Wednesday, January 23, 2013 at 4:58 PM
Webmaster level: allPeople looking for images on Google often want to browse through many images, looking both at the images and their metadata (detailed information about the images). Based on feedback from both users and webmasters, we redesigned Google Images to provide a better search experience. In the next few days, you’ll see image results displayed in an inline panel so it’s faster, more beautiful, and more reliable. You will be able to quickly flip through a set of images by using the keyboard. If you want to go back to browsing other search results, just scroll down and pick up right where you left off.
Here’s what it means for webmasters:
- We now display detailed information about the image (the metadata) right underneath the image in the search results, instead of redirecting users to a separate landing page.
- We’re featuring some key information much more prominently next to the image: the title of the page hosting the image, the domain name it comes from, and the image size.
- The domain name is now clickable, and we also added a new button to visit the page the image is hosted on. This means that there are now four clickable targets to the source page instead of just two. In our tests, we’ve seen a net increase in the average click-through rate to the hosting website.
- The source page will no longer load up in an iframe in the background of the image detail view. This speeds up the experience for users, reduces the load on the source website’s servers, and improves the accuracy of webmaster metrics such as pageviews. As usual, image search query data is available in Top Search Queries in Webmaster Tools.
289 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 289 of 289Thanks Sean Locke. I have made my visit the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center:
http://www.iprcenter.gov/referral
I know others are doing the same!
Good. Much less time wasted on dead links and redirects and fruitless digging through cluttered sites. Haters can kiss my ass and deal with it how they will.
Yes it will be more attractive and fast rather than previous one searches type. With the passage of time these kinds of things should be introduce because users never get bore.
Google, you should know better how much of a bad idea this was. You sell advertising, and now you're providing a way to completely circumvent advertising on the target website.
Unless you're willing to burn your own bandwidth in rehosting the images, and providing links to the PAGE it appears, not the image itself, you're just going to have angry content creators block google images period.
As both a photographer (with images sold originally through Image Bank and now through Getty) and a web designer, I am not happy with the new image search interface.
You are encouraging and facilitating the theft of images. I would hate to see people concerned about illegal use of their images have to put large copyright notices over images just to prevent this kind of outright theft. Please rollback to displaying only thumbnails that encourage the viewer to visit the website of the image.
This is not a good thing for photographer and illustrator: Google doesn't make enough to protect the copyright of these images!
"A faster image search" - it's rather "A faster image theft"...
And then this whole google / getty images affair.
What's with the "don't be evil" motto, Larry and Sergey?
This roll out is a mess. It is almost like stealing images by Google with hotlinking images but giving option for people to download rather than encouraging them to visit the website hosting the images.
As Chris previously posted "Google, you are stealing bandwidth, you are stealing traffic, you are stealing copyright, and you are stealing revenues. Google you are asking the world to sue you!"
As an artist who posts my pictures online I see this new search method causing some problems! Here is a website that points them out. http://www.theotaku.com/news/view/1945/google%3A_the_world%27s_biggest_art_thief/
Here is Google's image publishing guide! It actually says things like that you should provide good context around your image with text n stuff. Well Google, this what we want and are trying to do, but you come and steal our image views. Maybe you should read your own advice? http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=114016
You are allowing and encouraging illegal use of my and others copyrighted images.
as Simon Steinberger (Pixabay.com say, this is the biggest lie of the century from google. For public domain sites like me (publicphoto.org) trafic drop with 55% … this is pure theft. Google shamelessly steal traffic from us , which translates into money for them !
Google offers great things across the Internet but image search needs to be significantly refined to respect copyrights. A discreet disclaimer blurb is not enough. A better effort needs to be made. This makes it way too easy for people to download images (knowingly or not) while ignoring ownership rights. In accordance with Google's "Do no evil" policy, it would be nice if Google were to lead the way with an innovative method of enforcing ownership rights in Google serps; in image search or any other search. Download capability should be automatically prohibited unless copyright settings explicitly authorize sharing/downloading.
Google is now scraping data, and can no longer be separated from the Black Hat websites they claim to defend users against.
