They Stole My Images!

43 replies
And I'm glad they did, since a huge amount of my traffic in top performing sites comes from Google images.
#images #stole
  • Profile picture of the author Heidi White
    LOL - How did your images end up on Google images? Perhaps that's a free traffic strategy idea?
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    • Profile picture of the author askloz
      simple, name the image a keyword you are after and give it an ALT text, this is added below the image as a description in google images.

      Originally Posted by MostlyHarmless View Post

      LOL - How did your images end up on Google images? Perhaps that's a free traffic strategy idea?
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    • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
      Originally Posted by MostlyHarmless View Post

      LOL - How did your images end up on Google images? Perhaps that's a free traffic strategy idea?
      You pretty much have to tell Google NOT to index your images or they'll be found and included sooner or later.
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      Just when you think you've got it all figured out, someone changes the rules.

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  • Profile picture of the author Emmanuel Betinis
    Originally Posted by thunderbird View Post

    And I'm glad they did, since a huge amount of my traffic in top performing sites comes from Google images.
    But how good is that traffic, really? Is it the kind of traffic that actually cares about what you have to offer on your site? Or is it the kind of traffic that just wants to rip your images because they're also internet marketers?

    I discovered a lot of my traffic was coming from my images, so I disallowed the /images to be indexed to save on hosting bandwith under the assumption it's low-quality traffic anyway.

    Thoughts?
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    • Profile picture of the author NikkiG
      Originally Posted by Emmanuel Betinis View Post

      But how good is that traffic, really? Is it the kind of traffic that actually cares about what you have to offer on your site? Or is it the kind of traffic that just wants to rip your images because they're also internet marketers?

      I discovered a lot of my traffic was coming from my images, so I disallowed the /images to be indexed to save on hosting bandwith under the assumption it's low-quality traffic anyway.

      Thoughts?

      That comes down to testing and looks like you'll find out.

      I get sales from images traffic and more than enough for me to use it as a strategy..at least part time..considering it doesn't take much time I just make changes in my .htaccess files to make sure that if a user goes through Google images to view the full size image they end up at the page not at the image.

      Did you really have enough image traffic that it was taking up too much bandwidth?
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      • Profile picture of the author Sparhawke
        Originally Posted by NikkiG View Post

        That comes down to testing and looks like you'll find out.

        I get sales from images traffic and more than enough for me to use it as a strategy..at least part time..considering it doesn't take much time I just make changes in my .htaccess files to make sure that if a user goes through Google images to view the full size image they end up at the page not at the image.

        Did you really have enough image traffic that it was taking up too much bandwidth?
        Does this really work and make a real difference to traffic?
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      • Profile picture of the author PaulaC
        Originally Posted by NikkiG View Post

        I get sales from images traffic and more than enough for me to use it as a strategy..at least part time..considering it doesn't take much time I just make changes in my .htaccess files to make sure that if a user goes through Google images to view the full size image they end up at the page not at the image.
        You can also use this Wordpress plugin to do the same thing.

        Frame Buster Plugin For WordPress
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    • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Emmanuel Betinis View Post

      But how good is that traffic, really? Is it the kind of traffic that actually cares about what you have to offer on your site? Or is it the kind of traffic that just wants to rip your images because they're also internet marketers?

      I discovered a lot of my traffic was coming from my images, so I disallowed the /images to be indexed to save on hosting bandwith under the assumption it's low-quality traffic anyway.

      Thoughts?
      I get a lot of traffic from my images and encourage it. I don't consider traffic to be a bad thing, whether they buy something or not. The more traffic the merrier ... bring it on, I say. I don't see any point in disallowing traffic simply because they want to see an image.
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  • Profile picture of the author NikkiG
    Forgot to mention that image results turn up in some cases even if someone is not specifically looking for images...just like videos etc...you can end up with a top 10 nested result in Google search.
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  • Profile picture of the author thetrafficaddict
    You can get really targeted results with image ads. People searching them will also be typing it targeted keyword.

    So they're part of your target market.
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  • Profile picture of the author Vijay M
    A very potent strategy was shared by someone here.I forget the user.

