Product photos only rank in Google Images, and only reach screen reader users, when their alt text says what the product is.
To improve WooCommerce image SEO, give every product image a specific alt text: product name, the attribute the photo shows, the variant if any. Keep it between 8 and 125 characters, never reuse the same alt across a gallery, and audit the whole catalog rather than fixing photos one by one. WooCommerce writes none of this for you.
WooCommerce reads the alt text of a product image from the media library, nothing else. A photo uploaded from the product screen with an empty field ships with an empty alt on the product page, in the gallery, on the category grid and in every related-products block that reuses it.
Catalogs make it worse at scale: importers copy the product name into every image, galleries repeat the same photo in four sizes, variation images get uploaded in a hurry. Across the 2,449 images of our benchmark, 8% carry an alt already used by another image, and product sites are where those duplicates pile up.
Each one looks fine in the front end. Each one costs you in Google Images and in accessibility audits.
Import tools fill the alt with the product title for every image of the product. Six photos, six identical alts. Search engines see one description repeated and treat five of them as noise.
Gallery and variation images are uploaded separately and rarely described. They are also the ones that show the color, the back, the size chart: exactly the details a shopper searches for.
Some plugins turn IMG_4832 or red-shoe-final-v2 into alt text automatically. It fills the field and fails the purpose: a screen reader hears a file name, Google indexes a file name.
of audited images have no alt text at all
carry an alt duplicated from another image
average ALT Quality Score out of 100
One rule per image type. Apply it to the main photo first, then the gallery, then the variations.
Start with what a shopper would type: brand and product name. « Salomon Speedcross 6 trail running shoe » beats « shoe », and beats « product image » by a mile.
Each gallery image gets the angle or detail it carries: side view, sole, close-up of the lacing. That is what turns six images into six different alts instead of one repeated.
Color, size or material, only when the image shows it. « Speedcross 6 in Fiery Red » is right on the red variation image and wrong on the black one.
Below 8 the alt says nothing; above 125, screen readers may truncate and Google gains nothing. Our scoring methodology uses those exact thresholds.
The SKU belongs in the product data, not in the alt. Repeating « buy cheap trail shoes online » in every image is the fastest way to get the whole gallery ignored.
Filikod scans the whole media library, including the gallery and variation images no product page shows in full, and lists every image with a missing, generic or duplicated alt. You filter by issue, fix from one list and watch the score climb.
Not sure how bad the catalog is? Run the free checker on a product page first, it works before you install anything.
Yes. Google Images relies on the alt attribute, the file name and the surrounding text to understand a product photo. A descriptive alt is the signal you control most directly, and Google Images is a real entry point for visual products such as clothing, furniture or decor.
No. WooCommerce outputs whatever the media library holds for each image. If the field is empty, the product page ships an empty alt. Some import tools copy the product title into every image, which creates duplicates rather than descriptions.
The product name, yes, because it is what people search for. The SKU, no: it means nothing to a shopper or a screen reader and it belongs in the product data. Keep the alt for what the image shows.
Not one by one. Install the free Filikod plugin, run the audit and filter by issue: duplicates first on a catalog, then missing. Every alt is edited from a single list, and our guide to bulk editing alt text in WordPress details the workflow.
A photo that only decorates a banner can carry an empty alt so screen readers skip it. A product photo never falls in that category: if a shopper could want to see it, describe it.
The full FAQ covers the checker, the score, the plugin and how your data is handled.
Install Filikod, filter your product images by issue and fix them from a single screen. The plugin is free and bulk editing is included.
