What is Alt text - A tag used in HTML to describe an image on a web site - that is, alternative text

Alt text - A tag used in HTML to describe an image on a web site - that is, alternative text that should describe the image. Sadly, too few designers use the facility to actually describe the image, often simply putting in the file name instead. Non-broadband surfers often use the web with their browser's image facility turned off so that pages download more quickly. In these circumstances the alt text tag would describe the image. More important is the tag's use by visually impaired surfers, for whom the alt text would be spoken by their text-reader software - for them 'image.jpg' would mean nothing, whereas 'picture of Surfing board' gives them a description of what the sighted user is viewing. Also important is that search engine algorithms take notice of alt text tags. In the example above, someone searching on the term 'surf board', or simply 'surf' would be likely to find that image - or the page it is on - featured in the search engine results page.