Images offer a valuable addition to any content; they engage the reader and improve the user experience. It’s really important to use images as part of any blog or website in order to improve the sites visual experience but unfortunately its becoming harder and harder to find free to use images which are not under licence or protected by companies like Getty Images or Istock.

Google images offer a great resource for search and finding images based on keywords and search terms but in order to legally use any image it is necessary to find out is the image has a creative commons licence and is free to use. This can take a very long time and needs research. Most companies do not know about licensing or do not have the time to research and find the owner or licensing agent. There are many horror stories of companies who have innocently used an image from Google Images and unfortunately a few months later received a legal letter from the licensing agent requesting back licence fees. One of the worst cases we have heard of was of a blog that used an image of a celebrity as part of an article, after a lengthy legal battle they were forced to pay over £3000 to the licensing agent for the use of the image.

In order to help its users to identify if an image has a creative commons license and it free to use, Google have added a new filter to the advanced search facility on Google Images. Within the advanced image search section you will now be able to see a new option called “User Rights”. This new option allows you to filter the results to display images with creative common licenses for reuse, reuse with modification, commercial use and commercial use with modification.

“There’s some fine print, of course. This feature identifies images that are tagged with licenses that authorize reuse. You’ll still have to verify that the licensing information is accurate. We can help you take the first step towards finding these images, but we can’t guarantee that the content we linked to is actually in the public domain, or available under the license.” Taken from the Official Google Blog.

Google are offering there users a valuable addition which will prevent misuse of the service, but it is still important to remain vigilant and to verify the use of any image before publishing on your website.

Author: Creative SEO UK