Photographer Terry L. Sohl noticed that something seemed a little off in the amount of traffic his website was receiving. After a little detective work he realized that with the launch of Google’s redesigned Image Search he was receiving substantially less traffic.
The old image search was designed in such a way that when you clicked on a result your website was loaded up in the background along with the image result. Making it real easy to jump into the website that owned or uploaded the image. The new version of Google Image Search just loads a large size version of the image without it’s parent website. It then has two buttons, one to visit the site and the other to see a full-size version.
Essentially it makes it easier to download the image and circumvent the original website all together.
I’ve never been a big fan of Google. They tend to have a “we take what we want approach.” That they offer “free” services has helped them receive a pass on a lot of shady behavior.
In a few days I’ll make a post showing how you can block Google Image Search from indexing your images. I don’t think I will add it myself, but some might find it useful.