---
name: image-alt-and-caption-pass
description: Use when a page set has alt text that was generated in bulk, left empty, or filled with file names.
---

# Alt Text And Caption Pass

Alt text serves screen readers first and image search second, and the two goals mostly agree. Bulk generation ignores the surrounding copy and produces descriptions that repeat what the paragraph already said, which helps neither. The opposite failure is as common: descriptive alt on every icon and divider, so a screen reader user hears noise between paragraphs. Sort the images that carry meaning from the ones that do not before writing anything.

## Was Sie vorher brauchen

- Every image on the page set with its surrounding paragraph, current alt, caption and file name
- A decision on which images are decorative, which needs whoever chose them
- Image-search impressions from Search Console for any images already earning traffic

## Methode

1. List each image next to the sentence it sits beside. Alt written without the surrounding copy is what produces duplicates of the body text, the standard bulk-tool output.
2. Split into three groups: images carrying information not in the text, images illustrating text already present, and decorative images. Mixing these is what produces bad alt at scale.
3. Give informational images alt that states the information rather than the appearance. For a chart, that is the finding, not the words "bar chart".
4. Give decorative images an empty alt attribute rather than no attribute. Empty alt tells assistive technology to skip the image; a missing attribute can make it read the file name aloud.
5. Write captions for the images people will actually stop at. Captions are read far more than body copy and, unlike alt, they are visible to every reader.
6. Rename meaningful files to describe the content in words, but restrict renames to new images or a deliberate batch, since renaming a file that already earns image-search traffic resets its history.
7. Check the result with a screen reader or the accessibility tree on the two or three most image-heavy pages. Counting alt attributes tells you nothing about whether the page is listenable.

## Was dabei herauskommt

Per page: revised alt for informational images, empty alt on decorative ones, captions where they earn attention, and a rename list scoped to new files.

## Wo es schiefgeht

- Generating alt in bulk without the surrounding paragraph, producing text that duplicates the copy for both readers and image search
- Adding descriptive alt to icons and dividers, which makes the page slower and more confusing to listen to
- Renaming image files that already rank, which discards their history for a cosmetic gain
- Treating alt as a place for keywords, which reads as spam to a person listening and does not help the ranking it was meant to

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Aus der QuQi-Skill-Bibliothek - https://www.quqi.io/de/skills/image-alt-and-caption-pass