Breaking the frame on G Image Search

[EmptyRoom]

I've been out of the loop regarding Google Image Search... I remember back in the days that many webmasters used a simple script which would break the frame and lead the user directly to the website while viewing an image in Google Search.

What's the current stance on this? Is it safe to do it, and how to do it these days (I think Google changed their interface)?

[Spiekerooger]

Do you still see a framed version of your site or do you just see the carousel (with hotlinked image) on image search? (the last one not being a frame in a technical sense regarding html).

If it's the former a one line js checking if window.location is the same as top.location helps and (as far as I experience) is still safe to use in regard to image ranking.

[JS_Harris]

Google image search immediately loads a cache copy of the image from their own server(low res) and replaces that with your image hotlinked if it is available and loads. They no longer display the page behind the image so there is no pageload, just a direct image hit. Most(all?) old methods of 'breaking' the visitor to your site no longer work.

In its place webmasters that are concerned about image theft are allowing Google to display a watermarked version of any image along with words like 'click here for full resolution'. There are entire guides online on how to serve Google watermarked images but not your on site visitors.

[Lake]

Do not try to do that watermark trick above.

That falls under a Google manual action for cloaked images and you might be penalized: [support.google.com...]