Google Images May Be Copyright Infringement
CNET News reports that a federal judge has ruled Google’s thumbnail image search is likely copyright infringement.
Back in the day when I used to do SEO for clients, especially clients who sold retail products via their web site, I would optimize all the pictures on their sites.
One client in particular who ran a gift basket site had an increase in overall sales as a result. 31% of all sales resulting directly from search engine traffic came from image search results.
My only conclusion was that people would actually use the major search engines image results like a storefront where they’d do their keyword search, find a picture of a product they wanted, click through and purchase it.
If the major search engines have to go and change all that just because of a couple of complaints, the search engines will become less useful for searchers.
Do webmasters not realize that all they need to do to limit what content ends up in a search engine is use a robots.txt file?
Don’t want undesirable people in your basement? Lock the doors and windows.
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