Does Anyone Know: Image Search Engines and Forum Messages (pictures, photos, photograph)

[LauraC]

Does anyone know if the photos we post within messages on the City Data forums, such as this Photography one, are indexed by the image search engines like Google and Bing? I know the photos we submit to be posted to the CD town webpages are. I figure more people posting images in the Photography forum would know the answer since they are more apt to be concerned with protecting their photos. I'm guessing what's true for C-D forum photos within messages would be true for message forums, anywhere.

I realize any photo anywhere can be lifted but it helps a lot if the Image search engines can't get them to make it easier for people to find them.

[PA2UK]

I don't know but you might be interested in TinEye Reverse Image Search

[EinsteinsGhost]

I don't think you can do a search by file name. However, if you've tags and/or have key words in the headline to go with your post, images show up in web searches. Some of my pictures posted here do.

[Spotted1]

Yes, pictures posted on forums can be indexed by search engines.

[thecoalman]

They can as long as CD allows indexing of those files. The If is questionable, placement depends upon a lot of things. Filename, page title, "alt" text which is used for the seeing impaired, surrounding text etc. will all play a factor.

Originally Posted by LauraC

I realize any photo anywhere can be lifted but it helps a lot if the Image search engines can't get them to make it easier for people to find them.

Only CD can prevent them from indexed. They would need to disallow the indexing of them through robots.txt or using the "nofollow" attribute in the link.