At what point does the Images example get taken to text? For instance, search for a topic and Google scrapes relevant text from the website, but hides the source link?
Google is now the Black Hat Wikipedia. Wonderful.
I disallowed all image-bots, including the thief, Google, and I just set up no hotlinking through a WordPress plugin. YET GOOGLE IS STILL STEALING MY COPYRIGHTED CARTOONS that I sell for hundreds of dollars!!!!!
How to immediately disable them, does anyone know?
I have the email of an attorney at the Copyright office, if anyone wants it. However, the Copyright office just writes the law, and the Justice Dept enforces it, so that's where you should go.
Finally done the Watermark + Redirect script which works perfectly on WordPress sites. Hotlink protection as fansshare.com's which redirects (when click the image or "VIEW ORIGINAL IMAGE" button) to the post where the image is placed.
I checked the stats from Google Analytics and the traffic of my sites is back to normal :)
If you need it just e-mail me at: fo.cr33cr[at]gmail.com
So you win a lawsuit because you are not duplicating full size images and then you do this!
Thanks Guys, I am already losing traffic to Pinners who Pin my stuff on Pinterest without my permission and now you have just about killed off the traffic I get from Image Search.
Where's the incentive for them to click though to my sites so they can see a better image?
And thank you so much for making it easier for Image Thieves to steal my images.
But of course I don't matter. I am only one of the little guys and when I go down, there's enough new people to take my place.
Oh joy!
DO NOT BE FOOLED. This is not an improvement. Blog and Web owners have noticed dramatic drops in the number of people visiting their sites since this change. Some have stated they've 30 to 50 percent of their former traffic. Imagine a commercial blog or website losing that many viewers!! Others claim that they have lost ownnership of many of their photos and original artwork. I urge you all to immediately complain to Google and ask them to reverse this policy and image system. The survival of many of your favorite blogs and websites is in jeopardy.
Thank you.
After the update, my CTR for pictures went from 120 - 150 visits a day to 20.
That's very disappointing because obviously, people take the picture without going to the source anymore. Formerly, I got decent traffic from google images but now this is gone, which is sad.
i lost from 10000 to 4000, some day less, is possible google returns back ?
thanks
Thanks google..i love this image search!
This change breaks two privacy controls at Google's Picasaweb, as described in this thread at the Picasaweb help forum.
Picasaweb has long offered its users a sort of security-through-obscurity setting that makes individual photos posted there unfindable except in ways that the owner of the image controls. The new behavior takes that away.
Second, Picasaweb allows its users to specify that images are not available for reuse. This setting is not communicated to the users of google image search under the new format.
Quite honestly, the new arrangement is great for thieves, the only people likely to be interested in viewing these images divorced from their context on the web.
I dont like this new feature :(
Google, this was a terrible idea and you've greatly undermined the many webmaster's that have made what google is today...Yes it is good in terms of user experience but the problem is that you are no longer giving any benefit to those providing you with the content (webmasters). This decision will greatly affect the amount of search results in the future
I am very concerned about the metadata stripping that occurs when photographs are displayed in the search. I located a number of my images and several of them arrived on my desktop with minimal or no contact information. Keeping metadata intact is key for proper licensing of photographs. Yes, images are being stolen and used without permission all over the internet but we shouldn't be encouraging it.
My apologies if this posts twice. I seem to be caught in a blogger loop.
I searched and downloaded several of my images. Most arrived with either minimal or no contact information. Metadata has been stripped, which I consider a vital part of my images. The image search will encourage theft by making licensing more difficult. Yes, images are stolen and misused all over the internet every day. Google should not be facilitating this. I will also note that many, many irrelevant images showed up under my very specific searches.
This needs to be modified so that the viewer is directed to the page on the publisher's website where the image originated. Not only is Google stealing copywrited work and posting it on their site these full resolution images can be right clicked and stolen yet again by third parties who then use them on their websites to sell their products. If Google is going into the stock image business they need to pay for the usage rights. If they want to give away an image to fifty people that's great, just pay me each time a pre-negogiated amount.
