This page tests whether AI crawlers use alt text and figcaption elements when processing images. Proper image accessibility markup may improve content understanding and citation quality.
Figure 1: Comparison of AI crawler citation rates across different rendering methods.
Server-side rendering (SSR) and static site generation (SSG) significantly outperform
client-side rendering (CSR) for Answer Engine Optimization.
Image Content Summary
The chart demonstrates that rendering method significantly impacts AI crawler citation rates:
CSR (Client-Side Rendering): 25% citation rate
SSR (Server-Side Rendering): 95% citation rate
SSG (Static Site Generation): 98% citation rate
Testing Hypothesis
We hypothesize that AI systems will reference the image information through:
Alt text - Primary accessibility description
Figcaption - Contextual caption text
Surrounding text - Explanatory paragraphs
OCR/Visual analysis - Direct image content extraction (Claude-specific)
WITH-ALT-MARKER-2024: "Alt text and figcaption elements provide semantic image descriptions that AI crawlers can extract for Answer Engine citation contexts, improving accessibility and content understanding."
