Missing alt text: what it means and how to fix it

What we look for

Some images on these pages have no alt attribute at all, so they carry no alt text (a short written description of the image). Tracking pixels and inline data images are skipped.

Why it matters

Screen readers read alt text aloud to people who cannot see the image, and search engines use it to understand what the image shows.

How to fix

Add an alt attribute to each image that says what it shows in a few words. Use an empty alt="" only for purely decorative images.

Where you’ll see it

The id is stable, and every surface uses it, so it’s the thing to search for or hand to an agent.

Terminal: When it is one of the five findings under Fix first, raptor crawl prints the id under it.
Check: images.missing_alt_attribute
crawl.json and the CSV: The crawl JSON names the finding by this id, and so do the CSV and raptor_query.
"check_id": "images.missing_alt_attribute"
The HTML report: This link opens the finding in the report, and each finding shows its id.
crawl.html#finding=images.missing_alt_attribute
MCP: raptor_findings with this check_id returns the finding in full, with a fix brief ready to paste into a task. If it didn’t fire, it says why.
raptor_findings { "job_id": "...", "check_id": "images.missing_alt_attribute" }