    He had a copy writing guru's pictures indexed and showing up on the front page, and when someone searched for this particular guru, the image showed up. He claimed to have pocketed a nice aff commission just by this tactic.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bruce Hearder
    Here's another idea for you:

    You could create a new image (that is basically an ad for your website), and call it STOLEN.GIF

    Now whenever tries to hotlink an image from your site (no matter what its called), they get the STOLEN.GIF file displayed instead..

    If you want to try this, the add this to your .htaccess file
    Code:
    Options All -Indexes
    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://.*google.([^/]+)/.*$ [NC]
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://.*google.([^/]+)$ [NC]
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?mysite\.com [NC]
    RewriteRule .*\.(swf|cur|ani|mid|mp3|mov|wma)$ - [F]
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?mysite\.com [NC]
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/images/stolen.gif [NC]
    RewriteRule .*\.(jpe?g|gif|bmp|png)$ /images/stolen.gif [R,L]
    Obviously replace mysite\.com with your domain (making sure to put a \ symbol before every . in the domain name)

    It will allow Google to still display images from your site in Google Images, but not from other peoples sites..

    Anyway, see what you think

    Bruce
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    • Profile picture of the author HomeBizNizz
      Originally Posted by Bruce Hearder View Post

      Here's another idea for you:

      You could create a new image (that is basically an ad for your website),
      and call it STOLEN.GIF
      I did it once because some idiot hot linked a couple of mine images.
      I emailed him first.
      And he told me to "go to a warm place".

      I replaced the pix with a pic of a naked hairy mans ass
      with the text below "Kiss my big beautiful ass".
      Nevertheless, the dude did removed the pix fast afterwards.
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      • Profile picture of the author garyv
        Originally Posted by HomeBizNizz View Post

        I did it once because some idiot hot linked a couple of mine images.
        I emailed him first.
        And he told me to "go to a warm place".

        I replaced the pix with a pic of a naked hairy mans ass
        with the text below "Kiss my big beautiful ass".
        Nevertheless, the dude did removed the pix fast afterwards.
        I did this as well to someone using my hosted images on their ebay auction. I gave them plenty of warning. However ultimately ebay shut their auction down. I guess selling fat naked ladies is against their rules.
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      • Profile picture of the author windtalker
        Originally Posted by HomeBizNizz View Post

        I did it once because some idiot hot linked a couple of mine images.
        I emailed him first.
        And he told me to "go to a warm place".

        I replaced the pix with a pic of a naked hairy mans ass
        with the text below "Kiss my big beautiful ass".
        Nevertheless, the dude did removed the pix fast afterwards.
        lol, pretty funny. I'm betting he is one of those guys who think they can get away with anything over the internet.
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        WarriorJ

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    • Profile picture of the author DogScout
      Originally Posted by Bruce Hearder View Post

      Here's another idea for you:

      You could create a new image (that is basically an ad for your website), and call it STOLEN.GIF

      Now whenever tries to hotlink an image from your site (no matter what its called), they get the STOLEN.GIF file displayed instead..

      If you want to try this, the add this to your .htaccess file
      Code:
      Options All -Indexes
      RewriteEngine on
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://.*google.([^/]+)/.*$ [NC]
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://.*google.([^/]+)$ [NC]
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www.)?mysite.com [NC]
      RewriteRule .*.(swf|cur|ani|mid|mp3|mov|wma)$ - [F]
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www.)?mysite.com [NC]
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/images/stolen.gif [NC]
      RewriteRule .*.(jpe?g|gif|bmp|png)$ /images/stolen.gif [R,L]
      Obviously replace mysite.com with your domain (making sure to put a symbol before every . in the domain name)

      It will allow Google to still display images from your site in Google Images, but not from other peoples sites..

      Anyway, see what you think

      Bruce
      That only works if they hotlink to the image, but most know enough to download and re-upload, unless they are just idiots.
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      • Profile picture of the author Rus Sells
        HAHA Good point. Most of my stolen images were hotlinked! Can't say my peers were too bright about that.

        Originally Posted by DogScout View Post

        That only works if they hotlink to the image, but most know enough to download and re-upload, unless they are just idiots.
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    • Profile picture of the author Rus Sells
      Bruce that is great! I've had so many of my Hail damage photos stolen back when I used to own an insurance restoration company! I have found my personally taken photos on many of my competitors sites!

      I wish I would have know about this back in the day!



      Originally Posted by Bruce Hearder View Post

      Here's another idea for you:

      You could create a new image (that is basically an ad for your website), and call it STOLEN.GIF

      Now whenever tries to hotlink an image from your site (no matter what its called), they get the STOLEN.GIF file displayed instead..

      If you want to try this, the add this to your .htaccess file
      Code:
      Options All -Indexes
      RewriteEngine on
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://.*google.([^/]+)/.*$ [NC]
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://.*google.([^/]+)$ [NC]
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www.)?mysite.com [NC]
      RewriteRule .*.(swf|cur|ani|mid|mp3|mov|wma)$ - [F]
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www.)?mysite.com [NC]
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/images/stolen.gif [NC]
      RewriteRule .*.(jpe?g|gif|bmp|png)$ /images/stolen.gif [R,L]
      Obviously replace mysite.com with your domain (making sure to put a symbol before every . in the domain name)

      It will allow Google to still display images from your site in Google Images, but not from other peoples sites..

      Anyway, see what you think

      Bruce
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    • Profile picture of the author PaulaC
      This is great Bruce!! I have been looking for something like this for a while now. I will be spending the rest of the day adding this code to my blogs.


      Originally Posted by Bruce Hearder View Post

      Here's another idea for you:

      You could create a new image (that is basically an ad for your website), and call it STOLEN.GIF

      Now whenever tries to hotlink an image from your site (no matter what its called), they get the STOLEN.GIF file displayed instead..

      If you want to try this, the add this to your .htaccess file
      Code:
      Options All -Indexes
      RewriteEngine on
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://.*google.([^/]+)/.*$ [NC]
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://.*google.([^/]+)$ [NC]
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www.)?mysite.com [NC]
      RewriteRule .*.(swf|cur|ani|mid|mp3|mov|wma)$ - [F]
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www.)?mysite.com [NC]
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/images/stolen.gif [NC]
      RewriteRule .*.(jpe?g|gif|bmp|png)$ /images/stolen.gif [R,L]
      Obviously replace mysite.com with your domain (making sure to put a symbol before every . in the domain name)

      It will allow Google to still display images from your site in Google Images, but not from other peoples sites..

      Anyway, see what you think

      Bruce
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  • Profile picture of the author poker princess
    I think this doesn't help that much for gaining visitors or hits for your site. I have been using all new images in my blog articles and all of them do have alt tags too. But very few traffic shows up in my stats from google image search.
    I do get 40% of traffic from google but not from the image search option.
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  • Profile picture of the author askloz
    the last person who stole my images who was getting like 1000-1500 hits on it a day via ebay, I found a picture of a naked women,and named it the same file name as the image they took from me that was showing a ps3 console, and wrote some nasty words on the picture...
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  • Profile picture of the author poker princess
    How about posting a water mark in the images, I do this mostly in the images of my blog. I make the visibility of the mark very less so that it cannot be seen at all.
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  • Profile picture of the author ChrisChoiSEO
    Just wondering? Did that traffic convert into leads or sales?
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    • Profile picture of the author JayYamada
      I read the alt text on image is also important, I'm wondering if alt text are used for search terms on google image? anyone?
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      WayOfSeduction.org - My First Niche Website
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    • Profile picture of the author thunderbird
      Originally Posted by ChrisChoiSEO View Post

      Just wondering? Did that traffic convert into leads or sales?
      Yes, it did lead to conversions. That said, I suspect that it might work better for some niches than others, eg ones where people want to see visual examples, it helps, I've found. I guess if it was a site about SEO, something abstract, it probably wouldn't help much.
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  • Profile picture of the author oca101
    Banned
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author thunderbird
      Originally Posted by oca101 View Post

      Have you put some water marks in your Images?.
      Nope, but if one wants to do so, IncanSoft sells a script for that.
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      Project HERE.

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  • Profile picture of the author Thomas W
    There is no way i would stop my images from getting indexed. There is a huge opportunity in getting traffic from images.

    Just add a break out of frames javascript and bam that image traffic goes strait into your web page.

    I also allow people to hotlink now. I believe that it counts as a backlink. Thats my theory as to why sites that give away free web 2.0 layouts do pretty well.
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  • Profile picture of the author sylviad
    So what's the difference between using that lengthy htaccess code and putting a no follow in a robot.txt file?

    And does any of these have an impact on the images showing up in other sites where you link back to your own image? ie: at the WF for your profile pic.

    I've come across some sites that you are prevented from copying the content. How do they do that? You cannot copy the text, images, or anything. That would be the ultimate solution, would it not? Then, people couldn't steal your sales pages either.

    Sylvia
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  • Profile picture of the author thunderbird
    The best way to overcome the danger of theft is to keep on creating.
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    Project HERE.

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  • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
    Having people rip your content certainly sucks, but dont forget you can get great positioning in Google just through using images!
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    BS free SEO services, training and advice - SEO Point

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  • Profile picture of the author Emmanuel Betinis
    Hey Bruce,

    I was going to PM you with the following question but I figured I'd
    ask "out loud" in front of everyone in case someone else also wonders
    how to do what I'm about to ask...

    I like the .htaccess trick to prevent images from loading from other
    hotlinking sources. But what if I want to set up an exception for a
    certain domain within that code (like to allow Aweber.com to
    hotlink to my /images directory)?

    EDIT: Also, I found a .htaccess file creator that allows you to
    easily choose which files to disallow and which domains to allow,
    which is nice and it's here: http://www.htaccesstools.com/hotlink-protection/
    BUT I noticed that site says that if you choose to have a certain
    image replaced (like a hairy butt or something) to make sure it does
    NOT reside in the same hotlink-protected location as the others,
    otherwise your server could "go into an endless loop". Bruce, I
    noticed the code you gave us says the "replaced" image is also
    in the hotlink-protected directory...based on my research at the
    URL I just listed, wouldn't that put our servers at risk of going
    into this "endless loop" they talk about? ...or is your code different
    and prevents that from happening (even thought the 'dummy'
    image is the hotlink-protected area)?

    I'd appreciate input on this one!
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    • Profile picture of the author Bruce Hearder
      If you want to allow a particular domain , its easy..

      In the code I provided above, you will see the folllwing line

      Code:
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www.)?mysite.com [NC]
      Just add the urls that you want to allow to pull files from.

      So, it could look like this..
      Code:
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www.)?mysite.com [NC]
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www.)?aweber.com [NC]
      Yes, you are right..

      If you move the solen.gif file to the root, directory then you will opvercome the potential "endless loop" situtaion.

      Though I have never had it happen to me, it is a possibility..

      So change the lines that reads :

      Code:
      RewriteRule .*.(jpe?g|gif|bmp|png)$ /images/stolen.gif [R,L]
      To
      Code:
      RewriteRule .*.(jpe?g|gif|bmp|png)$ /stolen.gif [R,L]
      Hope this helps

      Bruce
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  • Profile picture of the author Emmanuel Betinis
    In the entire overall code, there are two instances of the following line:

    Code:
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www.)?mysite.com [NC]
    Should I put the line in for Aweber after the first instance or after
    the second instance?
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    • Profile picture of the author Bruce Hearder
      Originally Posted by Emmanuel Betinis View Post

      IShould I put the line in for Aweber after the first instance or after
      the second instance?
      It should work just fine after the first mysite.com line

      Bruce
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  • Profile picture of the author MikEdwards
    Visitor coming from Google images do see your site under a Google images frame. So make sure you have some good eye-catcher at the very top of your page, because the "before the fold" zone is shorter. I do get a Sh*tload of traffic to one of my sites from Google images. It doesn't convert as well as regular search traffic, but since I moved my bait to the complete top of my page, I have better results.
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  • Profile picture of the author TheKeys
    I think it you work it right it can be beneficial to your business.. though in most instances it isn't
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