Surely the problem isn't off our own websites where the images would normally be watermarked, but people who have licensed them having the images on their sites, easily harvested by Google.
I can't imagine the agencies making a rule that anyone licensing an image must prevent Google from indexing them, and the horse has already bolted anyway.

In addition, many hosting solutions allow you to disallow hotlinking right in your control panel for those that aren't comfortable working with .htaccess files.

I have the right click disable but this is not the problem. The problem is not in Watermarked/small files . Is in big files , legally bought used without conscience .

  Disable and change the .htaccess in out of question. Which agency will take an action to get their images and tag�s out of search engines? This is insane!

  If agencies provide a way to buyers get the files with proper size and mark for web at the same time they can have the HD file. Do incentives to get people attention to these problem will be the right thing to do or at least what agencies can do in a easy way.

Search engines function is looking for something people need. If exists big files on web they index them. But search engines are our best friends to, if they don�t exist how people find us. People can find us looking for images to.

  Socials networks are very problematic to. Do you imagine how many images exist in Facebook of families, babies, child�s, events.....all in maximum resolution FB allow�s . All free images for pirates.

I am thinking if someone just try to do a research of stock market sales before and after Facebook 

Off course , now, all of us must live with it and share the good things it have! Facebook have good things to.

What Facebook don�t have and Google don�t have is a way of people add auto watermarks to their files. Google have so many things and utilities, why they don�t provide an online skill to resize and mark files ?

Facebook have so many app and developments , why someone don�t invent an Facebook app to mark and resize images with customize watermarks ?

Quote from: brmonico on February 09, 2013, 18:14

Quote from: elvinstar on February 09, 2013, 09:30

In addition, many hosting solutions allow you to disallow hotlinking right in your control panel for those that aren't comfortable working with .htaccess files.

  Disable and change the .htaccess in out of question. Which agency will take an action to get their images and tag�s out of search engines? This is insane!

Why do we need our images in search engines if they don't link back to the web site? I think a lot of savvy websites will soon block the Google Images bot, which is easy to do in robots.txt.

If someone finds one of the images from my website in Google Images, their only course of action is to ignore it, or download it without my authorization. They can't click on it and be taken to the purchase page, so what's the point of having images indexed by Google at all?

BTW, if someone chooses to DL the image illegally, they use your bandwidth too.

Sorry but the new search engine provide a relink to page and site for people buying the image. You have 3 options :
- image details
- Visit page - send you to the site were image is. In case of an agency, send to page were it is on sale.
- See image in original size (indexed size) - in case of agencies will present watermark.
- Even provide the copyright message at the end of page

- So i don�t see Google like an enemy here....I see many people are uploading files to web without conscience. All images that appear in google from my site have watermark, the same size as showed page, relink to agency and page for people buy..... Not much different of Pinterest .....

You aren't selling from your own site, so you aren't privy to the statistics. The link almost everyone clicks on is "View Original Image." This takes you to the image itself (watermarked in our case), not the web page where potential sales occur.

Nobody clicks on the tiny "Visit Page" button. Our statistics prove it, and so do Dreamstime's, and those of GLStockImages.

OK, i�m not defending Google . I am in the same boat you guys are. And for someone who is starting is even worse get images stollen and gain people trust.

  What i want say is if people are getting less sales on a significant mark compared to last year in same month . I had one family dinner few time ago and we talk about that. One of my cousin�s have a blog about pets and animal medicine ... she never bought one image and have many stollen images there and watermark deleted. This really mades me upset , we almost have a family fight at table.
   She looking for images in Bing , not Google. And whem she goes to an agency is to get free images from free section or free images with easy watermark removal.
   She is one of many�s who bring traffic to agencies but never will buy anything. I told her that maybe one day she loose that blog. The worst part is that she do money with it , and good money.

  I tell this because is important to notice what less traffic means . You are right when you say�s that i don�t have stats, but in your stats you are notice a significant sales drop or simple traffic drop? I believe many traffic come from curious and pirates who looking for free images in agencies and not from serious buyers.

You are right when you say�s that i don�t have stats, but in your stats you are notice a significant sales drop or simple traffic drop?

Both. I have 2 years worth of Google Analytics data. We have a predictable percentage of purchase conversions from Google Images visits. Post changes, our referral rate is almost zero while our images continued to be "viewed" (or worse) within Google Images.