Alt Text not working & Black Etsy Icon 2/12/2025

[SugarTaffySoap]

My Alt Text is not letting me complete in photo images yesterday and today. Plus there's a black & white Etsy logo in my shop rather than orange and white? 

On top of that no sales on 2/12.

Anyone else?

[CallmeHang]

Same here!

[Amaradorn]

I noticed the Etsy icon change. I guess they just wanted to change it for whatever reason - makes no sense. I don't like it because the old orange one stood out more. Lack of consistency on the platform results in a poor user experience for both sellers and buyers, however Etsy have never seemed to understand that.

[AnnaleasFinest]

Same here,  since yesterday! I can't type more than one letter at a time, nor delete swiftly!

Definitely a technical problem!!

[SugarTaffySoap]

@AnnaleasFinest @Amaradorn  Were your sales negatively affected ? 

[Amaradorn]

@SugarTaffySoap not in this instance -  it's only the sales channel icon has changed on the shop manager side menu.

My comment regarding consistency was more of a general observation. I can imagine that constantly moving the location of the listing description, for instance, might have an effect on sales.

[AnnaleasFinest]

@SugarTaffySoap 

I don't know how it would have been, don't think so!

Did you tell the chat?

[HallelujahTree]

Yes, several were reporting the same yesterday.  If you type it out elsewhere, copy & paste, then that solves it but it's annoying when things that worked suddenly don't. I saw they've messed around with the new listing form (added a tick box for personalised or not, on top of the usual personalisation box).  Every time they change one thing something else goes wrong!

[PillowDetails]

As for the black shop icon on the Dash menu - yes, I have that too.  Frittering with stuff like that is just so useless to me. Did they suddenly decide this was something needed for the visually impaired, like when they changed the review stars from gold to black?  But then we got the gold stars back on our Orders page, when Buyers leave reviews.  And an orange star for repeat Buyers.

And if it's another "test" - how is success/failure decided as an outcome?

[PillowDetails]

Oh - and my two cents on the alt text - it helps your items on Google.  Outside of Etsy.  So we'd get more Offsite Ads, probably.

Does it say anywhere that it helps on the actual Etsy site or app?  I will have to take a closer look.

*  Uh-huh - as I suspected -

https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/4406604492823-How-to-Add-a-Text-Alternative-to-Your-Listing-...

What happens if I don’t add text alternatives to my images?

If you don’t provide a text alternative to describe an image, Etsy will automatically add a description to your listing using AI generated text. If you don’t want Etsy to automatically add alt text to your listing images, manually add your own alt text to your listings.

[DesignsStainedGlass]

My Alt text is not working either, since yesterday. 

[SugarTaffySoap]

@PillowDetails  Re the last sentence of the article, I did read that and it makes me wonder how accurate AI is at describing a photo image. 

[BagmakerSupply]

@SugarTaffySoap: "... makes me wonder how accurate AI is at describing a photo image." If you have listings without manually added alt text, it is easy to see, just do a 'view page source' on a listing and search for alt= until you get to the image carousel.

[MerchantofOdd]

oh jesh, I thought there was something wrong with my keyboard! LOL

Etsy, Etsy... oh how you befuddle us 

[SugarTaffySoap]

@MerchantofOdd  I know what you mean. One time I thought it was my mouse, I changed the battery, then switched to another mouse and that wasn't even the problem!!   

[SugarTaffySoap]

@BagmakerSupply  Yes I used to check that area which made me decide to add my own alt text.  

[UdderlyGoodStuff]

My icon is black and I have tried 20 ways to Sunday to fix it, change file type, different browser etc - it will not let me put an actual image in just stays all black!

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