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...]

[chrisv1963]

What I have noticed is, once more, a lot of scrapers using my images and blowing mine off the first page even though mine were there years before, and I mean is some cases 12 years!

This shows again how crappy Google is in reality and not able to detect the ownership of content. Instead of destroying the internet with Panda and Penguin they should have fixed this first.

[ianevans]

Any way to achieve it without a CDN? I think I'm understanding it a bit, but if anyone who understands it can explain he steps a bit clearer, my coffeeless brain would appreciate it. :-)

[ianevans]

just thinking out loud here...would it work if we checked to see if a visitor had a session cookie...if they were on the site, even if they had a blank referer they'd have the cookie, but if they tried to "view original image" without the cookie they'd get redirected?

[lucy24]

serves up a 500 error when clicked on in Google

Do you mean that stuff happens which results in a 500 error, or that you've explicitly coded the site to return a 500?

One way it's bad coding; the other way you're lying to the user. Either way it's a misuse of the 500 error class. At best. At worst, you're shooting yourself in the foot. People will remember that they tried to go to such-and-such site and got hit with a serious error message.

[HuskyPup]

Do you mean that stuff happens which results in a 500 error,

Yep, it did however after some research it's now returning a 403 Forbidden across all sites.

[lucy24]

Whew. I thought you meant you were doing it on purpose :(

[zeus]

fansshare solution - But some visitors (who disabled referer in browser or firewall block the referer) will see the overlayed version of the image *on your site* too!

[gbk666]

Using a new wordpress plugin with the name "google break dance" now

google users are redirected to the specific image post/page/gallery now if they click on original site @ google

[silfiriel]

@gbk666 I tried the plugin but it doesn't work for me....

[HuskyPup]

I spent the entire weekend uploading new htaccess code to all my sites and everything seems to be working perfectly now generating 403s on regular sites and my CMS gallery and on WP Not Found "Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here."

Most browsers generate this immediately, sometimes Firefox has to be refreshed but it's useless for anyone to hotlink to.

[gbk666]

There is another new wordpres plugin trying to solve the problem, it seems to work a bit better than the "google break dance" one

Look out for the plugin "Imaguard"

[chrisv1963]

now generating 403s

I'm generating 403s and redirecting them to the homepage. People clicking on "View Original Image" arrive on my homepage.

Google created a monster with this new image search. Everyone is trying to find solutions to work around it. The endresult will be that Google Image Search is a big mess, something that doesn't work properly. Something the average user hates because it doesn't work properly all the time.

[dhaliwal]

i am wondering, if there is some solution which will work for General websites or Drupal based sites.

[gbk666]

I would lookup the latest drupal addons /plugins published, with a bit luck there is something out there already

[berm]

Here is the full code and procedure for implementing the watermark code for images on your site:
[scriptsocket.com ]

[macas]

@berm
Thank you so much on link ,I was searching for that around the web .

BTW
Can someone help me with this option in .htacess :

redirect direct-link images from google images to single/gallery page ?

In Apache Web Server sub-forum I found a lot of similar stuff but not precise this solution.

Thanks a lot !
Macas

[lucy24]

You could, ahem, try posting in the apache subforum ;) But we'll make you do the work yourself; we'll just sit by and hold your hand while you're doing it.

And, ahem... A rule that contains these FOUR separate Conditions (two of them completely wrong, one redundant and all four partly wrong)

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://example.com/.*$  [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://example.com$  [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.example.com/.*$  [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.example.com$  [NC]

should be approached with extreme caution.

The rule itself is dead wrong too. But that's a matter for a different forum.

[berm]

SIGN THE PETITION PLEASE!
[change.org ]

[HuskyPup]

For the past few days I now see a downturn for images across all sites, my biggest image site by about 50% and across all other sites by 27%.

Cracking Gorg, just as you found in your tests, a rise in traffic and income!

[helleborine]

It's by no means a valid survey, but I've been using Google Images, and perhaps looked at 30 images in the past few days. I encountered two where webmasters had instituted some form of blockage.

There are thousands of webmasters beyond this thread, and beyond WebmasterWorld; many are quietly thinking as we do, and cutting off Google Images.

[HuskyPup]

Does anyone feel that Google is now filtering out sites that have managed to successfully block linking etc? My largest gallery's metrics are now down to Xmas levels and checking the image SERPs I can't find many of my previously ranking images.

This big drop has occurred ever since last weekend when I 403'd Google's "View Original Image".

[matrix_jan]

@HuskyPup

Do you "catch" returned 403s? Do People see plain 403 page when they click "view the original image"?

This is very important, because users will bounce and G will think your image wasn't good enough for them. Try catching the request with your 403 page and redirect it to your gallery.

I don't see any change in rankings. I switched to watermarking from returning 403 one day ago. So far the CTR is 10%-20% lower.

[gbk666]

I have a feeling that google is "reloading" the thumbs from time to time and if they can't do it, they remove the image out of the index.

I also noticed that newly uploaded images from the last 4 days were not indexed yet ..mostly likely because the imaguard plugin i use now for wordpress prevented google from loading the images correctly is my wild wild guess.

Since the traffic through images was so low anyway i honestly don't care a lot anymore though..it is like a bad joke but my website about art will only be searchable on google via the normal search instead of via images.

But honestly, i rather have 0 visitors through googles image search than 20% of what i had before the 24th January and giving google my content and traffic for free. Beside that like many artists mentioned, the new google image search makes it even easier now for art thefts, and i dont want to support that.

Beside trying to have more texts now in descriptions for images, i also use facebook and deviantart more for traffic.

I also go the oldschool way and talk about content on the website in related forums/communities. Something i did not do before but now backlinks and traffic through other sites is more important.

If google screwed you, don't give up and try to build up traffic without them.

[HuskyPup]

Try catching the request with your 403 page and redirect it to your gallery.

Thanks for that tip, yep, that gallery is now redirecting to the gallery home page ... now to implement it across all my other sites:-)

[HuskyPup]

Just to let you know I had a nice bounce back upwards with Page Views and Uniques after implementing this across all sites plus AdSense had 81% of an average day.

[dhaliwal]

this system doesn't work for my website.

[scriptsocket.com...]

[lucy24]

The php-script part or the htaccess-redirect part?

[berm]

Works for me. Does it work for others?

[dhaliwal]

@berm, @lucy24

The image isn't shown if someone wants to see it via Google Search or Hotlink it.

But, it doesn't redirect the person to image page on site. And, it doesn't load the image with watermark either.

[berm]

It does for me.