Tuesday, November 17, 2009
What’s our take on
watermarked images
for
Image Search?
It’s a complicated topic. I talked with Peter Linsley—my friend at
the Googleplex,
video star,
and Product Manager for Image Search—to hear his thoughts.
Maile: So, Peter… “watermarked images”. Can you break it down for us?
Peter: It’s understandable that webmasters find watermarking images beneficial.
- Photographers can claim credit/be recognized for their art.
- Unknown usage of the image is deterred.
If search traffic is important to a webmaster, then they may also want to consider some of our
findings:
- Users prefer large, high-quality images (high-resolution, in-focus).
- Users are more likely to click on quality thumbnails in search results. Quality pictures
(again, high-res and in-focus) often look better at thumbnail size. - Distracting features such as loud watermarks, text over the image, and borders are likely to
make the image look cluttered when reduced to thumbnail size.
In summary, if a feature such as watermarking reduces the user-perceived quality of your image or
your image’s thumbnail, then searchers may select it less often. Preview your images at thumbnail
size to get an idea of how the user might perceive it.
Maile: Ahh, I see: Webmasters concerned with search traffic likely want to balance the
positives of watermarking with the preferences of their users—keeping in mind that sites
that use clean images without distracting artifacts tend to be more popular, and that this can
also impact rankings. Will Google rank an image differently just because it’s watermarked?
Peter: Nope. The presence of a watermark doesn’t itself cause an image to be ranked higher
or lower.
Do you have questions or opinions on the topic? Let’s chat in the
webmaster forum.
How we apply this
Google announcements age. We keep this post here for the record, and we note for clients whether the behaviour it describes still applies today or has since been superseded.
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