Accessibility finding
The same image has different alternative texts
Accessibility Warning Severity: Medium
Part of the audit Alternative text checked against the image itself. Finding id: accessibility.sameImageDifferentAlt.
What it costs you
Screen reader users are told different things about the same picture, and at least one description is likely out of date.
What to do
Pick the description that fits and use it everywhere the image only illustrates. Where the image is a link, the alt should name where the link goes.
What it checks
- Same image has different descriptions
How to fix it
Give the image one description
- Open the image in the media library and set its alternative text there, so pages that use it inherit it.
- On pages that override the alt by hand, remove the override unless the image is a link.
How to check: Recrawl: the image appears with one alt text.
A real case
In WebAIM's 2026 scan of the top one million home pages, 10.8% of the images that had alternative text had questionable or repetitive text, and one in four linked images had none.
How to verify by hand
A person: look at the image once and choose the alt that fits.
What this relies on
One image has one correct description, unless it is a link whose alt names the destination.