Hi Google,
"Don't be evil" your corporate motto, if are to live up to this, then you should seriously consider your new image search function and listen to the image agency's and their professional photographers and illustrators - you are effectively helping people steal their images.
Just going to the image on a click "VIEW ORIGINAL IMAGE" and not the website were the image is, is a violation of copyright, human nature is to take the image if you have gone this far, basically stealing.
This is of real concern to thousands of people.
Hope you can live up to your MOTTO
You have no right to leave my photographs up for grabs in high resolution. I make a living selling those.
We need to get a class law-suit together.
Models in those photos have also been promised controlled licensing..
Are you out of your mind!!!
It is like leaving the door open to someone else's house, to let the thieves in.
You have no right!
The revised image search is AWFUL. In order to search "similar to", you have to now select an image, select more sizes, and then go up and change "more sizes" to "similar to." This is the only way to get to it, and it's extremely convoluted and non-intuituve. In fact, the only way I discovered what happed to the feature was by accident. Don't you have your teams do real-world testing before you release things?
In the past 3 days I have spent around 10-12hrs editing 120 photos I have taken on my travels. Today I will ftp these pics up to my site and spend 4hrs or so writing a description for each photo. After this hard and dedicated work I look forward to people interested in my topic to see these photos at MY SITE!
Our blog hits have fallen by 70% since the changes to Google images. Peeps don't get to see the cool blog that accompanies the pics. We hope others are not so badly affected.
Google is a referring site ,so it can't directly let the users get other website's content . it must show the web page .Google have no rights to show other website's image. It's like selling other person's car without his permission. i strongly object this
Some users are applauding this crap!
Shame on you! Don't you give a damn about the image owners and creators - the Blog owners and Webmasters!!? My original images, artwork and photos can now be taken and used without me even knowing it - or where it went. Images are no longer automatically linked to their sources. My web traffic has fallen to LESS than half of what it was before. This is a critical hit for sites that are commercial. In other words: It's STEALING.
I don't understand how this can be legal. The Google Images idea is ruined by the ease with which it can be used to steal images, and the lack of basic information about copyright. You clearly know and understand that images are subject to copyright, yet you post a 'may be subject to...' statement. Nor does your search tool option offer a license or 'use' option (though searching by use is available in the advanced image search). At least put your usage link near the 'may be subject to copyright' note. And surely you are clever enough to mark anything on the major stock sites as being subject to copyright.... I'd like to see your search tools clearly indicate 'fair use only' or default to only images that are known to be available for any use. A user should have to choose to see images in results that have copyright restrictions - as most do. Fair use is a limited concept that is surely misapplied by many...
So basically you steal my images and then make them available for anyone to download. Wow, thanks alot Google - I'm glad I worked so hard on my photography just to have YOU steal it right out from under me, free of charge, and I get screwed.
Google traffic has dropped by 50% on my site. There is no content about picture nor page where picture is located. I think that old solution with iFrame was more useful for users (more content in preview) and more friendly for webmasters. Unusual is that half of todays traffic coming from IE8++. Maybe because of previous solution with iFrame??...
I strongly believe this violates the copyright of the content owners, as Google is now now framing the image as their own, without sending the user directly to the source's website.
This would be like the regular Google web search stripping text from the source website and displaying it directly within Google - robbing the source of page views and revenue.
This is the first time that I've felt Google is violating the "don't be evil" pledge, and is using their dominant position at the expense of the content creators and sources.
Please return the functionality so that clicking on a thumbnail requires a user go to the source website if they'd like to view a larger version. This gives necessary credit to the content owners and artists.
Google, you forgot to put a 'like' button and 'share' button beside the large images. Then you can be just like Facebook aye? That's what you want to be, isn't it? Facebook has a nice image system and you want to be just like them. Admit it! You are jealous of FB I think. Now Google Images is of no use to users or webmasters. It was good for everyone before this change. Now it is not.
I've checked the Google break Dance plugin and IMAGUARD and they don't offer redirect to the image's post/page. Also they are modifying your website structure and permalinks in bad and you will be punished by Google.
My script does all things, Watermark + Redirect to image's post/page with the original permalinks and full access to the crawlers.
