Missing Image Alt Text — Accessibility and SEO Issue

TL;DR: Some images lack alt text, making your site inaccessible to screen reader users and invisible to image search.

22.1% of all images on website home pages lack alt text (WebAIM, 2024). Screen readers — used by JAWS (41% market share) and NVDA (38%) users — announce images without alt text as just "image," providing zero context. Missing alt text also means Google Image Search can't index your visuals. Over 5,100 web accessibility lawsuits were filed in 2025 alone (EcomBack), and missing alt text is one of the most commonly cited violations.

What Scavo checks (plain English)

Scavo inspects all <img> tags on the page and groups them into:

• Missing alt attribute entirely
• Present but empty alt=""
• Present with non-empty alt text

How Scavo scores this check

Result behavior:

• Fail: any image is missing the alt attribute
• Warning: more than 50% of images have empty alt and total images > 2
• Pass: all images include an alt attribute and no major empty-alt overuse
• Info: no images found on page

In your scan report, this appears under What failed / What needs attention / What is working for image_alt, followed by Recommended next steps and Technical evidence (for developers) when needed.

• Scan key: image_alt
• Category: ACCESSIBILITY

Why fixing this matters

Missing alt text blocks users from understanding key visual content. In commercial pages, that can hide product context, trust signals, or CTA meaning.

Alt quality also improves content governance: if editors must provide meaningful alternative text for content images, media usage becomes clearer and less error-prone over time.

Common reasons this check fails

• CMS upload flow does not require alt input.
• Component refactor dropped alt binding.
• Decorative vs informative images are not differentiated.
• Lazy-loaded image wrappers accidentally omit final alt attribute.

If you are not technical

1. Separate image types into decorative vs informative.
2. Require descriptive alt for informative images.
3. Allow empty alt only for truly decorative images.
4. Re-scan and verify missing-alt count reaches zero.

Scavo flagged Image Alt Text (image_alt). Please ensure every <img> has an alt attribute, provide meaningful alt text for content images, and use empty alt only for decorative images.

If you are technical

1. Enforce alt as required in image components.
2. Wire CMS/media fields so alt travels through templates.
3. For decorative images, set alt="" intentionally (not omitted).
4. Avoid filename-style alt text; use concise meaning-based descriptions.
5. Add snapshot tests for image markup in key templates.

How to verify

• Inspect rendered HTML for all <img> tags.
• Confirm no image lacks an alt attribute.
• Spot-check high-impact pages for meaningful content alt.
• Re-run Scavo and ensure missing-alt issues are cleared.

What this scan cannot confirm

• It does not score whether alt wording is high quality.
• It does not know business intent for each image automatically.
• It does not cover CSS background images.

Owner checklist

• [ ] Assign owner for media accessibility standards.
• [ ] Require alt field policy in CMS/editor workflow.
• [ ] Add QA checks for hero/product/tutorial images.
• [ ] Review decorative-image conventions in design system docs.

FAQ

Is empty alt always wrong?

No. Empty alt is correct for purely decorative images.

Can we auto-generate alt from file names?

Not reliably. Filename text is usually low quality and often misleading.

Should logos have alt text?

Usually yes when meaningful; context matters (brand identification vs decorative repetition).

What should we fix first?

Start with images that carry meaning: products, diagrams, screenshots, and key hero media.

Sources

• W3C WAI: Images tutorial and decision tree
• WCAG 2.2: Non-text content (1.1.1)
• MDN: alt attribute

Need an editorial rule set for decorative vs informative image alt in your CMS? Send support your media workflow.