I love it when people hotlink to images on my websites! I’m pretty sure Google counts them as links because I had a post with extremely competitive keywords go straight to the top of the search shortly after every blog and forum started direct linking to the images in the post. (Extra pro-tip, name your pictures with the keywords you want to rank for and that stolen pic ends up carrying something like anchor text).

I guess I take the zen approach to being copied – “Ah, thank you for your love of my content, I believe that the search engines will recognize your imitation as flattery.” G and Y! knows which came first, so they know the source, and they know who is such a badass that scrapers want to copy them.

So copy, steal, whatever, it helps me get higher in a few ways :high:

Of course, its always best to be the original, so try to get those pics from your own camera! If someone can’t accomplish that, well, they’re just not competition worth worrying about, eh?
.-= John@WebBiz´s last blog ..Notes on New Media =-.