Google is making a small change to its image search, that could have a massive impact: it has removed the “view image” button that appears when a picture is clicked. Here is a set of before and after images that will help you better understand the change:
BEFORE
Source: Search Engine Land
AFTER
Source: Search Engine Land
What looks like a minor change is in fact a huge step in safeguarding image providers on copyright grounds. Google has long been under fire from photographers and publishers who felt that image search allowed people to steal their pictures.
This step has two objectives: Stopping people from stealing images; and leading them to the website to increase their traffic, which helps them generate ad-revenue.
This is great news for publishers, but an annoying additional step for someone trying to look for an image. Users will now have to wait for a website to load and then scroll through to find the image. Websites sometimes disable the ability to right click, too, which would make it even harder.
There’s always a loophole – if you right click, you can select “open image in new tab” or “view image” and you’ll be able to open up the full-size picture.
In addition to removing the “view image” button, Google has also removed the “search by image” button that appeared when you opened up a photo.
Google announced this change on Twitter, saying:
“Today we’re launching some changes on Google Images to help connect users and useful websites. This will include removing the View Image button. The Visit button remains, so users can see images in the context of the webpages they’re on.”
