Dave, Was looking for succulent images on Google and found an image from ATP (actually one of my photos on ATP) and the "visit page" link and the "view original" image" link as well as the ATP.com link led me to a selling webpage on ETSY.
Can you try this link and see if this happens to you?


http://www.google.com/search?q...

It worked for me, Bev, took me right to ATP and to a thread where you, JoAnn and Greg were talking about semps. Other people too, but I only scrolled through till I saw your photo.

No ebay, just straight to the origin.

worked for me too.

That's strange on my part; I also googled and clicked onto a Daves Garden image and it gave me options for viewing/showing original page and image and it led me to the website page of some succulent seller on Etsy.
And you are right, Sharon, I went back on and followed what I instructed you to follow and it worked for me too. BUT it was not doing that when I had my husband stand here and watch it lead us to Etsy selling site.
And again I clicked onto the Daves Garden image and this time I was not led to Etsy like I was the first time.
How strange. I was just just a little tee'ed that my image led to a selling site for succulents and not back to ATP...

well, thanks you two for trying that. Let's hope it was just that heavy Mexican food I had for lunch?

Don't know what it was, Bev, but your semps are so beautiful and your photos are so gorgeous I didn't want them to be where they shouldn't be.
Must have been a momentary glitch in a system.

Sharon, you are so kind!

It worked for me too!! And they are gorgeous!!!

Thanks Tara!

This reminds me that I need to go back to copyright labeling my images again with my name. Dave disabled the right-click copy function with the enlarged images in the database but they show up like this in a Google search and can be lifted from there.

Only a watermark provides perfect protection for your images!

Which brings up the question of how do we have a watermark on photos downloaded from a website (with permission). Like the ones from Wild Ginger Farm, and others?
I turn my watermark off when I download these photos.

What do you mean Lynn? If they give us permission to add them here, we note that in the caption.
And yes, the watermark feature should be turned off here when added, If you see any that inadvertently left it on and the photos do not belong to the submitter, let admin know.

dave said:Only a watermark provides perfect protection for your images!

Protection in what way? What I saw was my image with a watermark (it's the one that is provided by ATP on the image that I had posted on ATP) that when clicked on, led to a webpage on ETsy. So my image seemed to appear to be representative of their crafting and products. I'm sure this is not the only time this has happened. This must happen to other watermarked images. I saw it had happened to an image I clicked on from Dave's Garden that also led to the same webpage on Etsy. So Google's provision to enable to see original image and source of image was not doing what it was supposed to do. Neither image nor website address provided for that moment went to ATP nor Dave's Garden. I do have to say that this happened one time for each image and after I posted on this forum about this strange occurrence, I went back to same images and it did not happen again. I can't believe that this was a one time thing happening only to me for only those images (mine and one of DG's).

I use Google image search all the time and have never had that happen.

The protection is most won't bother lifting it if the copyright/watermark is right over the image. I don't use a watermark, just my name usually and hope that most find it too bothersome to want to crop it out to use my images. Doesn't always work though, I used to find them on eBay all the time. I always sent them a message with a copy of the eBay photo copying rules, that usually does the trick, they don't want me to report them.

If another site is using your images they should be notified that they can't do it, like Sue said. ebay is the worst and I can believe that some etsy users might lift images to use. It's not right but it's also literally impossible to stop them. At least with a watermark there is a chance that they won't use your image for obvious reasons.

I'm willing to bet that etsy has a policy against their members using photos without permission and those people can and should be reported to the etsy customer service.

@Dave, Can I, as a very low tech person, ask how an image (or the items that point to the originating webpage and website) that is clicked on within Google can direct the user to somebody's site in Etsy? Is that done by the Etsy person or is there some malfunction in Google that allows that to happen? How does that work? or happen?
Ignorant in CA,
Bev

I know nothing about how etsy works.

But an individual can copy your image from one place on the web (such as on ATP or anywhere else) and repost that same image elsewhere on the web (such as their etsy store.)

Google then comes along, sees the image on their website and includes it in their search results.

It could have been a totally random Google glitch, especially since you were never able to replicate it again. Etsy is mostly handmade items and it's also a popular venue for selling vintage finds so most sellers use their own images. Do you happen to remember something about the seller's name? I just did a 'succulents' search over there just to see the images and didn't spot anything suspicious. They do have a copyright infringement policy and can be deleted if found guilty, not something a small business would want to risk.

Do you have any connection to Etsy yourself, Bev? Google prides itself on its tailored searches and sometimes bends over backwards to find things on the sites you frequent the most.