I have recently read an article which discusses the concept of image hotlinking. It was a pretty interesting article as it discusses the potential for webmasters to have their images act as inbound, one way links, should someone wish to hotlink the images in question. The article can be read here. I would like to hear views and opinions relating to the first technique which is suggested/discussed within the article, and whether you consider it to be white or black hat. I know that the author has already mentioned the fact that it should not be considered black hat, but I would appreciate a little more feedback as I am not too sure! Cheers guys
I'm dealing with hotlink problems. Me have website with images. Other site, hotlinking, and getting ranked high in google image searches. I've noticed google updates the image results once every 6 weeks or so. I'm guessing but I've been shut OUT for the past 2 months or 3. I WAS a top 3 image results site, now I'm gone. I don't understand this. I've read so much verbage and complicated nonsense. Can somebody here PLEASE give me a straight up answer. WHAT IS WRONG WITH A SIMPLE 301 REDIRECT WITH THE IMAGE THAT IS BEING HOTLINKED? Sorry for the uppercase, but I'm frustrated right now. If I implement a simple 1 line into my hta access, I can redirect traffic from the hotlinked image back to my website and page from where the image was stolen. Having said all this, I'm not stupid. I'm not messing with Google. I am hoping for verification that I"m not going to get penalized for doing this. I think I'm not in the wrong. Go to google images, see and image with my url under it, but you go to another persons website? They get my traffic? Like I said, there is NO OTHER IMAGE in google image results for my site. So, if you do click on that one image, you go to their site, or if you click the "see original size" image, I could 301 redirect at that time to make that person come to my site. Is that wrong or am I correcting or policing my own content. Google has issue with this????
It's a crap way to try and generate ranking. Think about the wasted bandwidth and the type of people who hotlink. And the people who would click on those links. Who is the customer?