If you need it contact me via email: fo.cr33cr[at]gmail.com
I have mix feeling about this new version, as a graphic designer, it's great to quickly get inspiration on a subject without have to go through many website. As a photographer, it's scary, people won't know who took the shot and it allows them to quick download them without my knowledge or permission.
I would be great to be able to let Google know which image are okay to download and which one aren't.
If it really improves the CTR then why my website traffic from image searhces have dropped suddenly from 2000 to 150 per day.
Amazing - you claim tests showing a net increase in CTR to the hosting website yet post after post and articles written elsewhere are decrying the huge drop in visitors to their sites. Clearly your tests are wrong.
But the worst aspect of your new search is how you've positioned yourself as a free content provider rather than a search engine. You scrape images, using the host bandwidth, offering them up for download in large sizes and if the viewed size doesn't suit the purpose you give a convenient option to find the same image in other sizes. WHY would anyone need to view in a variety of sizes unless they planned on stealing it, infringing on the image copyright?
Your image search clearly facilitates easy image theft and downplays the importance of copyright and legal licensing with your lame statement that images "may" be subject to copyright. ALL images are subject to copyright and the licensing and usage varies. If you really believe in your "do no evil" motto you should change that statement to read: "All images are subject to copyright and may NOT be freely used in blogs (whether for personal or commercial use) advertising, promotional use, in business documents, print-on-demand, resale, wallpapers or other commercial or personal ventures without direct permission or purchased license. Contact the creator or creator's distributor or agent for licensing or permission for use."
I have noticed this past week that images that ranked well in image search results are now replaced with the same images from different sites that do not use hotlink protection, which means that Google adopted anti-competitive practices and that is illegal.
How about letting me turn safe search off you buffoons
The viewership on my Blog is now so low that there is not much point in continuing.
Thanks Google.
Google, I can see class action lawsuits arising from using our content and letting anyone download our images without showing the website that the image is on. You must also make it clear to the general public that the image may be under copyright protection and that by downloading the image may be an infrigement of that copyright. Thank you for listening.
An illustrator, website owner and copyright holder.
Thanks MK for your asinine comment that "haters can go to hell". Pretty soon you won't have any blogs or websites to visit fool - and steal other people's work from. Why should we furnish you and Google with our artwork, photos, etc. for free??!
In the earlier days of the internet, we had a better word for this: leeching
(I'm not making it up. c.f. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leeching_(computing) )
Searching images should be similar to how the news or web searches are presented. On the news page, for example, to actually read the article, one must click on the link which then brings you to the site's article. Images should be presented only with a small thimb nail.
Seeing images without having to go the site just promotes the use of these images without protecting copyright. Everyone I know will start using low resolution images and maybe putting a copyright notice on them.
All my images are now off-limits to Google Image Bot, and all other bots because they're bound to follow in Google's footsteps.
Paradoxically this has INCREASED my viewership as my followers are going directly on my site and no longer using Google Images to find my content.
Recently I have discovered great new function in searching for pictures/graphics. Searching using a picture. It works great! Thank You for this function. And I have a proposal for similar function. Finding whole music theme from short sample. There are few sites that can theoretically do it however, in practice they can not!
I hope google gets their butts sued! I recently had an image stolen and used for commercial gain via the web. As already said - How about THIS IMAGE IS SUBJECT TO COPYRIGHT AND YOU MUST CONTACT LEGITIMATE SOURCE OF IMAGE not This image may be subject to copyright. It might actually tell folk that images are NOT free.
I like the new look, and it appears to be more usable - but I'm concerned about that most people will no longer click through to the original sight, and therefore not be exposed to the copyright information associated with the image.
Perhaps you could display more of the EXIF data, including the photographer (or at least who the camera belongs to) and the copyright details.
Seriously this big change is good for the user, because perhaps you are not severely affected but who is totally undermines the blogger or webmaster, because their work is stolen by the Google search engine.
I removed over 10 thousand images I had somewhere I do not want to google the show as his ...
lost because all traffic from Google Images.
