Google Image Search Update Again 2009-02-20

[zeus]

Yesterday I saw some few glitches here and there in the Image search, but today there are some BIG changes, new Images has been added again, maybe also moderate filter update, where they for years have had a problem with loosing good sites images, be cause other sites are hotlinking to those images with bad text, then Google see the Original site as bad.

< split into two posts - see February SERP Changes [webmasterworld.com] >

[edited by: tedster at 1:24 am (utc) on Feb. 21, 2009]

[tedster]

Wow, that's fast - only one month since the last update [webmasterworld.com]. Looks like after long term neglect, poor old Image Search is finally getting a higher priority. If Google can resolve the hotlinking problem, that alone would be a really good thing.

Thanks, Zeus.

[zeus]

This time its different then ALL the other times, the first Google image update was quickly over, but then a week or 2 later I saw a few new images in Google Image so it was as if it was not over and I saw that until yesterday, where I then saw more images getting added at once and some gone be cause of this hotlinking.

So I only call this update 2 be cause there where a little more action and more new images was added at once.

Could be that Google image is finally getting updated quickly or even like google search, why I say this is be cause I made a test, changed the frontpage and aded 30 new pages with images on it, those images was added 2 weeks later to the index, I have never seen that before, but only images that where on frontpage (mostPR) was added, could be a new thing, have now added images to another site, but not to the front lets see what happens.

[mssfldt]

Hi Zeus, hi tedster,

I can confirm that there are many new pictures in the index. But I do not think this is a "Update 2". In my eyes the complete process has changed. I think the "Google images Updates" are past by. Since two weeks I can see daily new pictures of my projects in the index.

The idea, that "frontpage" (homepage ?) pictures are indexed faster sounds interesting. In my cases I can confirm this theory.

[piatkow]

Definitely some changes there, I actually found one of my photos. Pity it wasn't on my site!

[zeus]

mssfldt thats what I mean, the first was on a Pause for some days, then there where added new images again, thats why I carefully said update 2, also be cause something has changed, its a more steady flow of new images added to the index.

Sites that has a issue with the hotlinking thing dont see any significant changes only when filter is off.

[karkadan]

I have seen a lot of changes. Per example, my website dissapear from Google Images, but my images are not. Simply, Google Images are now showing blogs that are hotlinking to my images...

[whats up skip]

Hmmm, now I am not sure if it was the changes that I made to my site to stop the hotlinking problem that brought our images back into the SER when SafeSearch=default.

On the Feb 22nd the images would only show with filter=off, but by the Feb 25th large numbers of images had started to show with SafeSearch=default. The number of images showing with SafeSearch=default has continued to increased over time with more showing up as recently as yesterday.

Any thoughts on this?

[tedster]

I think it's a major indexing challenge, especially since so many busy websites host their images on a different hostname or even a different domain. So they've got to fold that bit of chaos into the indexing and ranking. They've not done that well at all, so far.

[monzu]

Yes, I have noticed it too as I m doing my web sites work. Nowadays Google is updating quicker then ever. Because every body is working so hard for their sites and they are promoting so well. You can also find some sites that usually seem it has no value but it’s on top of Google search. All these are happening for this promotion.

[rickynsu]

Google update its search results every day. If u check tomorrow u will see some things changed in search results. Hence u searched images so Google shows its best images not text.

[tedster]

If you haven't already, I encourage you to watch the new Google Image Search video [youtube.com] from Peter Linsley. You can get an idea from this where the Image Search team is focused (and notably, where they're NOT focused, too.)

[whats up skip]

I found out the changes to our site's safesearch status was due to an actual review by the Google Image Search team.