"Alt Text" means Alternate Text. It was originally used as an alternative to displaying an image on a page when the image could not be displayed. I suspect that began in the old days of limited bandwidth and when a big image clogged the pipes, the browser would display the Alt Text in its place.

Today, search engines use Alt Text to determine what is in an image as well as the subject matter.

Alternate text is supplied along side the reference to the image in HTML. It's always good to have a meaningful Alt text to help search engines determine meaning and context of every image on your website.

Tags: al text, alt, context