Images placed with CSS (backgrounds) have no alt attribute to check, and up to 300 images are listed.
- Whether an empty alt is right depends on the image; only a person can judge if it is decorative.
FAQ
Questions about the Image Alt Text Checker
Straight answers about what it does and where its limits are.
Does alt text help SEO?
Yes, for images: Google uses alt text, with the surrounding text, to understand what an image shows and when to show it in image results.
Should every image have alt text?
Every image needs an alt attribute. Meaningful images get a description; decorative ones get alt="" so screen readers skip them.
Need this for a whole website, over time?
The NdovuSEOLabs platform connects your own Search Console, analytics and server logs, and audits every page on a schedule.