Reasons to Search by Image

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Date: April 8, 2019

Image Search: Who Should Use It and Why

If we are content or academic writers, bloggers, avid users of the internet or social media we are aware of content search. We all use it to make sure we are not inadvertently copying someone else’s content or to find the identity of the author of the content. But doing an image search is not very popular as yet. Let me briefly explain what reverse image search is all about and then I’ll move on to who should use it and why.

Reverse Image Search

You see an image posted on a website, and it does not have any details about the person who has uploaded the image. You open reverse image search in your browser. Copy/paste the image on it, or simply copy/paste the URL of the image on the site you are seeing it. The application will return the list of sites in Google, Bing, and Yandex on which it has found the same or similar images. Now you can visit the websites listed and get more details about the sites posting the image.

Who Should Search by image?

Content writers and bloggers should use this tool to see if any website is posting their images on their sites without their permission. If the images have been posted without prior permission, then the image owner can take legal action against the site owner who has lifted and posted the images without seeking prior permission.

However, if the images have been uploaded on a popular website, and you think getting a backlink to this website will improve the ranking of your own website. Then you as the owner of the image can ask the website owner to allow you to create a backlink to their site.

One of the biggest SEO tricks to raise a website’s popularity and ranking is by creating as many backlinks as you can. Of course, making backlinks with popular sites will increase your website’s ranking.

On the other hand, spam sites may be using your images, and of course, you don’t want links to them. If this happens to your site, send an email to the site owner and ask them not to use your images.

Reverse Image Search On iPhone

Another Scenario

Let us assume someone has made a video clip of an aircraft crashing and has posted it on social media. Aircraft accident investigators and journalists will want to find the person who made the video to get more facts.

There are so many reasons why reverse image search is being heavily used to protect copyrights, trademarks, track accidents, and criminals and to get more information about a person, incident, object or place.

Tracking felony/crime using reverse image search

Just imagine you have missed an episode of your favorite TV talk show, and you see a link to it on social media. You open the link, and to your horror, you realize that the content is an absolute fake!

What happens is that all TV news and entertainment channels display the channels logo on the screen that viewers see when watching programs. Crafty felons will take a picture of the TV show on their TV set and copy/paste the logo onto a totally fake program. They will then upload it on social media.

This felony is done intentionally to create a bad image of politicians, celebrities, popular TV programs, and well known personalities.

Although the criminals will try to hide their tracks, with reverse image search investigators can shortlist the sites on which this illegal and fake program has been uploaded. With this information, they can track down the originator.

Conclusion

Like all popular and useful applications available on the internet; image search is a handy tool. Users should thank the people who have created various versions of it.

Doctoring and changing images and uploading them on the internet have become a common prank. Such criminal and malicious acts can damage the reputation of people and business houses.

With reverse image search, the sites on which malicious content is uploaded can be tracked and warned, and in some cases, the originator can be tracked and penalized.

Without it, you would not be able to track down illegal uploading and changing of images posted on websites.