If i hadnt stumbled across your post here i never would've known. ive seen many trainin posts on WA recommend these "free" images sites like pixabay which i currently use. I believe kyle recommends pixabay. How risky can it be?

I dont want another $9 a month overhead to just get pictures. The other options you gave are limited to a week or whatever. So ur saying id have to pay for images or risk getting sued somewher down the line. Any free long term options?

If it's free, you are the product!

I'd recommend you read the last two paragraphs "Indemnification" and "Warranty" here https://pixabay.com/en/service/terms/ so you can decide whether you're comfortable with the risk of using Pixabay.

You should always read the T&Cs; of every service you use.

I think the chances of getting clobbered for damages are small, but are definitely there, one member I know found that out for themselves.

Here are a few well documented examples of just that scenario happening to some unlucky website owners:

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/mar/11/use-google-images-website

http://www.contentfac.com/copyright-infringement-penalties-are-scary/

http://www.out-law.com/page-10367

As I said, the bigger risk is that a copyright holder like myself who uses a tracking service like DigiMarc or PicScout and then automatically files a DMCA against your site and you lose all your hard earned rankings. I personally wouldn't risk years of work over $9, but that's me, not you.

Oh, and you don't have to spend $9 a month every month at somewhere like Stock Unlimited, just spend it once, and download enough legally licenced images during the month to last you at least a year!

thanks for explaining. I actually just went and checked out the "How to Find & Add Images to Your Website" post by kyle. In the post he mentions typing in google "I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law. + image type" to find images that are free to use, and I tried it and found a lot of images that seems to be free, including pictures on wikimedia commons.

but as you have said before, anyone can upload a picture stating it's copyright free. but is this the same thing here?

If you want to be risk free then use a stock library that offers financial compensation in the event of any dispute, ie. Stock Unlimited offer up to $25,000 per image. The reason they can do this is because they have verified the identity of the person uploading the images, ie. in the case where I wanted to sell an image on Fotolia, I had to email a scan of my passport and then pay them $1 via a debit or credit card that matched the name on the passport, they then ran a credit check on me and sent me a letter through the post with a PIN number that I had to enter on their site!!

In truth, I also think it's a false economy to use free, I see so many websites with frankly crap images which serve no purpose, an image should arrest a visitor's attention and get them to start reading.

Have a look at what's available in your niche on http://www.stock.adobe.com or http://www.bigstockphoto.com or http://www.stockunlimited.com to see what great images you can find to enhance your website and which you can legally use by licencing them for just a few cents.

Then decide if free is really worth the price you're not paying! :)

Thanks Robert ! I'll take a look at your blog.
Anyway, I also see my competitors rank first page for the "what is review" keyword although they dont mention that keyword once in their reviews .. Can you explain how that is done ? :)

Greetings

They probably have a PPC (pay per click) campaign running so they only need to use the keyword one time.
Robert

Hi moritz,

Thanks for the fast reply.

Sure, the link to mijn site is "http://mlm-empire.com/category/email-marketing" as you can see on the top of the page it states " Category:Email Marketing" people obvious already know that because they chose that category page in the menu.

The theme i'm using is Blogsixteen.

Cheers, mate !


Have a great day.
Olivier.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find an option for that either.
Personally, I don't think that it's that bad to have the category name placed there.
Most visitors don't browse our sites much anyways. They usually find an article on our site through Google, read it and then leave again (hopefully buying something or signing up on WA).

I noticed a problem with your theme.
At least on Chrome and Firefox, the drop-down menus don't work correctly. I can't click on any submenus.

You might want to look for other themes if that can't be fixed.

Cheers
Moritz