Bulk Alt Text Pack

What the pack does

For each product image in your file, we download the image and ask our vision model whether its current alt text is true of it. Each image gets one verdict:

• keep: the alt text describes the image. It is not changed, and no draft is written for it.
• missing: the image has no alt text.
• generic: the alt text is a file name, a placeholder such as "image" or "product photo", or only the product title, so it says nothing about what this image shows.
• false: the alt text describes something the image does not show, such as the wrong color, product or view.
• not checked: we could not download the image, or the model gave no answer for it. The review file says which, and why.

For missing, generic and false images, we draft new alt text in an online-store style: the product type first, then the details a shopper would want that the image shows, with your product title for names an image cannot show, such as the brand.

What you get

• A review file: one row per image, with its handle, its image address, its current alt text, the verdict, the reason for it, and the drafted alt text or a blank.
• An import file: only the images whose alt text should change, in three columns: Handle, Image Src and Image Alt Text.

Both are CSV files you can open in a spreadsheet. The drafts are model-checked drafts to review before you import, not finished text: read each one against its image, and edit it where it is wrong.

What is changed, and what is not

• Alt text we judge good is never changed: it gets no draft, and it is not in the import file.
• A draft is written only for an image whose alt text is missing, generic or false.
• Nothing is changed in your store. We never sign in to it or write to it. You review the files and import the changes yourself.
• Your product titles are used only as context for the drafts. Product descriptions, prices and every other column of your file are not read by the server: your browser keeps only the handle, the title, the image address and the alt text of each image.

The CSV formats

A Shopify product export

Export your products from Shopify as a CSV file. We read four of its columns: Handle, Title, Image Src and Image Alt Text. A product with several images has a row for each image, and the title is taken from the product's first row. Rows with no image address, such as extra variant rows, are left out.

A simple file of images

Any CSV file with a column of image addresses and a column of alt text, with a header row naming them, such as Image Src and Image Alt Text, or Image URL and Alt Text. A Title column and a Handle column are used if they are there. A file with no header row is read as an image address, then its alt text, on each row.

Limits

• One pack checks up to 500 product images. If your file lists more, this order checks the first 500 in the file; remove those products from the file and buy another pack for the rest.
• Each image has to be a JPEG, PNG, WebP or GIF file of at most 3 MB at a public web address. For an image on Shopify, we ask Shopify for a copy 1,200 pixels wide, so a large product photo still fits.
• Images are downloaded by GotAltBot, our fetcher. If the image host's robots.txt has a rule addressed to GotAltBot by name that blocks an image, we skip it and mark it not checked. GotAltBot says more.

Importing the changes

Importing needs a bulk import tool. Two ways work:

• A product CSV re-import: copy the drafts you approve from the review file into the Image Alt Text column of your own full product export, then import that file again.
• An import app you already use: give it the import file, if it can update image alt text from the Handle, Image Src and Image Alt Text columns.

Before you import, keep a copy of your original export, and check what your import tool does with columns a file leaves out.

Refunds

If the pack could not run on your file, or you find that most of its verdicts are wrong, email hello@gotalt.com from the address you paid with within 7 days of paying, and we refund the payment in full.

What we keep, and for how long

Paying creates a GotAlt account with the email address you give at checkout, unless that address already has one, and the pack goes on that account. Upload your file within 30 days of paying. The rows of your file and the results are kept for 30 days after the pack finishes, so you can download the two files again, and are then deleted. The order itself is kept with our billing records. Our privacy policy has the details, and our terms of service cover the pack in full.