Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Now, I don't care if it is a small site and get a couple of hits a day, but, today our image appers on a site with over 10,000 visitors already.
My question is, does google see this as a plus for our site (site stealing the image has a pr6) or does this get totally ignored by google. If so, I will remove the image (or place something nasty instead).
i am not sure what the proper code is, so you better check it out first, but it goes something like this:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER}!^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER}!^http://(www\.)?yourwebsitename.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif¦jpg)$ - [F]
when another site tries to display your image then, all they will get is one of those missing image things
... i can't see how them displaying your image will help your google ranking though, as it's not a link.
maybe if they wrapped the image in an anchor tag, then it might.
It may cost you more bandwith, but it might just get you a few extra visitors, and it won't clutter your log with 404's
Why not take advantage of the situation promote what ever it is thats on your site through the image. it gets the point across to the people that are using it the gig's up and you could try and make money from it.
I get ~20,000 hotlinked image requests per day from MySpace amongst others. I usually just 404/403 them but I switched to redirecting to a simple small GIF containing my URL and my additional visitors have been so high that I've stopped all my normal paid avertising for the time being!
It's rude of the fools who hotlink, but you can make it into a viral marketing opportunity...
Rgds
Damon
There is no 'help' to your site, except to help you needlessly reduce your available bandwidth.
That's what I was asking about, I though since Google knows which sites link to our sites it would also look at where the image is coming from and credit our site as a link.
I would like to replace it with small jpg or gif containg link to my site...
is that possible?
he kept the normal image as it was, but then put a black box on the bottom with his URL in bright yellow.
when he displayed the image on his site, he just wrapped it in a div and cropped the bottom off so it didn't display.
most people won't bother linking to it because the box makes it ugly, but if they do then there is your URL for all to see.
hardly seems worth it, though. you'd probably lose more bandwidth in displaying the extra bit than you'd save.
Think about it... people don't steal crappy images from crappy sites. They hand pick the best image for a specific purpose - like posting in forums and MySpace profiles. That information could be valuable to Google.
I have personally seen plenty of evidence that a frequently stolen image will subsequently improve positioning in Google Image Search.
Think about it... people don't steal crappy images from crappy sites. They hand pick the best image for a specific purpose.
Hey, thank you
if you are going let people use your images then use it as best you can, requesting a visible link back to your site.
If people take them with out asking, then simply chase them up, ask them to put in a decent visible link next to it, if not block them specifically.
It's a bit more work, but it can build a benefit. taking a negative and make it positive.
Realistically, if at the end of the day they do not have the means to pay or be professional you normally follow the legal route.. I would suggest that the time and hassle involved in going through those motions can be more time consuming and not really value for money.
Instead, think of them as leads, building your links.
I choose not to do that though because if its a real neat picture on the right site, I actually get traffic and sales from it.
I have found a lot of my photos on blogs that actually do list my url, consumers finding products I sell and posting them on blogs that create sales.
If its not costing you $$ for the bandwidth, I would not worry about it to much.
IF NOT, I still find it a good way to get a nice natural link!
Way back, some born-again site used one of my images to make some religious point.
I emailed the evangelist, and politely pointed out that this cost me bandwidth,
and that I would like credits in the form of a link.
Up went the link, its been there for years now.
Same thing with blogs, I usually just have to refer to their own TOS which
often bars infringement etc., somewhere after not using
dirty words or being a troll.
More often than not, I have a nice new link. A lemon turned into lemon pie!
Some of these people are a bit clueless. It helps to come on politely at first.
The blatant rip-off artists are another matter entirely.
I have entirely different procedures for them. -Larry
PS: I will discuss lemon tree troubles in a separate forum -LH
for example... imagine that your page is all about recipes for tomato soup, and you include a big picture of a tomato.
someone might hotlink your image of a tomato to display on their site, which might be all about gentically modified foods.
the pages are about completely different subjects, so google can't give you any credit.
I just had 3 stickies in a row asking how to redirect hotlinked image requests to something containing a logo/URL, ie to become free advertising:
Basically what I do is, if the "Referer" [sic] header is not absent (absent might indicate a legit spider) or from my site(s) (or a whitelisted site) then I send a 302 redirect the small GIF containing my URL. (This does not prevent the determined and clever, but it prevents the 99% of clueless hotlinks.)
I ensure that the replacement GIF is small and cacheable by setting a long (> 2 weeks) expiry time on it, so that I won't waste bandwidth repeatedly serving the GIF to the same user(s) in most cases.
How exactly you do this depends on what type of Web server you are running, eg Apache/IIS/Tomcat/etc, but some of the more specialised fora here at WW should be able to help you out on the details.
Rgds
Damon
Of course, it may be that Google image search ends up thinking that the hotlinking page is the one which the graphic "belongs" to, and people clicking on the image in the SERPs get taken to the other site's page...
