I'm curious what people do with regards to images in their blogs. As you know you shouldn't be putting images in your blog posts if you don't have prior permission (unless it's not copyrighted ie. commons). We all know what we should and shouldn't do. The question is.. What do you all do? Including successful bloggers (ones that have huge readership etc. I have a flight tracker site which I DID get prior permission for all photos used however I'm thinking of starting a blog and one thing that concerns me is the uploading of images. I've done a few really simple search terms such as an airline name, or generic terms and did the search in Google Images which provided me every time with what I wanted. As soon as you filter with REUSE etc you either get no results or all the results are super crap images. I've also tried Flickr commons, and a few other photo repositories and the same results happen. I'm almost of the mind that it's not worth starting a blog if you ; 1. Have to pay for photos for a blog post 2. Have to spend 3 hours a day looking for a photo that's free. 3. Will be forced to use photo's that truly suck. Paying for photos at the moment isn't even an option as i'm unemployed but even if I wasn't, looking for photos at places other than Google Images just gives me crap photos. What do you guys do in your blogs? Is it worth the risk to use Google Images anyway? I'm really torn here because I'd like to start a blog but seem to be hitting my head against a brick wall image wise.
Well you can find lots of free stock website providing photos. But In my case I use to make the picture for particular post. so there is no chance of copyrights or any issue!
I use Google Images to find images for my blog posts. I don't see anything wrong with that since the images are there to be reused anyways. You shouldn't have any problems using Google Images as long as they are used in a good way on your blog. I haven't had any type of problems with Google Images and I have been using them for a couple of years now. Of course there are also many Image Stock Sites you can use. Some are free and some are paid. Just keep in mind, you get what you pay for. I also create my own images using the Paint Program in Windows PC and also Photoshop. It's not hard to get bits and pieces from other images to create one for a specific blog post. Hope this helps! Cheers!
There are sites you can use to get free photos. That way you don't have to worry about using people's photos without their permission. Also, you can always take your own.
Don't worry. Here is a solution for you. Recently Getty Images, one of the world's largest stock photo agency allows Bloggers to use near 35 million photos for free, for non commercial purposes. On my blog i recently wrote an article about how to use Getty Images photos on your blog for free. You can read the article here... http://www.socialpositives.com/2014/03/how-to-use-getty-images-photos-on-your-blog-for-free/ With this system Getty can track where and how the images are being used.
Yes, I use a lot of pictures on my blog, as the subjects of my blog are hiking and weight loss but I always use my own pictures! I hike a lot and take many many pictures. When I need other types of pictures except scenery or progress pictures, I try to improvise with objects I find around the house. For example I had an article on how to eat healthy on a low budget so I took a picture of some piggy-banks I had at home pretending to eat an apple. My advice would be to use pictures because the blog posts look much more appealing!
U can use public free buckets or Google images with source of the photo mentioned in the article. Or , another option is to buy subscribtion to sites like shuterstock , e.t.c.. I blogged for couple of years and didn`t had any issues with images from Google or public buckets, but, every time i mentioned the source of the image ( nofollow link to the owner/site from were the image was copyed).
I like searching sites that collect creative commons images, but nothing beats carrying a camera around when you travel to make some pictures of your own. Maybe it is a long time before you find a use for pictures you take yourself, but making a back catalog of images you have indisputable rights to can save a lot of work in the long run. I'll throw out the caveat that most of my highest traffic posts have been completely image free.
I like to take my own pictures, because if you ask me it gives more meaning to your website. Whats going to mean more to your viewers a image blasted on 100+ websites or a original picture that you took?
I don't think it is that hard to put a photo of your own, if you can. If you blog, it is automatic that you either buy a license image or upload a photo of your own.
I just use Google images and have never had any problems with them (though I often host outside of U.S. where those copyright guys have less rights and privileges)
I strictly allow no less than 2 blog images and no more than 5. This way the post is attractive but still not bombarded by meaningless imagery. I just told another member how blog posts are a lot more likely to be read and considered effective if you include high quality photography alongside of them. There are many benefits to using images within your posts, so always ensure you use them!
To find free images, I use Flikr.com, or Images.google.ca and use the search term "free image flamingo" etc. If you find your own image by taking your own pictures, you probably will be liked more by the search engines, and could possibly get ranked higher. I always got impatient with that, but now I realize how valuable it is. Mat Cutts said in the future, Google could possibly rank websites higher for using their own images. But the bottom line is, if you use someone elses image, link back to them no matter what.
thanks for the information man. but how would you be sure if an image is really free to use? my site is a new site. its coming up with in this month or next. so we dont really have rich image collection yet. so having little confusion. ..
Well on Google images, if you search "free images eagle", you are sure to find free images to use for your own use in the first set of images. You can click on the links and they will take you to a URL that has many free images for anyone to use, that's what I've found. Just stick to what I have recommended and what everyone else has recommended, and you will be ok. Right now it doesn't matter if you have free images, you shouldn't get downranked by google at all but your also sometimes better off with your own images.
Avoiding using copyrighted images at all costs. The fact that Getty has opened up its catalog means you don't have an excuse for ripping a photo off the web.
I use images but I'm going to change my approach in the next few months to take and use my own pictures. It's getting more difficult to find quality pics out there that's copyright free.