Hate it. My blog typically includes photos on a variety of subjects. Before this "upgrade" I could see exactly which photo had attracted a visitor, which gave me important information about whey people were coming. Now all I get is a redirect back to my own page of a variety of photos. Tells me absolutely nothing. I want the old link system back.
This is really the most awful thing that could happen for a photo blogger :( People will use my images without even knowing from where they provide or if the photos are copyrighted.
Maybe its better for us to un-index our websites from google.
Why Google doing this???
Encouraging image robbery?
Searching image is one thing, but robbing them or giving chance to others to rob is different story!
please, please, please tell people that all images are subject to some form of copyright, there's no "maybe" about it!! sure, some ppl may be happy for their image to be reused, but they all have a copyright holder somewhere on this planet. stop enabling people and start educating.
Very unhappy that Google is doing this. Very bad for photographers and their copyright
You like the killer who stabbed from behind, you do not feel what we feel, you just want to make a profit, but do not see them behind you who raised your name.
If you click on a thumbnail then that picture should bring you to the name of the artist and copyright information. If people are using images via Google with out permission from the owner of the image then Google along with the user should be held liable for un authorized usage. Stealing is stealing. This is just like some one who takes merchandise from a store without paying. A copyrighted image is the personal property of the creator of that image.
Move over computer, tablet on the way.
I tried for ages to find an alternative to the tablet design on my tablet. couldnt, so only reluctantly use google image search on it, as it's slow, laggy, cumbersome and retarded.
Now you've brought it to my desktop.
sayonara google, this is the last straw. morons.
You say in your post "In our tests, we’ve seen a net increase in the average click-through rate to the hosting website" and yet many stock / artist photography sites here report a huge drop in visits. I'm beginning to stop believing the "Do no evil" mantra of Google.
Convince us all otherwise...
It is worst update ever! I've lost 70% of my traffic and income (because now people do not need to visit my website to get my images, nice!). And now I hate you!
This is infringes my copyrights! This stealing my traffic! This stealing my images! This stealing my income! AND you are using my bandwidth!
Terrible! You don't see a quick description of the image on a rollover anymore! You HAVE to click! Do a search for '10 gallon reef tank' you get returns for tanks from 5 gallon to 500 gallons. But unless you click EACH image you can't quickly weed out all tank that aren't 10 gallon. Useless. I'm sure there are MANY other searches that would leave you with the same problem.
You are stealing images. What happened to your motto to "do no harm". This is outright theft because of corporate greed.
Each week that goes by without Greedle saying anything about this problem makes me angrier and angrier. You are blocked from my images until you pull your heads out of your a****.
I got the impression this new system is BAD FOR WEBMASTERS. We don't get hits from people watching our pics, or at least a lot less compare to the old system. I got a 15% reduction in visits when the system got introduced. :(
I really like the new layout but the message "Image may be subject to copyright" is misleading and should read "This Image IS subject to copyright"
In rare circumstances, images may be out of copyright. However, the photograph of the image is still copyright to the photographer.
Images are no different to music files, in that they were all created by someone. Yet Google does not link to free MP3 downloads of songs.
Perhaps Google should allow a website to upload a standard copyright message, a bit like a robots.txt file, and call it copyright.txt
Then when an image is listed on Google image search, the copyright message will appear if available.
Superb!! great improvement in image search results to make it fast unfortunately i'm late to check it !!
i want this image search on my blog for civil engineers... i.e. http://enggpt.blogspot.com
This new version is terrific for visitors... and horrible for producers of the artwork that is now easier than ever to pluck from the Net. Please, please work quickly and effectively in decreasing the ability of individuals prone to stealing images for commercial use. You, Google, have the talent, resources, and money to do so; I appeal to your sense of honr to make this happen.
Hi friends
Today I have thought what's approch to search images faster and reletaed to our theme for good web design .what are any concept to solve this problem siddenly look this blog are your idea's.to search images.In future we always read your good blogs and your logic.
I agree that Google's new image system is handy for those seeking images. Some may simply want a view of the search item. But others are looking for an image that they can download and use for free. Even though Google states that the images may be copyrighted, they may not stop to think that, in many cases, they are actually stealing copyrighted material.
