Hits from Google Image search Options

[Adrian]

I've been noticing a steady increase in hits to our site from Google image searches.

I'm not really sure there's any benefit in us being found for image searches as I can't see how the people are potential customers.
And when I see things like people selling software on ebay, and using our images, or people hotlinking images to other sites (seen our product images used on forums in a few places).

Anyone think there's much worth in a site based purely around selling products being found for image searches?

I see Google say to use robots.txt to deny access to the images folder by googlebot-image, so I'm planning on adding that, and then waiting to see how long it takes for them to actually get delisted.

[whitemark]

Some people do use image search to find real estate, products etc ... Yes, it does make it easy for people to find and use your pictures illegally.

I've been noticing a steady increase in hits to our site from Google image searches. I'm not really sure there's any benefit in us being found for image searches ...

What about the keywords associated with the image search? They might be useful.

[projectphp]

Try the Google removal tool http://services.google.com:8882/urlconsole...d&lastcmd=login Adrain, although I have no idea if that works for the image search stuff.

Another idea: Google image search frames a page like this. You could bust out of the frame and redirect to a non-descript page that says "we don't allow our content to be framed". That would stop this stuff happenning, and make them go and steal someone elses image!

[swainzy]

Adrian,
Funny you started this topic. I was looking into just this question recently. I search a lot/mostly by image. I am a visually oriented person and . . . it also seems a quick way to find what I want - clothes, plants, any kind of products.
Sometimes I find very different things than I am searching for and it leads me to interesting sites. Heck, if you are looking for say -art/fractals, this would be the way to do it.

I think I remember seeing somewhere that said about only 4% of people use image search. Too bad I can't remember where I saw this.

The downside is that people can use your photos. I wouldn't esp. like it if someone snagged one of the photos I had taken for my old site. I would hope that the snagger would ask permission.
Would watermarking a photo, to prevent someone from using it, work?
D

[projectphp]

It would if you only sent Google the watermarked image

Pretty easy to do, really.

[AbleReach]

Well, I recently used image search to get ideas for niche marketing. We needed sites with specific targeted content. The image search lead us to images plus words, resulting in richer content results than simple text searches.

I don't have statistics for you, but I've heard from others that product-oriented images found in Google image-search can produce sales. They've also talked about using a transparent gif overlay, named for a background image that is the real image. Sometimes thieves are lazy & won't bother to come back, if all they do is right-click and save a transparent image named for a keyword. I don't know if Google's image search filters for tiny kb images that are potentially transparents.

Periodically changing paths to images by a letter or two would break direct linking - /recipes/baklava.jpg could become /recipe/baklava.jpg & vice versa. Sounds like a pain, unless you could automate it. Would changing the name also end any ranking in the image search, if you cared to have such a ranking?

Image search availability wouldn't be as nice of a tactic with less niche-like images - eg pics of software out on the mass market. I'd tend to funnel those into a separate directory de-spiderized through robots.txt. You could limit availability to the images that are less likely to be stolen.

Elizabeth

[Ruud]

I'm not really sure there's any benefit in us being found for image searches as I can't see how the people are potential customers.

Some replies here seem to indicate otherwise. To be honest though, an ecommerce site I webmaster shows a lot of image search hits, not just from Google, but using NetTracker to dig deeper I can't say those visitors are converting.

And when I see things like people selling software on ebay, and using our images, or people hotlinking images to other sites

Well, yeah, but that can be fixed, right? Hotlinking need not be an issue. It's seperate from the image search.

Anyone think there's much worth in a site based purely around selling products being found for image searches?

No. If you have bandwidth to spare I would say; who cares? Let it go. Otherwise I'd say that although not the "average consumer" I have utilized image search only to show a product image to a family member or friend, get a better look at a product (which I already decided to buy elsewhere), or to get some icon-sized graphics.

Then again, I have to admit that those sites which did show up in the image results but then had blocked the image really ticked me off... Maybe not the kind of goodwill one is looking for?

then waiting to see how long it takes for them to actually get delisted.

Thank God they haven't introduced supplemental results for image search yet, eh? .... Not yet at least....

[AbleReach]

Then again, I have to admit that those sites which did show up in the image results but then had blocked the image really ticked me off... Maybe not the kind of goodwill one is looking for?

LOL.

:oops: On the other hand (always visualize Tevia from Fiddler when I write :-) ) the flip side of my last post is that a blank image with a real-sounding name would not be a nice result in an image search. There goes the emotional bank and trust.

So, with images available from search, just like the rest of being a real deal, you're in or you're not, eh?

Elizabeth

[Adrian]

If you have bandwidth to spare I would say; who cares? Let it go

I'm tempted to do that, though part of the problem is also the stats and telling the directors about them. These kinds of hits are basically throwing the stats off a bit. I'd like to eliminate traffic that we don't really want, where I can.
Another example of that is that we currently rank number 4 on Google for the term "Interactive Sex", not a highly targetted keyword for a company selling Educational Software, and I'm thinking that 99.99% of the traffic from those searches is traffic we'd rather not have. But that's a side issue.

All our product images are either box shots, or screen shots, in many cases I wouldn't even pretend that they are particularly good box/screen shots, I don't think they are the kind or arty, niche type things that could lead people in from image searches.

I could see other cases where perhaps images searches might be worthwhile, but I can't see it with us.

Cheers for the thoughts though everyone.

[seobro]

I consider Google Images to be my secret weapon to getting hits to my sites. Funny how a person would want less hits not more.

Not sure about the percent conversion, but if you want to get a lot of hits from Google images do the following.

1) Large > (200X200) jpg picture
2) Pic is clear and sharp
3) ALT TEXT has keywords
4) Caption has keywords
5) file name has keyword in it, Like RED-ROSE.jpg
6) Pic at top of selling page
7) Keyword density in page high >5%.

[whitemark]

Nice tips seobro. Thanks.

Funny how a person would want less hits not more.

Well, another way to look at it is that hits that don't convert is an expense (in terms of server resources consumed). If you are not an Ad-based content sites, one does have to factor this.

P.S: Welcome to the forum.

[bobbb]

If anyone is interested:

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/hotlinking

Shows how to prevent leeching your bandwidth. Requires scripting and htaccess

TO SEObro: How does Google know that your "Pic is clear and sharp"?