How can I override/redirect Google image search results to my website?
January 19, 2011 3:23 PM Subscribe
How can I override/redirect Google image search results to my website?
I'm receiving a pretty healthy stream of search hits to a blog of mine. However, it looks like people are seeing the results in a Google image search results format that pulls out the image they're looking for, but most of these visitors aren't then clicking through to view the image in its proper context.
Is there a way to make it so that anyone who ends up clicking through to see the image will be redirected to the page itself (sort of how some pages are able to automatically extricate themselves from frames)?
To be clear, these are images that are displayed with a url that begins with "http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=" and is followed both by the image path and the page the image is on (which appears, shaded, in the background).
I'm receiving a pretty healthy stream of search hits to a blog of mine. However, it looks like people are seeing the results in a Google image search results format that pulls out the image they're looking for, but most of these visitors aren't then clicking through to view the image in its proper context.
Is there a way to make it so that anyone who ends up clicking through to see the image will be redirected to the page itself (sort of how some pages are able to automatically extricate themselves from frames)?
To be clear, these are images that are displayed with a url that begins with "http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=" and is followed both by the image path and the page the image is on (which appears, shaded, in the background).
Are you running a blog that purposely provides images? (I've run across several that provide free textures, backgrounds, or photography of some kind.) If so, I'd disagree with the above and say that you're totally justified in pulling people into your site, because you're providing more of what they're looking for.
If not, I wouldn't really have a problem with this (it's your site and they're your images after all), but I'm with gracedissolved in that I don't really bother much with the context when I'm image-hunting.
If you end up implementing this, do yourself a favor and make sure your site loads quickly - I've clicked "back" on countless images because the context site took too long to load and I'm impatient.
posted by ella wren at 4:44 PM on January 19, 2011
If not, I wouldn't really have a problem with this (it's your site and they're your images after all), but I'm with gracedissolved in that I don't really bother much with the context when I'm image-hunting.
If you end up implementing this, do yourself a favor and make sure your site loads quickly - I've clicked "back" on countless images because the context site took too long to load and I'm impatient.
posted by ella wren at 4:44 PM on January 19, 2011
I'll go the above one better - on the occasions when I use Image Search, the context is completely unimportant to me. If I were looking for actual content, I'd just do a mainline Search. Google's UI certainly supports that, as you note. Breaking that UI by screwing with some kind of onLoad code or whatever would probably get you a lot of quick "back"s.
posted by OneMonkeysUncle at 5:17 PM on January 19, 2011
posted by OneMonkeysUncle at 5:17 PM on January 19, 2011
Response by poster: I don't think these are people who would usually read my blog, so I'd be repelling current readers.
This does, however, cause a complete page load, although in the background. It isn't a serious dent - I'm concious to make sure pages are as slim as possible for load times - but I don't see any gain.
If Google were copying the images and hosting them on their own, this wouldn't bother me. Its that they're effectively running my page in their background.
posted by Unsomnambulist at 5:20 PM on January 19, 2011
This does, however, cause a complete page load, although in the background. It isn't a serious dent - I'm concious to make sure pages are as slim as possible for load times - but I don't see any gain.
If Google were copying the images and hosting them on their own, this wouldn't bother me. Its that they're effectively running my page in their background.
posted by Unsomnambulist at 5:20 PM on January 19, 2011
When I click through to see the larger image, a lot of the time I can see enough of the page to know whether I want to visit it or not. Sometimes when I use image search I *am* interested in context, and I can usually get a pretty good idea of whether the page has useful context or not without closing the image.
So don't be tooo quick to assume that people who load the page aren't looking at the whole page at all.
posted by galadriel at 5:39 PM on January 19, 2011
So don't be tooo quick to assume that people who load the page aren't looking at the whole page at all.
posted by galadriel at 5:39 PM on January 19, 2011
I can't tell you how to get around this, maybe someone with more tech knowledge will come along and be able to direct you.
I can tell you what happens to me when I do an image search -- if the page that shows up behind the image is well-done, interesting, compelling, whatever, then I'll click onto the page to see what you've got going on. I've done so any number of times.
You've already got the people on your site. Now drag them onto your pages.
So: do an image search on your image, punch it up, see what page on your site is in the background, what shows up behind that image. Make that page interesting -- you've hooked them with the image, now interest them with a nice looking site with good content. And no annoying flash junk or blinking banners or I'd never be back and I'd bet I'm not the only one.
It's a sale; you've got their eyes, now you've got to get their attention to close the sale, to get those clicks.
Good luck.
posted by dancestoblue at 5:56 PM on January 19, 2011
I can tell you what happens to me when I do an image search -- if the page that shows up behind the image is well-done, interesting, compelling, whatever, then I'll click onto the page to see what you've got going on. I've done so any number of times.
You've already got the people on your site. Now drag them onto your pages.
So: do an image search on your image, punch it up, see what page on your site is in the background, what shows up behind that image. Make that page interesting -- you've hooked them with the image, now interest them with a nice looking site with good content. And no annoying flash junk or blinking banners or I'd never be back and I'd bet I'm not the only one.
It's a sale; you've got their eyes, now you've got to get their attention to close the sale, to get those clicks.
Good luck.
posted by dancestoblue at 5:56 PM on January 19, 2011
People who are looking for images are just looking for images.
This is certainly not universally true. I can tell you that I just spent a weekend doing a lot of image searches where I was quite specifically looking for the context (MIT Mystery Hunt - often puzzles include pictures or movie stills and a Google image search describing the image can help you find out what the heck you are looking at.) So I don't have advice on the question, per say, but some people do click through.
posted by maryr at 9:12 PM on January 19, 2011
This is certainly not universally true. I can tell you that I just spent a weekend doing a lot of image searches where I was quite specifically looking for the context (MIT Mystery Hunt - often puzzles include pictures or movie stills and a Google image search describing the image can help you find out what the heck you are looking at.) So I don't have advice on the question, per say, but some people do click through.
posted by maryr at 9:12 PM on January 19, 2011
You can probably just add some standard 'break out of iframes' javascript to your pages and that should fix the issue. Also, if your blog is on wordpress, there are plugins for that.
posted by FreezBoy at 12:06 PM on January 20, 2011
posted by FreezBoy at 12:06 PM on January 20, 2011
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posted by gracedissolved at 3:42 PM on January 19, 2011 [3 favorites]