How To Remove Images From Google Image Search

[engine]

If your image file is appearing in Google Image search and you want it removed, obviously, you could simply remove it from your webserver.

Alternatively, if you want it to remain on your webserver, use robots.txt to block Googlebot from indexing the file.

eg.

example.jpg appears in image search and it's in your root directory

Create a robots.txt file with the following and put it in the root.

The file should have:

User-agent: Googlebot-Image
Disallow: example.jpg

If you want to remove all images, create the robots.txt file with the following.

User-agent: Googlebot-Image
Disallow: /

What if your image is on some other website that you have no control over? Your first action should be to formally ask the site owner/webmaster to remove your image. If you've asked and had no success, you can submit a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) request.

DMCA 1998 US Copyright Office PDF
[copyright.gov...]

Google has a helpful page on this:
Removing information from Google: Reporting copyright infringement [google.com]

The DMCA request should be the last resort, and not the first.

Further reading and questions on robots.txt in the WebmasterWorld specific forum on robots.txt [webmasterworld.com]

[tedster]

I've never singled out Googlebot-Image so far. I believe that the image spider also obeys rules that are set just to "Googlebot".

[Samizdata]

Another option is to rename the image and amend all references to it in your HTML source.

I restrict the Googlebot-Image bot in my robots.txt and find it well-behaved.

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