Page 1 – How to correctly find free images on Google

Page 2 – Only 1 image is actually free to use

Page 3 – What to look for when you visit the page the image resides on

Page 4 – What you must do if you want to use the image.

If you are someone who goes up on Google to find images for your website, you better keep reading because I am pretty sure you are probably doing it wrong. First off, the majority of images on Google are not free to use and the ones that are, most require some form of attribution. It is very rare that you will find a Public Domain or CC0 licensed image.

SETTING THE GOOGLE RIGHTS FILTER

It is very important to set the usage rights filter before you can use any image on Google. To do this you will need to click on the “Search Tools” button just under the search bar within Google images as seen in the image above.

This will open up a new row of 5 or 6 selections and you will want to click on “Usage Rights” which will open up a drop down menu as seen in the image below.

For use in your website you will want to select either Labeled for reuse or Labeled for reuse with modification. The differences between the two are pretty self-explanatory.

NEXT UP = What to expect and what to do next.


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MasterEd Premium
Great info as always Robert, but what happens when people don't do the appropriate thing? What does Google do, if anything? I guess what I asking that I haven't seen anyone ask is, what if people just use whatever they like? What are the consequences?

Does Google sandbox your domain or do owners come after you?
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boomergp08 Premium
Google more than likely would not do anything. But if the creator of that image should see it being used on a website, especially one that makes money for the website owner, that person could legally sue the website owner for using an image without their permission.
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MasterEd Premium
Fair enough. I didn't realize that photos can be so, how do you say, sensitive.

Thanks
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boomergp08 Premium
It mainly depends on the person who owns the rights of the image.

I recently saw another eBay seller using one of my custom product pictures the other day because she was selling the same product I was. I contacted her and she removed it.

If she didn't I could have legally caused problems for her, especially since the picture she was using had a subtle watermark I placed on it. Though I couldn't actually sue her because this happened on eBay, I could get eBay to remove her listing and place a warning on her seller's account.
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MasterEd Premium
I have another question regarding this. What's to stop people from grabbing photos from Google Images and modifying them and saving them, making it a different photo, per say?

Would the owner have any claim on the new version created?
Just being devil's advocate here. Curious to know.
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boomergp08 Premium
If the owner recognizes that their image was altered/used without their permission, they can make a claim on the new image.

Personally I feel that bigger and more established websites would be the types of websites that would be the ones to complain the most. But that is just only my opinion.
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MasterEd Premium
Thank you sir.
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iainclarke Premium
Thank you Robert. Very useful info. Have a great day
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boomergp08 Premium
You are welcome and you have a great day too!
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johnwnewman Premium
Great info! Thanks Robert!
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boomergp08 Premium
You are welcome John. Thanks for stopping by.
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DJ-Yogi Premium
In chrome you can do the same inside the expanded search options.
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boomergp08 Premium
Yes that is how I used to search but this way is a lot more straight forward an option, especially for newbies.
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Kimsh Premium
This is great thanks. Your stuff is always really helpful and very clear to understand. Always a pleasure to read.
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boomergp08 Premium
Thank you Kim. I try to always make my taining as easy to understand so even the newbies can grasp it.
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