Google's Images Search

mattyw · #1 (**permalink**) 08-10-2005, 01:08 AM

I have a site that features, among other things, custom candy wrappers, wine labels, Save the Date magnets, and has a lot of graphics that were developed and copyrighted by me.

Anything above a thumbnail has the word "display" in a light grey over any graphic, but I notice quite a lot of traffic I'm getting from Google images.

I need an opinion from you people out there whether you think this is a good thing. I'm inclined to think that for the most part the people searching for images are searching so that they can use them themselves, rather than to buy anything, and if you all think I should forbid the \images directory in my robots file.

The website is www.thinkwedding.com, and I would very much appreciate your opinion.

Thanks,
matty

KeithO · #2 (**permalink**) 08-10-2005, 09:55 AM

Initially when someone clicks on a image in the images matrix from Google, they take the searcher to the page that includes the image. If your page has something that catches their eye, why block their door way in?

steve_avs · #3 (**permalink**) 08-10-2005, 02:54 PM

I agree,

Don't block this.

I get quite a few refers from Google Images. Almost as many as Google Search. The vast majority are people looking for free images but you never know, thay may bookmark you and come back another time, or tell someone else what a great site they found...

Steve

google junky · #4 (**permalink**) 08-10-2005, 05:25 PM

I use the CHImageGuard php script from http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive...ctimages.shtml

You are able to allow only certain domains and subdomains if you like to show your images. Additionally the image can be set to produce nothing or a one selected image to replace the one a person tries to use, such as a banner as a replacement.
We use this on our e-commerce website to protect our product pictures. We did allow images.google.com to use the images but elsewhere do not allow them. Also the url to the images is masked so the person trying to link to the image will fail miserably.

In short this script allows whoever you tell it to link to images and everyone else will not be allowed to link to your images. You can have multiple allowed domains or subdomains.

I had posted this once before , but also seems relevent here as well.

steve_avs · #5 (**permalink**) 08-10-2005, 07:38 PM

You can do exactly the same thing with .htaccess script modifications. I monitor bandwith and if it appears a site may be using our images to a great degree, they will get a 403 every time they try to link to an image.

Regards,

Steve

google junky · #6 (**permalink**) 08-11-2005, 12:52 AM

You will need mod_rewrite to be enabled on your server for this version of .htaccess to work. Add to your root or the subdirectory if you only want this in a certain directory.

The below example gives a simple error as steve_avs had talked about.
Replace domain.com with your in the code.

Code:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?domain.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg)$ - [F]

This example Below is the same thing but using an image to replace the one that they were trying to use.
A good idea if you would like to replace it with a banner or logo and advertising your site instead.

Code:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?domain.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg)$ http://www.domain.com/banner.gif [R,L]

mattyw · #7 (**permalink**) 08-11-2005, 09:48 AM

I am not so concerned that people will link to the pages; I am concerned about the fact that I believe most people using the Google Images search are just looking for clip art they can pirate, but I was wondering if that was true. In other words, how many are looking to buy and how many are looking for freebies. I believed that for the most part people using it are just looking for free clip art.

I can't use the .htaccess file; it is my understanding that if you enable FrontPage Extensions on the server, you can't use that file.

What I was thinking of doing is excluding the \images directory in the robots.txt file, but I am worried that it might have effects in the regular Google search engine standings.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your input on this.

matty
www.thinkwedding.com

steve_avs · #8 (**permalink**) 08-11-2005, 02:06 PM

Matty,

If you use low res, rasterized versions (gif or jpeg) of the clipart I doubt you will get much piracy, other than from people who wouldn't have paid for it anyway.

People who are serious users will want to use the full (vector or higher res) version of the image.

You may also want to consider watermarking the images with a copyright notice if they belong to you.

Regards,

Steve

google junky · #9 (**permalink**) 08-11-2005, 04:34 PM

mattyw,

As far as a a web search rather than an image search your only concern that will be left is the image name as a reinforcement of what your page is about. This is one of the factors google uses to rank your page in search engine listings. Your non-inclusion of the image directory will have no ill effect on your rankings. Even if it isn't allowed to follow /images you will do just as fine as you were.

In my opinion... I do not believe that many people use an image search to find products or services unless the product or service is so obscure that it is hard to find in the first place in a normal web search. I would consider this a second or third option to a web search to find anything with informative, helpful, or useful content.

mattyw · #10 (**permalink**) 08-11-2005, 11:34 PM

First of all, I have both copyright notices on each image above a thumbnail, and I also have the word "display" in light grey across any graphics on the wrappers, labels, etc.

My feeling is that people using the images search are not looking for a product, they're looking for clip art, and as such as wasting my time and bandwidth, but I wanted to see what all of your opinions were, and I also wanted to know what the implications of putting a deny on the directory that has the images in the robots.txt file might do to my search engine standings.

Please keep the opinions coming--I very much appreciate this!

matty
www.thinkwedding.com

simonm · #11 (**permalink**) 08-12-2005, 08:01 AM

Just a comment about why people use Google images. I often use Google images as part of my routine search, in particular when the normal search doesn't find what I'm after. Like today - I'm looking for information on 'Pluckley primary school' reasonable results on a normal search, then images search takes me straight to the ofsted results (school scoring) which I wouldn't have thought to look for but actually was what I was after.

rocos · #12 (**permalink**) 08-12-2005, 08:13 AM

When I use it, it usually can't be reached!

**brian.mark** · #13 (**permalink**) 08-14-2005, 02:05 AM

With the image and other vertical results starting to show above the organic results in many cases, we've had images of ours showing up there and referring people to our site. Some of those have converted to customers for us, so we're not going to block the image bot at all. It's been a good thing for us.

Brian.