Can you make backlinks to images work for you?

[netfleet]

Checking my backlinks, I have a lot of people linking to image files stored on my server. So to be clear people have linked to:

Mysite.com/images/upload/Image/image-name.jpg

Is there any way to get that link juice to flow through the site. I'm guessing no but jeez it would be good. If one could somehow embed a link in that image?

Thanks for any ideas!

[lucy24]

If one could somehow embed a link in that image?

Are you talking about links, as in <a href = blahblah>, or hotlinks, as in <img src = blahblah>?

Either way, are you letting people see the images?

[netfleet]

Well, the URL I listed above, if you visit, you see the image displayed in your browser, nothing else.

So I need a link from that actual page, if possible. So the link juice flows to the homepage etc.

Am I making sense?

[aakk9999]

Are you talking about links, as in <a href = blahblah>, or hotlinks, as in <img src = blahblah>?

Well, the URL I listed above, if you visit, you see the image displayed in your browser, nothing else.

What I think Lucy has asked is - if you know which site links to your images, could you check how they link to it? Perhaps have a look at View Source and see whether they use <a href="YourSiteAndYourImage.jpg" or <img src="YourSiteAndYourImage.jpg"

[piatkow]

netfleet is quite clear about the scenario that he is describing which is href="example.com/imgage.jpg"

The answer is no, you are just bleeding bandwidth. What you want is for people to link to example.com/imagepage.html where imagepage.html is a page displaying the image.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

edit: on second thought, in the interest of not helping the problem proliferate, I don't want to share what I wrote here a moment ago, please delete this.

[netfleet]

Here's a thought - what about 301'ing the URL to a page that has the image as well as a link to the homepage?

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Infinite loop, the image wouldn't load on the page unless you limit by domain.

[lucy24]

Infinite loop, the image wouldn't load on the page unless you limit by domain.

As with the ordinary hotlinking routine-- and remember, your server can't tell the difference between a hotlink and a direct image link-- you make an exemption for yourself as referer. That means an image called by your own page comes through as intended.

This thread moved me to do a bit of experimenting. I only tried it on my own setup (live site, not MAMP), so ymmv. If there is a deep-link to an image in the form <a href ... .jpg> you can redirect to a page. But the redirect will not take place if it's a hotlink in the form <img src ... .jpg> That's with an explicit [R=301] redirect; I didn't check whether a silent rewrite behaves the same. But in this situation a redirect is probably what you'd want anyway.

And then, of course, you have to know what to redirect to. It isn't a one-size-fits-all "No Hotlinks!" or "Stop Thief!" graphic. So now we're in detour-to-php-script territory.

[1script]

I would say the solution will have to depend on exactly how the images are used. If they are always taken out of context and no credit to you is given whatsoever, you may want to prevent showing hotlinked images. However, although I think this is the most common way hotlinked images are used, it's not the only way. I'm involved in an interesting circle of blogging activity where people *profusely* hotlink everyone else's images and yet at least "some" credit is usually given, although mostly not an actual html link that I would have liked.

I toyed with an idea of replacing the hotlinked images with the thumbnail versions of them and a note (text embedded into the replacement image) saying "to see the full size image go to http://www.example.com/page1.html" but then discarded it because it's very intensive CPU-load wise (although caching can help tremendously) but also because it will make me look like a jerk in the blogging circle which I respect despite all the misgivings. In other words, a "Stop Theft" replacement image solution (or even a softer version of it) would most likely backfire for me and instead I just grumble and watch my bandwidth being wasted (fortunately it's free these days though server load isn't)

[netfleet]

Thanks for the responses. Looks like the images are all 'hotlinked' and, as I delved deeper most seem to be from scraping websites. Often in a very similar format.

There's an amazing amount of links though - seems that I have about 250 images with links to them from 700 different domains.

However I'm now thinking if these are just dodgy scraping sites on the whole, there would be no benefit in actually having a normal link... in fact could even hurt possibly?