Blank Alt Text Isn't the Same as Missing Alt Text

An empty alt="" attribute is a deliberate signal: "this image is decorative, skip it." A completely missing alt attribute is different — it tells screen readers and crawlers nothing, which is a worse, ambiguous state, not an equivalent one.

The fix:

use alt="" intentionally for genuinely decorative images (a background flourish, a spacer). For anything meaningful — product photos, diagrams, screenshots — write real, specific alt text describing what's actually shown.