Is writing an alt text for images even needed anymore?

Vynith

Vynith

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I ask because surely in 2026 Google can use its own multimodal models to generate a more accurate alt text itself anyway.

I mean OCR has been around a while as well.

Maybe I'm missing something.
 
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Vynith said:
I ask because surely in 2026 Google can use its own multimodal models to generate a more accurate alt text itself anyway.

I mean OCR has been around a while as well.

Maybe I'm missing something.
Click to expand...
You mean using api of ais to solve captchas? If so i tested this claude was still the best! Gemini was 2nd i think statistically and chatgpt was complete dog doo. lol. None where perfect though all had different problems. With different captcha types.
 
Last edited:
Vynith said:
I ask because surely in 2026 Google can use its own multimodal models to generate a more accurate alt text itself anyway.

I mean OCR has been around a while as well.

Maybe I'm missing something.
Click to expand...
yes, alt text is highly important. Ai will not do so until prompted. AI is only smart as you are
 
Vynith said:
I ask because surely in 2026 Google can use its own multimodal models to generate a more accurate alt text itself anyway.

I mean OCR has been around a while as well.

Maybe I'm missing something.
Click to expand...
AI can understand image but alt tags still have a direct influence on ranking and accesibility and should not be inferred through other mean.
When you do not define it, then Google will have to make gueses about your intention—and that is not smart.
 
alt text is for accessibility and context, not best guess by search engines. plus auto text can miss details or the whole point of the image.
 
I think it’s still better to write them since Google can't use AI to scan every page considering the budget.
 
SIPSAMURAI said:
You mean using api of ais to solve captchas? If so i tested this claude was still the best! Gemini was 2nd i think statistically and chatgpt was complete dog doo. lol. None where perfect though all had different problems. With different captcha types.
Click to expand...

Might be interested in trying this out... I work on projects often and CAPTCHAs are a big pain in the ass for me most of the time

I have tried extensions before and they worked pretty fine to some extent but they were not always effective and after a while they stopped working.
 
Alt text still matters beacause it provides context that AI can easily miss, especially when the image supports the surrounding content. its as much about accessibilty as it is about search.
 
You're not missing anything. Google can definitely understand images much better than it used to, but alt text is still useful because it tells Google the context and purpose of the image, not just what's visible. I treat alt text as something written for accessibility first, with any SEO benefit being a nice bonus.
 
Not sure. But it takes less than 5 seconds to drop an image into ChatGPT with the prompt 'write alt text for this image'.
 
Vynith said:
I ask because surely in 2026 Google can use its own multimodal models to generate a more accurate alt text itself anyway.

I mean OCR has been around a while as well.

Maybe I'm missing something.
Click to expand...
I still add alt text, but I keep it natural. It takes very little time, helps search engines understand the image, and improves accessibility. It's one of those low effort best practices rather than a ranking hack...
 
Alt text will give perspective that connects the image to the blog post. AI can struggle to make sense of an image. For example, if a man and a woman sit on a bench, you can add alt text that fits the niche & blog post where as AI will assume if they are strangers, friends, lovers, etc. based on background and objects in the frame. If 2 strangers sit on a bench with the man talking to someone on his phone and the woman holding a gift box while there are a pet animal, balloons, etc. in the background, AI assumes that they are lovers. Alt text clears such things and gives exactly what's necessary for the blog post.
 
Vynith said:
I ask because surely in 2026 Google can use its own multimodal models to generate a more accurate alt text itself anyway.

I mean OCR has been around a while as well.

Maybe I'm missing something.
Click to expand...
If you're wanting people using screen readers to be able to understand your images it's a courtesy. Otherwise nowadays it's pretty much just there to give you a little tick on all those 'SEO audit' reports that are just basically busy work.
 
Yeah google is lazy and running multimodal models on billions of images is way too expensive for them to do at scale. they might do it for top tier authority sites but for average sites they will just skip the deep analysis or guess poorly. if you actually want to rank in image search... which still pulls decent traffic for ecom and affiliate... you need to control the context. letting an AI guess your intent is just leaving money on the table. plus it takes two seconds to automate alt text generation anyway during upload if you are using api.
 
Well, yes, because crawler sees it as a plain text and that is a possibility to use your keywords more times.
 
If you check where you are, and who you are serving your content, you are supposed to in some countries be mindful of anti discrimination. I think in the uk there is a company that will verify your eligibility. Basically blind and bad sighted people can sue you if they can't understand your site, and its not made to suit them too.

Alt text for images I think is a crucial tag to detect this.

https://www.rnib.org.uk/web-accessibility-compliance-statement/

read more there
 
unironically some images get me a good amount of traffic which ends up converting into sales. I do figure some niches work better than others though
 
Alt text is still worth writing because its first job is accessibility, not helping Google guess what an image contains. Screen-reader users need the author's intended context, and automated vision may miss why the image matters on that specific page. Keep it short and descriptive, skip keyword stuffing, and leave decorative images with empty alt text. OCR and multimodal models are useful, sure, but they don't replace a clear human description when the image carries information.
 
yes, it’s still needed. google may improve how it understands images, but alt text is still your explicit, accessible description for screen readers and “what you meant,” and it helps when the model can’t perfectly infer context.
 
Keyword tools tell you what people search for, but Reddit can show you why they are searching. Both together can make better content.
 
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