This blog post explains why an online article that contains only an image and no readable text cannot be summarized by automated tools. It also covers what content creators, editors, and webmasters should do to make their pages both accessible and indexable.
Drawing on three decades of experience in scientific communication and digital content, I outline the technical reasons behind the problem. I also describe the accessibility and SEO consequences, and practical fixes you can implement today.
Why an image‑only page prevents summarization and indexing
When a webpage contains only an image file with no selectable or embedded text, most automated systems — including summarizers, search engines, and screen readers — cannot extract the meaningful content. This is because they rely on machine‑readable text to parse, index, and synthesize information.
Technical limitations that matter
Images of text are opaque to text-based tools. Without an underlying text layer, natural language processing systems cannot access the words they need to generate a summary or to evaluate relevance.
Similarly, search engine crawlers can index only what they can read; images without descriptive metadata are effectively invisible.
Accessibility and compliance concerns
From an accessibility standpoint, image-only content fails basic Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) because individuals who use screen readers cannot consume the information.
This creates legal and ethical risks for organizations that publish critical scientific or policy information solely as images.
Practical steps to fix image-only content
There are straightforward remedies that restore accessibility and make content machine-readable and searchable.
Implementing them improves user experience, SEO performance, and compliance with accessibility standards.
Immediate actions for content creators
Provide a full text alternative alongside the image. If the image contains an article, upload the article text in the page body or attach a properly tagged PDF.
If posting a scanned document, include a transcription in HTML so search engines and assistive tech can read it.
Longer term best practices
Adopt a content pipeline that separates text from presentation. Save master copies of articles as text and generate images as supplementary assets.
For archival documents, maintain both high‑quality images and verified OCR transcripts in metadata fields.
Automated OCR is helpful but not foolproof. Always manually review OCR output, especially for scientific text with symbols, equations, and domain‑specific terminology where misrecognition can materially change meaning.
How I can help and next steps
If you have an image that you want summarized, please share either the original text or a typed description of the image.
You can also provide a high‑resolution scan plus permission to run OCR.
With readable text I can produce a clear, accurate summary.
I can also help optimize the content for SEO and accessibility.
In short: avoid image‑only articles whenever possible.
Provide text alternatives and use OCR plus manual verification when working from scans.
Add structured metadata to make your scientific content discoverable and accessible.
Here is the source article for this story: Jamaica Extreme Weather