Google Images' New (Bing-like) Layout

[levo]

Clicking on images now opens a layer with the larger image and a link to the page.

[img844.imageshack.us...]

[zeus]

Yes that was the layout I saw 1-2 month ago on google.com image, its pure horror for webmaster, once again they go against websites and try to hold the visitors on google. There must be a time where webmasters has enough of google and say thats enogh, then block google, without content no google search.

I do have 2 sites which I created 6 month ago where I blocked google from the beginning, of cause they added the site to google search anyway, then I wrote to them and had it removed, but serious it feels a lot better, to not be dependent on google, you see many social networks visits and more.

[popac]

More screenshots for better understanding new image search from Google

Mouse over image:

<snip>

Click on image and "open"

<snip>

After click on "image details" button

<snip>
.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 5:59 pm (utc) on Jan 18, 2013]
[edit reason] removed specifics per forum Charter [/edit]

[Roaming Gnome]

Wow, so they dont send you to the author's page anymore. Now they will use my content and I'll never see the visitor.

[Robert Charlton]

Mod's note: Needed to remove three image links above, which led to specific searches and specific commercial sites, not allowed by the linking/posting guidelines in the Google Forum Charter [webmasterworld.com]. At this point, no more image links please... You'll have to describe what you see.

[HuskyPup]

Aha ... It's propagated to the UK now and I see what you mean.

My sites have thousands of images of our natural products, according to my logs today my traffic has not been affected so far however according to Google AdSense metrics I've had a right royal toasting.

Maybe AdSense metrics are lagging again, I don't know but they have been several times over the past couple of weeks, therefore the only thing I can do is wait until Saturday and see what those results are like.

If I have been hammered then I may as well just give up since 90+% of the reason for users to come to my sites is to view my images, NOT Google's, MINE.

[levo]

Wow, so they dont send you to the author's page anymore.

To be fair, clicking on the larger image sends the user directly to the page - without an iframe.

[denisl]

Not sure how this used to work but have been paying attention lately as have been getting some of my images showing in the normal serps and am quite pleased. A page from my site may already be no 2 but it is also good to see an image a little way down the page. I see this as being to my benefit.
I dont pay too much attention to Bing but they appear to use the same images as Google, and I much prefer the way Google uses them.

[HuskyPup]

Not good at all, one of my lowest Page View days of the year and clearly my main gallery was some 25% down on January's average and today, so far, that gallery has had almost no visitors therefore no earnings.

Unless Google are going to put their own ads on these scraped pages then they're shooting themselves in the foot because if Joe Surfer never gets to my pages then Google has no AdWords revenue from my sites.

Plus is this new thing on test? I write that because sometimes I get the new style layout and other times I get the old one completely at random.

[chrisv1963]

Content theft is no langer something for scrapers and ordinary thiefs. It's the new business model.

[zeus]

HuskyPup - it will stay, the test was 2 month ago, then they had it online for 2-3 days. I just suggest to block google with htaccess, why give them content, when you dont see any visits.

[HuskyPup]

why give them content, when you dont see any visits.

I'm going to monitor it for a few days and see what happens. For the past year or so all my new images have been watermarked however whether this makes any difference I have no idea.

If there is a substantial reduction in traffic AND AdSense earnings then I'm going to have reconsider everything I've done in the last 19 years for our global sites!

[zeus]

Well Im in the same boat, also got hurt pretty much I have blocked Bing and google. Nice to hear some still place a watermark on there images, then they are sure they are not copied. I have always thought those people that dont watermark there images also want there images copied all over.

[chrisv1963]

I like the new search thing.

Maybe because you don't own a website with images?

[lucy24]

I've had a lurking suspicion there's a connection between this behavior and my recent increase in referer-less requests for images coming from mobile UAs. (Disclaimer: I saw this thread-- and screenshot-- before the Man With The Scissors came through.) So I fired up the iPad, tried some image searches and yup, there it is:

{myIP} - - [19/Jan/2013{etc.}] "GET /paintings/directory/blowups/filename.jpg HTTP/1.1" 200 380 "-" "Google/2.5.1.13455 CFNetwork/609 Darwin/13.0.0"

Not to belabor the obvious: That's not my iPad. It's the mobile version of Image Search after you ask for a close-up of a particular picture. The filesize is because I've been rewriting this class of request to a one-dot gif, assuming robots of some kind. So you get a big white box. Some users really, really want to see it; I've seen up to six consecutive requests.

