Traffic on my Blog has been very consistent over the last several months. Suddenly, in the last 3 days, traffic has plummeted by 30%. Looking at incoming traffic to my website, the reason is obvious…traffic from Google’s “Image Search” is dramatically down. People searching for photographs on Google, through Google’s “Image Search”, are no longer actually reaching my website!
This is what happens now when a web searcher uses Google's Image Search. This is MY photograph, in full-resolution, displayed in all it's glory, not on MY website, but on Google's Image Search. Google searchers can now actually DOWNLOAD and save photographs and images, WITHOUT ever actually visiting the website where the images are hosted. NOT COOL GOOGLE.
The reason? This week, Google changed their Image Search pages. At first, the Image Search looks the same. You type in a search term and a long gallery of thumbnail images appears. However, now, when you click on a thumbnail image, it no longer takes you to the webpage where that photo is found. Instead, it now actually BRINGS UP THE FULL-RESOLUTION PHOTO for people to look at. You can now actually DOWNLOAD an image directly from Google’s Image Search, WITHOUT EVER VISITING THE WEBSITE ITSELF!!!
For example, let’s say someone is looking for a photo of a Steampunk corset. They type in "Steampunk corset", and one of my images appears right in the top row of the Google Image Search page, as one of the thumbnail images. However, now, when a user clicks on the thumbnail of my photo, Google’s Image Search actually brings up the original photograph, WITHOUT taking the user to my blog!! There’s a VERY tiny message at the bottom, barely noticeable, that says “the image may be subject to copyright”, but a user can simply right-click and save the picture directly to their hard drive, without visiting my blog.
Traffic from Google is now down 75% and just keeps dropping. No reason for people to continue to the actual SOURCE website where a photo comes from, when Google TAKES your image and displays it on their own pages.
You are crossing a line, Google. You’re providing a search service, pure and simple. In NO WAY should you be allowed to actually DISTRIBUTE THE CONTENTS OF OTHER PEOPLE’S WEBSITES!!! Webmasters around the world are complaining of dramatic drops in traffic to their websites, especially websites devoted to imagery and photography. With Google now DIRECTLY displaying and allowing download of full-resolution imagery, web searchers are simply looking at full-resolution images on Google itself, without visiting the source websites.
NOT COOL, GOOGLE. I have no doubt there will be a legal challenge here, as I simply can’t understand the legality of Google itself effectively distributing CONTENT from other people’s websites.
If you want to protect yourself as much as possible WATERMARK! Put a good sized watermark on you images, and never upload the full resolution image to your blog. Save the image with a lower dpi, and if you need help, ask me directly, and I will be more than happy to do what I can to help you along! This is NOT COOL GOOGLE.
Love and Lightning Bugs,
37 comments:
Holy crap!
I noticed that the other day, I'm not happy about it at all!
Ugh! That's just wrong.
That is not okay, but that is what happens when you are that big, you do not care about the little guy or what is right anymore. I know not always the case, but usually it is.
Not right at all.
Thanks for the info!
Yeah, I'm not thrilled about it. Watermarking was the best decision I ever made!
So messed up!
You're very welcome! Please feel free to share the info, and I will help anyone who needs it!
Me either!
Sadly, more and more companies are getting caught stealing content from other websites. Forever 21 and H&M are two of the worst for stealing artwork!
I couldn't agree more. :/
That is absolutley awful. Just what I need to hear to make watermarks bigger. Puke.
Wow. Welp all pics from now on with be watermarked to death smh
I've been trying to put my url on my photos but I guess I need to move to a better watermark instead. This is not the way companies should operate at all!
I didn't know that Google changed their image search. I don't use the image search feature, so that's probably why. Thank you for sharing this post and making me aware of what was going on. I started watermarking all of the images I put up on my website a while back, after I found several images of mine on other websites. Such a great decision!
I think Google has gotten a Napoleon complex, or worse, maybe a God complex. They are the best at what they do, so now they think they have license to do whatever they want to do. Just because it's feasible, doesn't make it right. Get some morals Google!!
What the hell man...thanks for sharing, I would have never known this would have affected my traffic. I am tired of bothering with google, facebook, and everything else. I'm just going to do my thing....F*** em all!
Glad to know this. They can call it what they want but STEALING is STEALING! BTW love that pic.
Wow that's crazy!
I did not know about this as well..... Thank you for letting us all know!
Oh dear make our lives even more difficult!!
Wow.
Dawn
Not cool Google :/
I noticed they changed how they did it and was mad because I hate when image show like that (like on facebook) but I didn't even consider our own photos on blogs and didn't notice the download button. I hope they change it back!
NOT COOL at all,
I appreciate it from a person-trying-to-quickly-find-images standpoint, but you shed some new light on this for me. Thank you for your blunt post and honesty and raw feeling.
Wow that is not cool! I really need to learn to watermark!
Google, if you're listening - just want to let you know, NOT COOL AT ALL! Glad I have all my images watermarked and at low dpi, but still - stealing the traffic from little business owners like us is NOT COOL AT ALL GOOGLE!
Isabella, thank you for telling google like it is. I hope they don't come running with pitch forks :-)
WOW! I had no idea until I read your post! NOT COOL AT ALL! I had to check it out for myself and realized that they do give the option to visit the site, but majority are just going to snatch the image and not bother!
What about SEO? That's why we need ALT tags on our images! This is terribly wrong! Google needs to fix this NOW!
First of all, I love the title. lol But that is just WRONG... I hate the fact that they think they are Gods!
Oh man. This sucks!!!
Wow.... this is NOT cool at all...
That's messed up. All we need is another thing to give us more work.
Lately my best traffic comes from pinterest.
Omg that's crazy! How can they do that? It has to be illegal! Noone else can steal people's stuff, why can Google? This really burns me up. They think cause they're big they can do whatever they please! It's just not right!
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