Home Alt Text Checker
Free alt text checker
Paste any page and see which images have no alt text, and which have alt text that is not really doing anything. Takes a few seconds and costs nothing.
Checks one page. Free, no account, no credit card.
What this checks
The checker reads the page the way Google first sees it and finds every image on it. Each one lands in one of these groups.
- No alt text. The image has no description at all. Screen readers often read out the file name instead, and Google has nothing to go on.
- Weak alt text. There is a description, but it does not describe anything. A file name, a single word like banner, or a sentence too long to be read aloud.
- Background images. Images added as a page background rather than as normal images. They have nowhere to put a description, so Google does not read them and screen readers skip them. Worth changing if the image shows something that matters.
- Decorative. Images deliberately marked as decoration, which tells a screen reader to skip them. That is the right thing to do for dividers and patterns, so it is not counted as a problem.
- Looking good. A real description, of a sensible length.
What to do with the results
Start with the images that have no description, because those cost you the most. Write what the image shows and why it is on that page, in one sentence of roughly 80 to 125 characters, and skip the words "image of". The WordPress alt text guide walks through the whole process, including the title, caption and description fields that most guides ignore, and there are more in the guides section.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as missing alt text?
An image with no alt attribute at all. When that happens, screen readers often fall back to reading the file name out loud, and search engines have nothing to go on. It is different from alt="", which is a deliberate marking that says the image is decorative and should be skipped.
Why is some alt text marked weak instead of missing?
Because the attribute is there but it does not describe anything. The usual causes are a file name like DSC00194.jpg, a single generic word like logo or banner, a description that starts with 'image of', or text so long that a screen reader will cut it off.
I filled in the alt text in my media library. Why is the image still flagged?
Because that text never reaches the page. WordPress stores your alt text against the image in its own records, and only puts it on the page when the image is added the normal way. If your theme or page builder uses that image as a page background instead, the page gets no description at all and the text you typed sits unused. It is not wasted, though: the moment that image is used as a normal image anywhere, your description appears with it.
Do background images show up in Google Images?
No. Google's own image guidance says plainly that it does not read images added as a page background, and asks for normal images instead. So a photo used as a section or hero background is invisible in image search no matter how carefully you fill in the media library. If an image matters for search, it needs to be added to the page as a normal image.
Does this check my whole website?
No, it checks the one page you paste in. Checking every page, and writing the descriptions for you, is what a full scan does. That needs an account, and the free plan covers a small site.
Why did it find no images on my page?
Some sites build their image tags with JavaScript after the page opens. A quick check reads the HTML the server sends, so those images are not there yet. The full scanner renders the page in a real browser, which does see them.