New Image Search Interface Seen in Asia - BIG change for webmasters

[gethan]

Ok - this is huge - I'm only seeing it on google.com.my (Malaysia) currently - but I'll look around on the other sites soon.

Search for any image term: "widget" for example.

Old behaviour - you get a thumbnail - and a link to the site below - which has the context, advertising etc. This is what I see on google.com

New behaviour: as shown on google.com.my

The image is now HOT-LINKED and embedded in a gallery window.

This changes everything! - before - a well placed image would bring in traffic - and a enough revenue to cover costs - etc. Now the image is in a gallery (Bing style) - I imagine click through rates will be negligible to the host page, context is lost, any copyright notifications gone, and no protection for the image.

The information from the site is just a small panel to the right.

If this is introduced globally I will have to ban google from images!

[edited by: tedster at 3:11 am (utc) on Feb 6, 2010]

[momogi]

Thanks Rosalind.

I am not that techie, maybe someone can give exemple on how to relate those php script into .htacces. So we can specify which domain hot-linker we want to snap our watermark on the fly.

As of now, I think that is at least what we can do, so every hot-linker will act as our brand promoter.

[HuskyPup]

As I understand it this is very similar to my post:

[webmasterworld.com...]

I have my images battened down as much as I can using cpanel hotlink protection and a couple of other defences but to understand what is happening I had ONE image in January requested 90,000 times from Google images by people trying to hotlink to it for use as a background! Thanks myface/a$$buk/games forums etc.

Insofar as I can see, rather than things getting better, this problem is getting worse on a daily basis, the good thing is that using the hotlink protection my 302s only amounted to 27+ MB in January 2010 whereas in November 2009 before I got my act together and was using 404s they consumed 1.85 GB.

Get your protection in place now, you'd be amazed just how many people are hotlinking to your images.

I've already contacted my MEP and should be seeing him within the next few weeks to discuss what the European Parliament are going to do about this copyright theft by Google.

[momogi]

Thanks uncle Husky for the tips. :)

Guest I have to request for help in other forum for the technical things such as the programming of those script and .htaccess.. -assuming php and script forum?

GO..GO.. HuskyPup, help us to bring awareness to those Europe authority.

[zeus]

I knew it would come to this, its nothing we can do then ban google from spidering your image content and suggest users to use other search engines to get visits back. If this come to .com I will ban Google in a sec. so - 20.000 images from here, then users have to go to Bing, ask or Yahoo

[zeus]

Its ABSOLUTE IMPORTANT that a user gets to the owners site, manny pay there bandwith with banners CPM, if they dont get to there site/impression then they can NOT keep the site online.

First solution is of cause to spread the word that user have to use other search engines - means spread the word and of cause they will ban google at once be cause they are pist be cause they once again "DO evil"

[zeus]

any news on this topic, I dont see any changes here, I want to be prepared and I just cant believe that Google would do such a thing, they know that A LOT of sites will be hurt, the Layers around the world will have a smile on there face, mine will thats for sure, first time I have to use one business related, most of the time, I handle legal stuff the old way, with a good discussion with the other part to find a solution, but thats not possible here.

Another thing which came to mind who would let google just show there images, maybe with a link to site, I dont think many sites want that, so what content will google end up with all in all.

[gethan]

Apache Hot-Linking Prevention [webmasterworld.com] - just created a separate discussion to help keep this one more general.

I've seen no updates regarding this either.

I miss the days where friendly googleguy would pop up and reassure us all on WebmasterWorld that google would never intentionally "do evil" - though I'm sure he's read through this.

The wider press hasn't picked up this - despite clamouring over every minuscule thing that google does. If any one has any contacts webmastering for big corporates - this might be something to send their way.

I've prevented hot-link access to 5 million + images - but still let googlebot pick them up ;) - sadly just a tiny drop in the ocean of trillions of images that are out there....

[gethan]

One small piece of news: I see the imglanding page on google.com - in my logs on the 21st - 23rd January for IPs originating from China.

And one hit from: imageui.sha.corp.google.com:5882 (12th Jan)

From an IP which belongs to:

Google Inc. GOOGLE (NET-72-14-192-0-1)
72.14.192.0 - 72.14.255.255
Google Corporate IT GOOGLE-CORP-REMOTES (NET-72-14-224-0-1)
72.14.224.0 - 72.14.231.255

Which could be development wing of google in Shanghai?

Tip: grep imglanding your_access_log_pattern* |grep -v .my/|grep -v .ru/|grep -v .sg/|grep -v .cn/|grep -v .th/|grep -v .vn/|grep -v .th/|grep -v .id/|grep -v .kr/|grep -v .jp/|grep -v .ph/

Will pick up any thing other than the identified countries.

[zeus]

about hotlinking, i have always allowed yahoo,bing and google, but I also do demand that my pages show up, even if it under the fold, I need the impressions to keep the site alive, so if they make the new image search they will loose about 21000 images from us thats for sure, why should I let them use our images when I dont get any impressions from it.

They could still use the new layout, but then also let the page show like it does now.

[gethan]

More interesting reading: [en.wikipedia.org...]

Summary of a case where google and amazon were sued for providing links to sites that were hot-linking or copying images (adult site in this case) - the outcome was that google argued not their fault and fair-use for thumbnails. The court decided for google.

Wondering how this changes now that google is the one doing the hot-linking...

[zeus]

I think how Google image is now is great, they now have the best image search why ruin this with a new fancy way to show images, ok Google is not the webmasters friends anymore, but why ruin so many sites visits and risk mountain of law issues.

One more thing, is it even shown anymore in asia?, I hope not.

[gethan]

> is it even shown anymore in asia?

Yeah - took a screen shot of it being used with Getty Images material this morning ;)

[yaix2]

Just saw it in China (for one of my images ^$@%#!).

[zeus]

incredible how they just dont care what they do to other webmasters and there sites, for about 4 plus years they where our friends now its the enemy, things changes quickly when you become a superpower.

Hmm I think I will call my layer Monday and let him know whats happening, then he can start with google asia and I will block google image in those countries, of cause I will spread the word.

[zeus]

slowly google reminds me of the TV series V the aliens, very nice face to the outside, but on the inside something completely different.