I thought I read an article a week or so ago that said you could somehow get back links from images that are being hot-linked on other sites. I don't want to turn hot-linking off, because I think Google Images gives me some traffic. At the same time, I've got several blogs and forums using my images for their reviews and articles and not giving me a link. Is it possible to get a back link through hot-links?
Let's define a few things first, ok? <a href="#"><img src="#" width="200" height="150" alt="alternative text" title="descriptive title"></a> Code (markup): <img src="#" width="200" height="150" alt="alternative text" title="descriptive title"> Code (markup): The first is a link back to your site, and will be counted as such (especially if the link is back to your site, like a link banner for example), while the second is just plain wrong, and will most likely not be counted; if it does get counted, then the link will most likely be a very weak one. I could be wrong, of course. Now, here's what I'd do. I'd block hot-linking on images in general, but create a "white-list" of Web sites that can use the image. I'm not sure how you would go about this (though it will require messing with the server a bit) off-hand, but I'm sure someone will be able to provide you with a link to a resource on how to do it. Just make sure you let people know which server you're using ahead of time so you don't get instructions for the wrong server.
You probably read this article by Patrick (a.k.a. Mad4 here at DP) over at Blogstorm http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/blog/use-google-images-and-hotlinkers-to-build-links/ If you are using wordpress here is the plugin he created for it http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/blog/build-links-from-google-images/
My friend can tell you how to do exactly this. He's a photographer, but a programmer to pay the bills, and learning SEO to get out of the day job as a programmer. Kind of a good nexus to answer this question. His personal site is http://forrestcroce.com and his programming site is http://exo-brain.com. I know the second one has some code, but may or may not have the code that answers this question. In any case, I would shoot the guy an email. Or join webmaster-talk.com where he's a moderator and ask. He was having problems with people stealing his photos so did the hotlink blocking with a white list thing. Guy is pretty nice, eager to help, so you don't need to reinvent the wheel.
The white-list is a good idea. The ones I went through in the server logs weren't linking at all. Some were even passing off the images as their own (leading me to start watermarking my photos). That's it, thanks. I'm already a member over there, so I definitely will do.
I can see why, those are some nice images. I've been blocking hotlinking for ages, and I'm starting to realise that it isn't enough, and I need to also go back and watermark all of my images as well.