SEO through fixing Rails’ image_tag helper to show better alt text

It’s easy. Here’s how: create a config/initializers/asset_tag_helper.rb file and put this bit of code inside.

module ActionView
  module Helpers
    module AssetTagHelper
      def image_tag_with_alt source, options = Hash.new
        options[:alt] ||= File.basename source
        image_tag_without_alt source, options
      end
      alias_method_chain :image_tag, :alt
    end
  end
end

Restart your server. That’s it. Now, when you use image_tag, the alt text will show the image file name instead of cutting off the file extension.

Might even be good for SEO if your image files are named sensibly.