Google should provide a link to the individual or company that holds the copyright to the image, not to the page from which the image was directly taken. For all too often, when the searcher goes to the page from which the image was taken, they find no copyright notice, even when an individual or company holds a valid copyright to the image.
Thieves will always find ways to steal. But honest people will not download an image for free, when they can easily link to the copyright holder.
Our revenues has dropped drastically as well. One way to help publishers is to allow the publishers to display adsense units around their pictures that shows up on 'Google Searches'. This way atleast the publisher will get some revenue to pay for the bandwith and server usage if not more. Really disappointed with the recent Google strategies...not good!
Our earnings have dropped 80% and it's getting hard to maintain server costs after this move. One way to help publishers would be to display the publisher ads around the image when the image is displayed to the user. It's more than a month, hope Google does something real quick and help the publishers.
Google employees, If this new image search redesign is better for webmasters, why we lost +60% of traffic? Why images.google.de and .fr redirects the users to the author of the image? Because you are violating the image copyrights you are not allowed to show the images only on Google, so you send the visitors to the creators. Do the same image search experience as on images.google.de for images.google.com and the all countries' extensions.
I think it is great to be able to find images easily and this is an improvement in that direction. However, I am very concerned that this does not protect intellectual property and will lead to images being stolen, whether intentionally or on purpose. Many sites have seen a drop in their own traffic and paid downloads have decreased since this change. Therefore, this change seems to be benefitting Google and image thieves at the expense of content providers. Please change the results to prevent image theft - do not display full-size images and make sure they can only be downloaded from the original source.
takes FOREVER to load the image preview once you click an image from the results....like FOREVER!!
I can't believe that Google hasn't done anything yet, after so many comments. Google, is it part of your business model to make things easier for piracy??? I thought that all you internet giants wanted to get rid of piracy, and here you are not only encouraging it, but enabling it. I can't believe you didn't think about this as you were building this. Shame on you....!!
It is beyond our wildest dreams that a respectable company (google) is so entirely disrespectful of image maker copyrights and hard work. Shame on you, what you've done is wretched and disgusting,
It is a crying shame that a respected company (google) has so easily disrespected the hard work and copyrights of image makers. This is a truly disgusting turn of events.
I know people expect that content on the Internet is supposed to be free (although I'm not sure why), but for those of us who sell our images through microstock agencies, this latest change by Google images is yet another way for us to make even less money than before. If a person can now download a full-sized image of mine from Google for free where before the person would have had to visit the website hosting the image and pay for it to use it, how does this help people like me? Obvious answer: It doesn't. It hurts us. My photos are copyrighted and not available for others to use without my permission. You are encouraging people to violate copyright law. Please find a way to direct people to the host site to download ALL images. Musicians, writers, photographers, etc. are artists and must sell their work. Please respect our rights.
It's a lie, you actually keep more of the traffic on google than referring to the sites.
I'm really more concerned now that the image I shot, processed, paid a model to pose for will just wind up in someone's hard drive, then reposted to a forum or board. It's exactly like handing out free samples of ice cream in the mall to passers by and not have an ice cream store in the mall to sell full sized ice cream cones to buyers.
Im concerned as a photographer that our images will be downloaded and "stolen" with out the user even going to our website. This is bad for SEO and bad for business. Look at this article- http://blog.dreamstime.com/2013/02/04/google-images-new-layout-how-this-impacts-photographers-and-webmasters_art38649
There is no reason for the original image to be made available in this or any search result layout. Since Google made this new layout, many of our images are used without rights. I'm speaking in the name of many photographers and illustrators who saw their images downloaded for free and used in illegal way. We all believe that Google should review this layout and publish under the images the copyright informations and some notes about legal and illegal uses. Also the original image must not be available in Google search. Google must offer a fair research, not incourage the images theft and piratery. In the past months we noticed many new pirate sites which offers our images for free download and also many Forums of photo buyers who exchange informations about sites offering images for free. We ask Google to help us combat these illegal practices by reviewing their search engine.
Is this still unresolved? Google have absolutely no intention to change anything in relation to this obvious theft of copyrighted images. We are all wasting our breath.
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