If Referrer Google Images... load the page not the image

[dvduval]

Seems I am seeing this more. Rather than let Google images just take you to the image, it seems some images are scripted to load the page. And maybe I have no clue what I'm seeing, but comments appreciated.

[not2easy]

Yes, it was a hot topic just about 2 years ago. People who were happy to get images indexed because it brought traffic did not feel the same when the traffic was cut off while the images were still being used and shown. If you have lots of time, you could read some of it here: [webmasterworld.com...] (warning - it is several pages of dicussion.)

[roshaoar]

Thanks, I read that thread, which is closed because it's too old.

Fwiw, I quite independently did what one poster suggested in that thread, make all images show a URL. This is a small strip at the bottom, the aims being both to reinforce copyright, and to get people to the site. Hasn't been a problem with getting the images indexed by Google at all but the amount of traffic from Google images isn't anything like it used to be in the old days before Google made its changes.

[RedBar]

The average loss of traffic across most threads that I've read has been about 80%, certainly that's what mine ended up at, I literally lost tens of thousands of PVs per day.

I still have to wonder why Google did this since taking all those sites worldwide where AdSense was displayed and cutting both the publisher's and Google's earnings still does not make sense to me.