8 ms·

I'm going to play devils advocate here and say this is a good change. If google was scaping the text of sites and only displaying that, would we think that was

I'm going to play devils advocate here and say this is a good change. If google was scaping the text of sites and only displaying that, would we think that was ok? Just like google search, this is about giving you a preview, then go to the source. If you want the image, we all know how to find it, get it. How big of an annoyance is this?

fjsolwmv 9y ago
Whatever Google does, they will be called evil for it.
lokopodium 9y ago
>text of sites Google does exactly that through "view cached/text only". You need to specifically opt your site out of the caching thing. I guess they could have done exactly that with images for those who complained.
- danso 9y ago
  The cached page often renders so poorly that that function will only be used when you really need something and the page is down (or deleted). If the content experience weren't so hit-and-miss, who wouldn't use the "view cached" option to enjoy the speed of Google's cache? There is no hit-and-miss experience with the "View image" feature -- you get access to exactly what you came looking for, and in a more convenient and speedy way.
  - e12e 9y ago
    See: AMP. Although, supposedly, using the cache with AMP is "opt in" - because it's "part of" AMP.
lambda 9y ago
This is a huge annoyance. A lot of times I am looking for images which are in the public domain, and for which if I go to the page in question, I have to then sort through dozens of images to find the one I had been looking at already in the search. Here's an example. I've just done a search, found an image that I want to view larger, the image is long since in the public domain, but when I click on "visit" I get a page with a list of text links that I now have to sort through to find the full image: https://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.keesn.nl%2Fmac%2Fmacpics%2Fmac03vA.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.keesn.nl%2Fmac%2Fmac_en.htm&docid=YkSm_6Z4CAdrxM&tbnid=IPAqwN918ZAl1M%3A&vet=1&w=732&h=446&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim https://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kee... Edit to add: Now that I look closer, I notice that Google is actually embedding the original image, instead of a preview (they load a low-res preview, and then replace that with a hotlinked image), so you can just right click and choose "view image" now to work around this. I guess that's OK for people who are technically inclined enough to know that you can do that.
- NamTaf 9y ago
  Your edit picked up on exactly what I was going to reply with letting you know until I saw you already got there. Expanding on it, you can 'copy image location' (at least in FF) to get the original image URL, and you can also middle-click 'view image' to open the image itself in a new tab. Both are useful tricks when rifling through images.
- Zak 9y ago
  > I guess that's OK for people who are technically inclined enough to know that you can do that. I have a bias where I'm OK with the fact that people who take the time to learn the capabilities of the tools they use get better results from them. I figured this out within about 30 seconds of noticing that the view image button was gone, after sending feedback to say I didn't like the change. This would be the wrong bias if I was designing a product. Of course, a product will be most successful if it maximizes discoverability and doesn't make the user think, which is exactly what Google has been coerced in to rolling back here.
- aaron695 9y ago
  Your linked picture is not in the public domain AFAI can see? So you are stealing it if you're using it, so kinda a bad argument. (Have you contacted the owner? / Is there a link on the site creative commons it?) [Edit] - From the site - "If you want to copy any pictures or texts from this website, please send me an E-mail: kees.nieuwenhuijsen@tip.nl"
- p49k 9y ago
  > A lot of times I am looking for images which are in the public domain Do you think that’s a valid justification to give the person who hosted it no credit and traffic for their work, instead choosing to leech the image directly from their server at their cost? The fact that they built a page around the image with relevant keywords that is the only reason you found it through Google in the first place. There’s nothing stopping someone from building a public domain image search that hosts its own images, but you went to Google for convenience.
techaddict009 9y ago
Google does it partially. Its called rich snippet.
Romanulus 9y ago
Yeah, but when I search for an image, then that's _all_ I want. I don't want to be forced to meander down the path of where the image was posted and see any of the content that supports it (which is usually pages of comments). Google, you're a search engine - Find me what I'm looking for and get out of my way.
Logiar 9y ago
I'd be perfectly fine with visiting the site to get the image if there weren't tons of blog/twitter type sites where it links to the frontpage and you have to dig through years of posts to find the image you're after.
Sylos 9y ago
Image search finds images mostly based on the text that is placed near the image on the webpage. So, with your search engine, you'd put in keywords to describe an image, it would then look at the webpages' text to figure out, if the image on there might be relevant, then it would present the images that it has found, so that you can select the webpage that you want to go to based on the image which's surrounding text on the webpage suits your keywords. That does sound like a cool concept for a search engine, but ultimately just the regular web search will do the same without the fuzziness of images added in between. As a result, I don't know anyone who uses image search to find a webpage.
appleflaxen 9y ago
The problem is that it meaningfully degrades the experience on every other non-getty image.
wtfstatists 9y ago
Its not about Google but user. This infringes on user's freedom. Google just happen to be a provider of the banned feature.

