Opt out of Google Images inline linking

[Dimitri]

I don't know if this is new, but it is to me.

Opt out of Google Images inline linking

If you choose, you can prevent the full-sized image from appearing in the Google Images search results page by opting out of inline linking in Google Images search results.

To opt out of inline linking:

When your image is requested, examine the HTTP referrer header in the request.
If the request is coming from a Google domain, reply with HTTP 200 or 204 and no content.

Google will still crawl your page and see the image, but will display a thumbnail image generated at crawl time in search results. This opt-out is possible at any time, and does not require re-processing of a website's images. This behavior is not considered image cloaking and will not result in manual actions.

[developers.google.com...]

So, I understand that only the thumbnail will appear in Google Image Search, (may be zoomed).

When Google came with its new image search, this is what I was doing (returning no content), to block the full size image, from being rendered on Google's page, so only a zoomed version of the preview was showing, and people could see the full size at MY site. It didn't take long, before my site get banned from the Image Search, with a "manual action". I was later reinstalled, after removing the no-content-hot-linking-serving. So apparently, now, this is allowed?

[not2easy]

It is about time they allow folks a way to share only a sample. I used to block crawling of images, then they decided they "needed" access to render pages to determine whether your site was mobile friendly. Monthly bandwidth increased significantly after that while live traffic was rarer. I wonder how many smaller sites went away rather than pay for their generous image sharing.

Thank you for this newer image policy information Dimitri!

[Dimitri]

I still wish Google wouldn't rank/list sites which are hot linking images.