Creative Commons Images Good for SEO?

[WhiteboardCreations]

I've been looking at large image packages through iStock, Getty, Fotolia and 123RF, but before spending a bunch of money, I wanted to get some of your feedback on Creative Commons images.

Should be worried that something found on Google Images > Search Tools > Usage Rights section can be used without issue or legal threats from the big image companies so long as they are appropriately referenced?

AND will using these types of images and linking to the sources have any affect on SEO efforts or make the blog/website look spammy in Google's eyes because we need to link to the source?

How are you using Creative Commons images and is there anything I should be aware of in the process of searching, saving, using, referencing, etc?

Patrick

[WhiteboardCreations]

Hey Federico! Thanks for your note about the images linking from a site to the author's site with a NoFollow link. We thought that was the answer, but wanted to get confirmation and appreciate you reassuring our gut feeling.

I may have not been too clear in my question, but we aren't trying to rank images for SEO as we know the original authors will get top priority (hopefully).

Per the stock photo accounts, we have spoken with the copyright teams from iStock/Getty and 123RF and they are of the same nature. If we, the company, buy images on behalf of our clients, then we are not allowed to send the client the raw file or a copy of the raw file, as that would break their copyright rules. However, we can use that said image for any number of websites or blogs as we choose since we have the royalty free rights to that file. It really is such a grey area, but when we talk with clients we inform them that if they want any images for the website/blog and wish to use those same images for any print material (brochures, magazine ads, flyers, etc) then we ask them to open an account with the respective site and purchase the images, so they hold the rights. We then upload the images and then delete from our systems. It's too much of a hassle.

I will review the link you shared for the FlickR CC images. Thanks for sharing that! - Patrick

[FedeEinhorn]

It won't make your site look spammy if the content you are publishing isn't spam. CC images require you to link back to the original source, you can even use a nofollow attribute on those links.

But still, as the images are not yours, you won't benefit from image search, as Google will list the original image posted by the author instead of yours.

There are royalty free stock photos that you can use and they aren't that expensive if you are on a subscription. Like Fotolia offers a subscription for 5 images at $25 per mo. But you can download a lower resolution one, which will deduct half a credit and then you can download 10 images. Most likely, you don't need the one that's worth 1 entire credit as the 1/2 credit one is large enough.

PS: Here's a post from Ann Smarty about how to use CC images from flickr: http://www.seosmarty.com/flickr-creative-commons/

Hope that helps!