fjsolwmv 9y ago

Whatever Google does, they will be called evil for it.

lokopodium 9y ago

>text of sites Google does exactly that through "view cached/text only". You need to specifically opt your site out of the caching thing. I guess they could have done exactly that with images for those who complained.

danso 9y ago
The cached page often renders so poorly that that function will only be used when you really need something and the page is down (or deleted). If the content experience weren't so hit-and-miss, who wouldn't use the "view cached" option to enjoy the speed of Google's cache? There is no hit-and-miss experience with the "View image" feature -- you get access to exactly what you came looking for, and in a more convenient and speedy way.
- e12e 9y ago
  See: AMP. Although, supposedly, using the cache with AMP is "opt in" - because it's "part of" AMP.

lambda 9y ago

This is a huge annoyance. A lot of times I am looking for images which are in the public domain, and for which if I go to the page in question, I have to then sort through dozens of images to find the one I had been looking at already in the search. Here's an example. I've just done a search, found an image that I want to view larger, the image is long since in the public domain, but when I click on "visit" I get a page with a list of text links that I now have to sort through to find the full image: https://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.keesn.nl%2Fmac%2Fmacpics%2Fmac03vA.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.keesn.nl%2Fmac%2Fmac_en.htm&docid=YkSm_6Z4CAdrxM&tbnid=IPAqwN918ZAl1M%3A&vet=1&w=732&h=446&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim https://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kee... Edit to add: Now that I look closer, I notice that Google is actually embedding the original image, instead of a preview (they load a low-res preview, and then replace that with a hotlinked image), so you can just right click and choose "view image" now to work around this. I guess that's OK for people who are technically inclined enough to know that you can do that.

NamTaf 9y ago
Your edit picked up on exactly what I was going to reply with letting you know until I saw you already got there. Expanding on it, you can 'copy image location' (at least in FF) to get the original image URL, and you can also middle-click 'view image' to open the image itself in a new tab. Both are useful tricks when rifling through images.
Zak 9y ago
> I guess that's OK for people who are technically inclined enough to know that you can do that. I have a bias where I'm OK with the fact that people who take the time to learn the capabilities of the tools they use get better results from them. I figured this out within about 30 seconds of noticing that the view image button was gone, after sending feedback to say I didn't like the change. This would be the wrong bias if I was designing a product. Of course, a product will be most successful if it maximizes discoverability and doesn't make the user think, which is exactly what Google has been coerced in to rolling back here.
aaron695 9y ago
Your linked picture is not in the public domain AFAI can see? So you are stealing it if you're using it, so kinda a bad argument. (Have you contacted the owner? / Is there a link on the site creative commons it?) [Edit] - From the site - "If you want to copy any pictures or texts from this website, please send me an E-mail: kees.nieuwenhuijsen@tip.nl"
p49k 9y ago
> A lot of times I am looking for images which are in the public domain Do you think that’s a valid justification to give the person who hosted it no credit and traffic for their work, instead choosing to leech the image directly from their server at their cost? The fact that they built a page around the image with relevant keywords that is the only reason you found it through Google in the first place. There’s nothing stopping someone from building a public domain image search that hosts its own images, but you went to Google for convenience.

techaddict009 9y ago

Google does it partially. Its called rich snippet.

Romanulus 9y ago

Yeah, but when I search for an image, then that's _all_ I want. I don't want to be forced to meander down the path of where the image was posted and see any of the content that supports it (which is usually pages of comments). Google, you're a search engine - Find me what I'm looking for and get out of my way.

Logiar 9y ago

I'd be perfectly fine with visiting the site to get the image if there weren't tons of blog/twitter type sites where it links to the frontpage and you have to dig through years of posts to find the image you're after.

Sylos 9y ago

Image search finds images mostly based on the text that is placed near the image on the webpage. So, with your search engine, you'd put in keywords to describe an image, it would then look at the webpages' text to figure out, if the image on there might be relevant, then it would present the images that it has found, so that you can select the webpage that you want to go to based on the image which's surrounding text on the webpage suits your keywords. That does sound like a cool concept for a search engine, but ultimately just the regular web search will do the same without the fuzziness of images added in between. As a result, I don't know anyone who uses image search to find a webpage.

appleflaxen 9y ago

The problem is that it meaningfully degrades the experience on every other non-getty image.

wtfstatists 9y ago

Its not about Google but user. This infringes on user's freedom. Google just happen to be a provider of the banned feature.