### Author:  [@leopedrini](https://meta.discourse.org/u/leopedrini)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2023, 1:36am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/automatically-add-a-relevant-alt-image-attribute/259430/1 "2023-03-26T01:36:25Z")
Hello dears.
When a user upload an image to a new topic/post, the image has the alt attribute as ‘image’ (default for all images).
Like in this example:
Here, to demonstrate my suggestion, i have changed alt name, so when user click it gets a “relevant” information.
or
**Alt text for images is very important for SEO and is a key contributing search engine ranking factor**
What happens is, in my webforum, with thousands of posts, almost all image has its alt name as ‘image’.
So, my suggestion:
If alt attribute is deafult (‘image’) change it to a relevant name (for example, and suggestion, the name of the topic + # of post).
---
### Author:  [@Jagster](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jagster)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2023, 9:57am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/automatically-add-a-relevant-alt-image-attribute/259430/2 "2023-03-26T09:57:45Z")
> [@leopedrini](#):
>
> Alt text for images is very important for SEO
Nope. Alt is kind of more important to give users a bit better chances when searching **images** , but filename is the important one, but the most important thing is to use right context, ”_this an apple: \_.
For SEO of a site alt is totally meaningless.
---
### Author:  [@Ed\_S](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Ed_S)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2023, 1:44pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/automatically-add-a-relevant-alt-image-attribute/259430/3 "2023-03-26T13:44:19Z")
Alt text is very useful for those using screenreaders - including people who are blind or partially sighted. But ideally it is text which describes what is being shown. It’s an accessibility issue. (I can’t think of a simple way to do that annotation - one of the image-oriented software services might do it.)
---
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2023, 1:24am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/automatically-add-a-relevant-alt-image-attribute/259430/4 "2023-03-27T01:24:09Z")
Yes, this has popped up before. To me the accessibility argument is far more important than the SEO one.
When you dump an image in a post and give it no description, blind people reading the forum are at a great disadvantage. They lose extremely important context.
AI can help bit here and provide [automatic titles](https://openai.com/research/clip). I would say it performs okish, but has plenty of gaps.
As an opening move I recommend creating a theme component .
`force users to provide titles on images`
When enabled and you post anything and forget to enter a title for your images we could prompt you with a intermediary bootbox that reminds you to add titles to your images.
---
### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2023, 2:43am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/automatically-add-a-relevant-alt-image-attribute/259430/5 "2023-03-27T02:43:47Z")
AI provided image alt text is on our backlog for the AI team, by the way.
---
### Author:  [@Jagster](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jagster)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2023, 5:34am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/automatically-add-a-relevant-alt-image-attribute/259430/6 "2023-03-27T05:34:58Z")
> [@sam](#):
>
> To me the accessibility argument is far more important than the SEO one
Of course it is. Well, more or less the argument is anything else than SEO.
I have two blind friends. Both are saying same all the time: the issue is not alt itself, but lack of quality alt-text, plus using alt everywhere all the time on images without any content — and here I see really big issues when webmasters get AI that starts generate alt-texts.
And… the main issue for screen readers is bad design of platform, and there the team has done quite good job.
---
### Author:  [@mustachianpost](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mustachianpost)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2023, 10:20am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/automatically-add-a-relevant-alt-image-attribute/259430/7 "2023-08-27T10:20:23Z")
Hey Falco, that’s great news 🙂
Will your work result in a core new feature, or as a plugin?
And most importantly to me: rough planning is availability in 2023 or more 2024?
---
### Author:  [@mustachianpost](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mustachianpost)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2023, 10:26am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/automatically-add-a-relevant-alt-image-attribute/259430/8 "2023-08-27T10:26:07Z")
Interesting.
Without coding anything, is there a native way where I can check a box to make image alt text mandatory across my entire Discourse instance?
---
### Author:  [@Jagster](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jagster)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2023, 11:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/automatically-add-a-relevant-alt-image-attribute/259430/9 "2023-08-27T11:01:02Z")
Hopefully not, because that is something you don’t want to do. You would like to see ALT when an image is important part of content. Mostly images are just… visual noise 😜 and then no one should use ALT.
---
### Author:  [@leopedrini](https://meta.discourse.org/u/leopedrini)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2023, 2:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/automatically-add-a-relevant-alt-image-attribute/259430/10 "2023-08-29T14:06:32Z")
This is what happens when all images do not have a name:
---
### Author:  [@Lhc\_fl](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Lhc_fl)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2023, 4:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/automatically-add-a-relevant-alt-image-attribute/259430/11 "2023-08-29T16:00:41Z")
Most people are lazy. Unless you pay the moderator to help perform such an operation, most users are too lazy to type helpful alt. There is a high probability that you will get a bunch of images whose alt is 1, aaa, xxx, image1, etc.
---
### Author:  [@45thj5ej](https://meta.discourse.org/u/45thj5ej)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2024, 8:20pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/automatically-add-a-relevant-alt-image-attribute/259430/12 "2024-04-08T20:20:06Z")
13 months later, how’s this coming along? Was wondering if I could add alt text to any images I upload in a post. I use the Landing Pages plugin with the Blog landing page and it seems alt text isn’t being given to the images being grabbed for the blog landing page? ([https://forums.gonomad.me/home](https://forums.gonomad.me/home)) - Or at least that’s what Lighthouse and performance sites are telling me.
---
### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2024, 8:35pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/automatically-add-a-relevant-alt-image-attribute/259430/13 "2024-04-08T20:35:33Z")
> [@45thj5ej](#):
>
> 13 months later, how’s this coming along?
We shipped this feature under the Discourse AI module a few months ago, see
> [@AI Image Captioning Feature in Discourse AI Plugin](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-image-captioning-feature-in-discourse-ai-plugin/296087):
>
> We’ve introduced an AI Image Captioning feature to the Discourse AI plugin, enabling automatic caption generation for images in posts. This functionality aims to improve content accessibility and enrich visual elements within your community. Features and Use Automatic AI Captions: Upon uploading an image in the editor, you can generate a caption automatically using AI. Editable Captions: The generated caption can be edited to better suit your content’s context and tone. Enhanced Accessibility:…