Do You Add Google Screenshots to Your Website?

byLeeRaybould

764 followers

10 years ago

I think the majority of us here at WA understand the dangers of using images without permission on our websites.

I'm forever adding screenshots of the Google search bar and the search results for various reasons and adding them to my site.

Then a few minutes ago, it suddenly hit me...

"Am I legally allowed to do this, or will my website be de-indexed, be landed with a huge fine and be thrown into prison for twenty years"?

Okay, that last bit might be a little dramatic, but If there's one company that I want to stay on the right side of and that's Google.

Here's the short answer from the horse's mouth.

"You don't need our permission when you want to use an unaltered screenshot of our homepage (Google.co.uk) or the search results page for instructional or illustrative purposes. This applies for print (book, magazine, journal, newspaper) or digital (web page, DVD, CD) formats".

I think the most important word here is "unaltered". You can read the page for yourself here which describes the difference between an altered, and an unaltered image.

https://www.google.co.uk/permissions/using-product...

This is for the UK site, but I presume other country sites will have the same permission but it's definitely worth checking.