Images that do not load
What it is
The page answers normally, but one or more of its <img> elements point to an address where there is no file: the server answers 404 (Not Found) or 410 (Gone). Visitors see a broken image icon or an empty space. It usually happens after a media library is cleaned up, a site moves to new hosting, or uploads are reorganised into new folders while pages still point to the old paths.
Why it matters
A broken image looks like a broken page: visitors lose the chart, product photo or diagram the text refers to, and trust in the page drops with it. Google can only show an image it can fetch in Image search and in results, and AI systems that read the page get no image to describe or cite. Alt text cannot help, because there is nothing for it to describe, so Asky reports these images here instead of as missing alt text.
How Asky checks it
After the crawl, Asky requests each image the audited pages load once, by the src (or data-src) of every <img>, paced like the crawl. Only images on your own site are requested. An image is reported when it answers 404 or 410; a 403, 429, 5xx or no answer is never counted as broken. A working image is checked again after a week, a broken or unanswered one on every audit. One finding per page lists the images. Images added by JavaScript, CSS backgrounds and inline <svg> are not checked. A broken image is left out of the alt text issues.
Reported as an error with medium severity.
How to fix it
- Open the finding to see which image addresses do not load, and open one in your browser to confirm.
- If the file still exists somewhere else on your site, such as in a dated uploads folder, point the image to its current address in your CMS: in WordPress, replace the image in the block or the media library; in Webflow, reselect the asset.
- If the file is gone, upload it again, or replace it with another image that carries the same meaning.
- If the image is no longer needed, remove it from the page.
- If many pages point to images that moved together, add a redirect from the old image addresses to the new ones at the server or CDN, so every page that still uses an old address loads the image again.
Example
A diagram on https://example.com/guides/raised-beds/ whose file moved into a dated uploads folder:
<!-- Before: the file is no longer at this address (404) -->
<img src="/wp-content/uploads/raised-bed-diagram.png" alt="Layers of a raised garden bed">
<!-- After: the image points to where the file is now -->
<img src="/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/raised-bed-diagram.png" alt="Layers of a raised garden bed">