incrediBILL:
Yep, that's the one, thanks
Viral:
"Matt Cutts unequivocally said that linkjuice is passed down image links."
One of my points though is, does Matt know what the questioner was calling an "image link" when answering that way? What exactly is the definition of "image link" in the context of the question? Is it a link to a .htm using an image, or is it a link TO an image?
For example is he referring to the example I gave above (linking to an IMAGE (i.e. .jpg) which will go to a new browser window, with either an image (or plain anchor text for that matter) passing rank to the linked .jpg) or did he mean the following: <A HREF="example.htm"><IMG SRC="example.jpg" ALT="example"></A> where JUST an image links to a .htm (passing PR to a .htm)... or both?
Every html reference source on the net that I could find designates a "link" as ALWAYS using an <A> tag, thus by that definition JUST the <IMG SRC="example.jpg" ALT="example"> alone is NOT considered an image link. Thus image "hotlinks" aka "Inline linking, leeching, piggy-backing, direct linking, offsite image grabs, bandwidth theft, etc" (as defined on wiki-p) are technically not "links" at all and are NOT covered by the technical definition of image link.
"So people hot linking to your images are actually doing you a favour."
Sure we wouldn't mind that, especially if they indeed passed PR which can't technically be inferred by Matt's response. We don't mind others using them if we get credit. We used to look for that via our logs and just change the picture a bit to include our URL to get the free advertising. But nowadays they just outright copy them, maybe modify them slightly, and put them on their own sites and link them from there.
Igal Zeifman:
"It`s always better to use your own assets."
Many of ours are original photos or scans, others are PR photos that we are granted full permission to modify and use by the photographer or owner and we post photo credits when requested, but they are always hosted on our own server.
danijelzi: interesting thread, but not the same scenario.
"thinking that the problem was because of too many alt tags with the related keywords inserted.... as an .html image attachment page (wordpress' feature)."
Or is the issue that G doesn't like wordpress .html image attachment pages, considering them shallow content?
The point of this question was the lack of ability to pass on PR from a linked .jpg image and thus how to avoid passing PR to them. If you have page a.htm with link juice=1 it could link to pages 1.htm through 10.htm and split it's outgoing PR among them. They then each have a .10 juice coming in and say .1x90%=.09 to link out to other pages. They could link it back to a.htm or the home page, thus recycling that PR. However If a.htm is ALSO linking 10 .jpgs (via HREFs not IMGs) each of 1.htm-10.htm only get .05 to pass on but the other .5 is lost forever because the .jpgs can't pass on their collective .45 (.05 each x 90%) because you can't out-link from a .jpg. So that would imply that thumbnail linking like this is undesirable.
Doing a little more research the other night I noticed that when G includes one of our linked LARGE images in their image results, they generally include the page with the THUMBNAIL that links to it as the shadow SOURCE page behind it. Thus you DO get some traffic to the .html (if the person clicks to close the G image window - hmm, does G count themselves accessing the page to display behind the image as a hit/bounce in WMT if the person doesn't access the html page?) from the photo image, but that does not indicate you're not losing valuable PR via the .jpg dead-end.
