Product Creators - Google Images Is NOT A Bottomless Pit Of Free Resources

Last night I bought a product aimed at 'newbies', hoping that after going through it myself, I could recommend purchasing it to the less experienced buyers of some of the web sites I produce, in order to reduce some of the more mundane support queries, while at the same time boosting these buyers' chances of earning.

It was a really good product. Brilliant. The creator built sites in much the same way I do, and maintained and promoted them in the same way that I do too. As I read, I could see that there was little chance that a buyer of the type of site I had in mind could fail if he implemented the plan laid out in the product for it, and he'd be able to see the reasoning behind everything he did too. It was brilliant, until I'd almost got to the end (typically!) and the product creator began to talk about making web banners. 'Just type your keyword into Google Images and choose...' Oh, no! Oh, yes. He then went on to describe how to paste the image into a banner and add text etc. There was simply no way I could recommend the product to anyone after that, which is a shame because it was otherwise a very good one.

What bothers me about it enough to post is that it's not the first time that I've seen a product that advises the same thing. In it's default state, Google Images searches for images, which is why the blindingly obvious name. It does not search for royalty free images, it does not search for copyright free images, it just searches for... images. It's bad enough if you're just lifting them at random (even if only because you were once misinformed by a product creator too and led to believe that it's acceptable), but if you're going on to tell other people to do the same thing with reckless abandon then it's a zillion times worse. The chances are that someone reading your words will one day create a product of their own (possibly lifting one of YOUR images) and... the cycle has to stop. Here is as good a place as any.

Using the 'Advanced search', you can ask Google Images to find images that are labeled for commercial reuse (with or without modification), although most will likely require attribution. For example, a default search for 'hairdryer' will return 2,060,000 results. Using the advanced search set to 'labeled for commercial use' returns just 77, and eliminates 2,059,923 ways of finding yourself in hot water. Clicking on any of the images to see it in it's native habitat will usually show licensing details on the same page. If you're lucky, you'll have encountered an image in the Public Domain, but in most instance you'll be looking at an image that requires an attribution in order to use it.

I value my time, and think a dollar paid to one of the stock image sites for something to be a better use of resources than going through the above procedure and repeatedly checking the terms of each image in the faint hope of finding something suitable, but if you're advising others to go to Google for their images then you should be telling them to use the advanced search and check terms, even if it reveals how little there is there that they can use.

Lifting any image you fancy from Google Images is wrong. Telling other people, from a position of authority, that it's acceptable is REALLY wrong.