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We have a downloads library containing about 22,000 items (pages) and for each of the pages, there is a section of screenshots showing the download in action.

Currently, we can't go through almost 110,000 images and add unique ALT descriptions so what we have done it simply left the ALT attribute blank (alt="").

Would it be beneficial to add something like alt="Screenshot 1", alt="Screenshot 2"... etc?

Or maybe "alt="Screenshot 1 of Title of Download"... etc.

We don't want to over-do SEO and flag up any filters.

Or is it OKAY to leave these ALT attributes blank in this situation?

Your comments, thoughts and suggestions are greatly appreciated in advance.

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    Alt text has nothing to do with SEO. It only helps with image search and accessibility. Nothing more.
    – closetnoc
    Jul 27, 2017 at 15:25
  • @closetnoc: Nothing to do with SEO? I wouldn't say that, images search is part of the most common search engines' capabilities.
    – Oskar Skog
    Jul 27, 2017 at 17:29

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alt="Screenshot 1", alt="Screenshot 2" would be about the same as not having anything at all. You can find information on all of your questions here: https://moz.com/learn/seo/alt-text

Some context from the page about alt text uses:

  1. Adding alternative text to photos is first and foremost a principle of web accessibility. Visually impaired users using screen readers will be read an alt attribute to better understand an on-page image.

  2. Alt tags will be displayed in place of an image if an image file cannot be loaded.

  3. Alt tags provide better image context/descriptions to search engine crawlers, helping them to index an image properly.

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