Bloggers Exploit Google Image Search

Ken's Blog

My daughter has been using Site Build It! to grow her Web site about the Caribbean island of Anguilla for four years.  Now 18, she has averaged only 1-2 hours per week on Anguilla-Beaches.com.

She is found for over 12,000 keywords related to Anguilla and has one of the "Big 4" sites about Anguilla.  The site receives thousands of visitors per day and has the highest Alexa traffic ranking of any Anguilla-related site.

Besides traffic from "text search," she also has many first-page SERPs for Google Image search.  So she generates a ton of image search traffic, including searches for celebrities who visit the island.

But recently she had the misfortune for Google's image search for Jay-Z to put her site at Page 1, #1. Why "misfortune"?...

Well, the first page result was doing just fine when Jay-Z was lower down on the page.  And when she hit #1...

That search result alone jumped her traffic to over 1,000 visitors per day.  It seems celebrities generate some interest!  ;-)

But now take a look at a screenshot of that search.  It may have changed by the time you read this (click on the image to see -- a new window will open so you can compare)...

Now here's the really interesting part.  Clicking on that image used to lead to this page on anguilla-beaches.com for Jay-Z.  Today, it leads to this blog (you can click to see the page, if the owner leaves it up of course)...

Now here's where it gets even more interesting.  Tomorrow, it will lead to another blog.  Yes...

The blog that sources the photo from anguilla-beaches.com changes at least every second or third day.  So each blog steals from the previous one, footballing the original photo all over the Web.

You'll see this for other celebrities, too.  Beyonce (Jay-Z's main squeeze, it would seem!) is being bounced around, too.

I know this can be defended against.  And yes, my daughter could change the image to read "Visit Anguilla-Beaches.com For More On Jay-Z" and rename the original image on her own site.  And heck, her site is not even about Jay-Z or Beyonce in any event...

But if Google is giving image search results, shouldn't it link to the page from the site that has the same domain from which the image originated?  Just an interesting "break in the force."  :-)

All the best,

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Comments

[Natasha - MyDreadlocks.com]

Hmm,
it's almost like Google's assuming that all photos are "Creative Commons" and free for anyone to share.

I wonder if this is the case for all graphic files or just particular ones (like the common *.gif and *.jpg)?

Questions, questions!

[Natasha - MyDreadlocks.com]

Another quick pondering...
Perhaps there's an effortless way to track how many people use your photo.

If it's only bloggers, then the community is notorious for copyright infringement -- oops, I meant sharing -- and it's an opportunity to promote "link love."

For example:

"This photo can also be seen on..."

The point being that a good number of bloggers may link back to the page in question and lead to partnerships. Mind you, partnerships based on thievery may be tenuous :lol:

[Pamela Heywood]

The design in that second screenshot might be stolen too, from BritPack designer John Oxton, used previously at his Joshuaink blog. The blog and the template site do credit John, but that doesn't confirm that they have his permission. I suppose there's a chance that he could have released the template, but since his one-off design was based on a commissioned illustration, it seems unlikely. I've sent him an email to hopefully alert him if this is a further problem that you've uncovered.

[Pamela Heywood]

Just a quick follow up to my last comment. It wasn't quite as bad as it could have been, but there was a problem. John Oxton replied to my email saying:

"Thanks for the heads up. In fact I have released the site for non-profit use and can be used as such. They have removed the Creative Commons license though so I will be in touch with them about that! Many thanks again for pointing this out."

Obviously, the thanks for exposing this are due to you Ken.

[Adele Sweeney]

"shouldn't it link to the page from the site that has the same domain from which the image originated?"

:o I had no idea it didn't until I read this! Will now reconsider how I name my images - I guess this is especially relevant for artists and photographers?!

Also, one of my sites provides 'freebies' for card making, and I although I applied Creative Commons licenses for people sharing their card designs on my site, I never applied it to my own stuff...doh! Thanks for putting that back in my head as well.

Cheers
Adele

[Osama El-Kadi]

Hello All

I am new here and certainly ... still learning. Having said I am new, well .. new to the “good stuff” that Site Build it does for its customers.

After having tried many big names in the business i.e. Go Daddy, 123 and small companies that “help” you in the beginning and exploit you later, I Certainly found Site Build it approach, refreshing, honourable and out of this world. My Website went live at end of February and within these two months, it is already getting clicks and a “page rank” of 1 appeared for every page (30 Pages). “This is something to write home about for sure”

Back to the this blog, I really don’t understand “Image search” at all, but what I noticed lately is that some of my clicks sources comes from image search on Google. I don’t know which Images or how it works.

Can anyone please guide me to read some in-depth report or an article on the subject and how do you “keyword” images for search for example.

I would certainly be grateful for this.

[Leonard Bartholomew]

One of my favorite sayings, and forum topic headings, is "Google doesn't make mistakes.