Here’s what the official and authoritative sources actually say — these are solid references for the post:
Google’s own documentation (the strongest reference)
Google Search Central’s Image SEO Best Practices is explicit:
“Write informative, descriptive alt text… Avoid filling alt attributes with keywords (keyword stuffing) as it results in a negative user experience and may cause your site to be seen as spam.”
That’s a direct quote from Google. Using just the product name isn’t keyword stuffing in the traditional sense, but it’s the same failure — no descriptive content, just a label.
The SEO Starter Guide also covers alt text under image optimisation with the same guidance.
Ahrefs
Their Alt Text for SEO guide specifically addresses ecommerce and warns against using product names alone — they recommend including colour, material, and key visual features so the alt text actually describes what’s in the image.
Ecommerce-specific guides
- Pixc — Alt Text for Ecommerce — focused entirely on product image alt text, explains why descriptive beats nominal
- ClickShark — Alt Text Optimisation for Ecommerce SEO — UK-based, covers this specific pattern
The angle for your post
The Google quote is your anchor — it’s direct, authoritative, and quotable. The Ahrefs piece gives you the ecommerce-specific framing. You can legitimately say “Google’s own documentation warns against this” and link straight to developers.google.com.
Sources: