Friends,

In case you don’t think Googles new image search format is a serious matter, read what Blog owners and Webmasters (and users) are saying:

The revised image search is AWFUL. In order to search “similar to”, you have to now select an image, select more sizes, and then go up and change “more sizes” to “similar to.” This is the only way to get to it, and it’s extremely convoluted and non-intuituve. In fact, the only way I discovered what happened to the feature was by accident. Don’t you have your teams do real-world testing before you release things?

Hi Google,
“Don’t be evil” your corporate motto, if are to live up to this, then you should seriously consider your new image search function and listen to the image agency’s and their professional photographers and illustrators – you are effectively helping people steal their images.
Just going to the image on a click “VIEW ORIGINAL IMAGE” and not the website were the image is, is a violation of copyright, human nature is to take the image if you have gone this far, basically stealing.
This is of real concern to thousands of people.
Hope you can live up to your MOTTO. 

You have no right to leave my photographs up for grabs in high resolution. I make a living selling those.
We need to get a class law-suit together.
Models in those photos have also been promised controlled licensing..
Are you out of your mind!!!
It is like leaving the door open to someone else’s house, to let the thieves in.
You have no right!

This needs to be modified so that the viewer is directed to the page on the publisher’s website where the image originated. Not only is Google stealing copyrighted work and posting it on their site these full resolution images can be right clicked and stolen yet again by third parties who then use them on their websites to sell their products. If Google is going into the stock image business they need to pay for the usage rights. If they want to give away an image to fifty people that’s great, just pay me each time a pre-negogiated amount.

I searched and downloaded several of my images. Most arrived with either minimal or no contact information. Metadata has been stripped, which I consider a vital part of my images. The image search will encourage theft by making licensing more difficult. Yes, images are stolen and misused all over the internet every day. Google should not be facilitating this. I will also note that many, many irrelevant images showed up under my very specific searches.

Google, this was a terrible idea and you’ve greatly undermined the many webmaster’s that have made what google is today…Yes it is good in terms of user experience but the problem is that you are no longer giving any benefit to those providing you with the content (webmasters). This decision will greatly affect the amount of search results in the future.

I don’t like this new feature 🙁

i lost from 10000 to 4000, some day less, is possible google returns back ?
thanks

This change breaks two privacy controls at Google’s Picasaweb, as described in this thread at the Picasaweb help forum.
Picasaweb has long offered its users a sort of security-through-obscurity setting that makes individual photos posted there unfindable except in ways that the owner of the image controls. The new behavior takes that away.
Second, Picasaweb allows its users to specify that images are not available for reuse. This setting is not communicated to the users of google image search under the new format.
Quite honestly, the new arrangement is great for thieves, the only people likely to be interested in viewing these images divorced from their context on the web. 

So you win a lawsuit because you are not duplicating full size images and then you do this!
Thanks Guys, I am already losing traffic to Pinners who Pin my stuff on Pinterest without my permission and now you have just about killed off the traffic I get from Image Search.
Where’s the incentive for them to click though to my sites so they can see a better image?
And thank you so much for making it easier for Image Thieves to steal my images.
But of course I don’t matter. I am only one of the little guys and when I go down, there’s enough new people to take my place.
Oh joy!

I am very concerned about the metadata stripping that occurs when photographs are displayed in the search. I located a number of my images and several of them arrived on my desktop with minimal or no contact information. Keeping metadata intact is key for proper licensing of photographs. Yes, images are being stolen and used without permission all over the internet but we shouldn’t be encouraging it.

After the update, my CTR for pictures went from 120 – 150 visits a day to 20. 
That’s very disappointing because obviously, people take the picture without going to the source anymore. Formerly, I got decent traffic from google images but now this is gone, which is sad.

A LOT of very upset people – and rightfully so.

All these complaints were posted at this site:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.ca/

I am still urging all readers to PLEASE take a few minutes and lodge a complaint (to the above site) as these folks have.

Many of your favorite Blogs and Websites are in jeopardy.

Thank you.

jcalberta
myfavoritewesterns.com

Related articles

• Webmasters Notice Decline In Google Image Search Traffic After Design Update (seroundtable.com)
• Google Image Search Redesign Raises Ire (onecoolsitebloggingtips.com)
• Image Search Changes Google Said Would Be Good For Webmasters Might Be Hurting Some Sites (webpronews.com)