It's worse however in a "real" browser, because then they display the image at full size. That is: not the actual full size of the received file, but the size they think it is based on prior searches and/or html content. In my case, that means a jpg thumbnail blown up to 4x original size, making the picture look like ### and cutting off any chance that the person will want to see the page. If you do go to the page anyway, you have to forcibly refresh in order to get the correct picture. Most users wouldn't think of this.

Besides, they've already seen your page. Google's image-preview page is laid out so your entire text-- including a good deal of the real image-- is visible behind the messed-up image. This would apply to any typical gallery close-up page, not just mine. Picture above, text below.

Far as I can tell, this is an absolute no-win no matter what you do. I guess it could work if you had pages with lots and lots of nice pictures and also lots and lots of revenue-generating text, because then people might still go to the page after getting the first picture for free. Otherwise, you're SOL.

And now back to the drawing board on the thumbnail idea.

[not2easy]

I am not blocking Google and Bing, but I have started adding Googlebot-Image and msn-media to my disallows. I expect it to cut into my traffic, but I think the improved performance for actual visitors is a big plus. BingPreview is blocked by UA because they pull the whole page with css, js and all with no actual visitor. When logs show thousands of GETs a day for non visitors it is not a hard decision.

[levo]

I've had a lurking suspicion there's a connection between this behavior and my recent increase in referer-less requests for images coming from mobile UAs.

On desktop, if the image is not too large, not sure how much exactly, Google shows an upscaled version of the image from its results first, and loads the larger file from our servers in the background.

[HuskyPup]

@zeus

Two days more of this and they'll be banned from all my sites' images.

The most comprehensive set of widget images, and I have another few thousand, for the largest business sector in the world, and Google deems them to be "theirs" even with my watermarks?

I have nothing but disgust for that company now and would never believe a single utterance by any spokesperson ... quite simply they (Google & its employees) simply do not give a fig about anyone/thing else in the world.

[chrisv1963]

quite simply they (Google & its employees) simply do not give a fig about anyone/thing else in the world.

Don't be evil and grab other people's money ...

[denisl]

Dont know if I am seeing something different to others. My sites are not full of images but have maps drawn by me.
searching in google.co.uk images I can find one of my maps. Clicking on my map takes me to a full size copy of the map with a greyed out image of my site behind. Closing the image takes me to my site.
I'm quite happy with that, but as my site isn't an "image site" I havn't paid too much attention to this in the past.

[lucy24]

Clicking on my map takes me to a full size copy of the map with a greyed out image of my site behind. Closing the image takes me to my site.

Yup. Same on this continent. And now that the searcher has seen the full-size image and read the nearby text (visible below the shadowboxed image), why go to the page? Except possibly by accident, not realizing that closing the image will have this effect.

:: thinking that someone needs to take New User by the hand and very, very carefully go over The Rules ::

[HuskyPup]

Needless to say Sunday was my lowest traffic day of 2013 with visitors to my biggest gallery DOWN 70%, yes SEVENTY per cent, now that's the real effect of this new image layout.

[nicolass]

I think that we need to write some petition if this *** happen.

[zeus]

HuskyPup - thats why we have to block google image and if things changes all you images will be back with 3 days I have tried that, be cause some how they do keep your images.

[zeus]

I have added this for Bing, maybe it also works for google.

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} bing.com
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg|png)$ - [F]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} BingPreview
RewriteRule ^.* - [F,L]

[HuskyPup]

I've been checking with various browsers this morning and so far today it appears to have reverted to the old layout in the UK and on the Firefox Google Global extension.

What are others seeing?

[levo]

Still seeing it with Safari, not with Firefox.

[nicolass]

Chrome now work with new layout...so user can't see in back your site..bye bye

[HuskyPup]

Just tried Chrome on both .co.uk and .com and still showing older layout.

Were you logged-in by any chance?

[nicolass]

they activate new layout and then revert back few times..they still testing