Hello,
I apologize for the issue you are facing with your SEO score not reflecting the changes you’ve made regarding the word count and alt text for images. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
For the word count issue, ensure that the content is not only counted by your website’s word counter but also recognized by Rank Math. Sometimes, discrepancies can occur due to caching or how the content is structured. You might want to check if there are any caching plugins that could be affecting this.
Regarding the alt text for your images, please ensure that the alt text is correctly set in the image settings. If you are using the Gutenberg editor, you can add alt text by clicking on the image and filling in the Alt text field in the Block Settings. If you’re using the Classic editor, click on the image, select the pencil icon, and add your desired Alt text there.
If everything seems correct and the issues persist, it might be beneficial to run an SEO analysis using Rank Math’s SEO Analysis Tool to identify any other potential issues. You can find more information about this tool here.
If you would like a more comprehensive setup or assistance, we recommend our professional setup service available at Rank Math Services. This service requires a PRO subscription and is designed to ensure your plugin setup is fully correct and adheres to the latest SEO standards.
If you continue to experience these issues, please reply to this ticket with your site URL so that a human agent can assist you further.
Thank you for your patience, and we look forward to helping you improve your SEO score!
Everything seems correct and the SEO analyzer only identifies a few minor warnings and errors, but nothing to do with this. URL is https://heronpondhideaway.com/book-winter-getaway/
Hello,
Thank you for reaching out to Rank Math support.
We checked the concerned page but found that the images on that page are not added using the img tag, but as background images using CSS.
Rank Math is designed to read the ALT attributes exclusively for images (img) that are directly incorporated into the content of posts or pages (post content area).
We hope this helps. Please let us know if you have further questions or concerns.
Thank you.
I have written in about this several times and no one has ever said that. Every one one of my pages has a hero section with main image as background and then text over it. I imagine that is very common. What is the workaround for this?
Hello,
Yes, using background images in hero sections is quite common. However, since background images aren’t part of the page content and don’t support alt attributes, Rank Math (and search engines) can’t read them for SEO purposes.
The only workaround is to add a visually hidden ![]()
tag with the same image and appropriate alt text in the content area. This way, it can be detected by Rank Math and search engines alike.
Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any other questions.
Wow. Ok. Just some feedback that maybe you guys could figure out a better way to deal with that–and also have it in the instructions or videos because i went through all of the docs on your website and watched many youtube videos and even read about the instructions for each “error” and nothing says anything about that.
Hello,
Background images are commonly used for design but cannot include alt attributes. This method is common (especially in page builders), but background images don’t support alt attributes and won’t be picked up for SEO or accessibility.
Automating SEO checks for background images is technically complex and still wouldn’t yield reliable SEO signals, since:
– There’s no standard way to associate background images with meaningful, crawlable alt text.
– Tools like Lighthouse, Google Search Console, and Schema validators also ignore background images for this reason.
We’ve noted your request and will consider flagging common usage patterns (like background images in hero sections) and recommending best practices or alternatives, such as using a hidden ![]()
tag for SEO value.
Don’t hesitate to let us know if you need our assistance with anything else.
