pictures posted on YLF show up in google image search! - YouLookFab Forum

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pictures posted on YLF show up in google image search!

Kate

Veteran

I just did a google image search and managed to find a picture of myself that I posted on YLF!!!

Greg? Angie? Is there anything we can do to prevent this? I think I'm off to hide a whole lot of the pictures I posted. I had no idea that they would show up in image searches, though I guess I should have known better since nothing on the internet is private.

General

18 replies

Latest reply was from Lisa

anne

Veteran

Ooh, Scary!

Polly (thunalata)

Veteran

I think if it's 'out there' it's 'out there'. I tend to hide my photos after about a week, but I think that even that may not be 100% reliable in terms of Internet searches (like you sometimes get a link to a page that doesn't exist any more).

Louise

Veteran

Kate I've come across that before, oops I probably should have mentioned it sooner!
I'm happy to leave my photos up as a source of reference for others. I guess if someone comes across a photo through Google it's probably because they are interested in fashion and we may be helping people to find YLF? x

Polly (thunalata)

Veteran

Louise you're very good! I'm slightly more paranoid and private, silly really, especially as the internet is not private at all!

Kappy

Veteran

Yes, that's precisely why ALL my photos are headless!! This is also an "open" forum where anyone can view all pictures even if they aren't registered. I also don't post any pictures of my kids on the internet anywhere (except at a password protected photo site for relatives).

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

I'm not surprised at all, Kate. It's just how Polly puts it. But Greg will feed back too.

Mo

(website)

Veteran

Thanks for the heads up (hee hee). I sometimes go headless and sometimes don't. I don't mind folks coming here but somehow being part of the Google search weirds me out a little more. Silly, I know. So I put up my namesake's movie poster instead for a while.

Greg

There is a way that I can make the images off limits to search engines, which I just did. I was already using this to keep profile pages off the search engines and extending it to the images was a simple thing to do.

This should prevent images from appearing in Google image search (or Yahoo or Bing image search). It might take a while for this change to impact them.

Note that the actual post (i.e. the text you posted with the picture) itself might still appear in the normal search results, so if you would like to make the picture off limits then you should also use the "Hide Photo" option.

Note also that while the big search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo will honor the setting that I used to make the photos off limits, there may be other things out there on the web that don't.

Mo

(website)

Veteran

Thanks!

MsMaven

Veteran

Thanks for the info, Kate. I just checked and several pictures I had left open to the public on Flickr showed up on Google. They were for a post last year and I forgot to make them private again. Yikes--at least they weren't on the first page--and I did make them private, but they still show up. I guess it takes time.

MsMary

Veteran

Greg, you are so awesome!

Carole

Veteran

This is probably a dumb question, but how do you make your pictures private in flickr or photobucket? I just load all my pictures up without a thought to that-yikes!

Polly (thunalata)

Veteran

I didn't know you could do that, Greg, thanks!

Carole, when you upload the pictures to flickr there's a privacy setting, who you make your photos available to. I always upload things so that only I can see them and then you can make them available to other people via a guest pass.

Try uploading something and read everything on the screen as you do it and I'm sure you'll find it, or someone more techno will give more detailed instructions.

Polly (thunalata)

Veteran

I've just googled 'thunalata images' and have now hidden the few images of me that came up BUT it was a lovely thing to do as all sorts of lovely pics of Angie and YLFers popped up. So fun!

Lynne

Veteran

thanks, Greg!

Elly

Veteran

That is why I don't use my full name, but rather a nickname. I googled both and came up with a bunch of buxom asian women for my YLF name, so I don't think that should be an issue. On the other hand, I did find a myspace account a friend had set up when I was 17 because she insisted I needed social networking. It was never finished, but there are a few pictures of me and her on there. Other than that there are some really bad pictures of me at a university event that the college didn't ask if they could post on the internet with some false info attached.

When I Google my real name I usually only have a few things to sort through, because as far as we can tell, I am the only one that uses that name on the internet or that banks in the U.S.!

Kate

Veteran

Greg, thanks for making the change, I appreciate it.

I'm fine with having an "online presence" - if you search for my name you can find a lot of information about me, my achievements, my work, and even a couple pictures of me. I'm certainly not naive about the lack of privacy on the internet, and I am discerning about what information I make public.

Like Mo, I'm fine with people going on YLF and looking at pictures of me, using my real first name, etc. No matter how popular YLF becomes, the chances of my students or colleagues coming on YLF, finding me, and then thinking less of me (since they chose to visit YLF) is VERY slim. It's people finding my pictures by searching for other things through google (or similar engines) that makes me uneasy.

Anyway, I hope that this thread has been helpful for some people.

Lisa

Veteran

Thanks Greg!