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microformatsgoogle-image-search

How do I set the license for images on my site in Google Images?

Google Images has an option to filter images based on license.

License filter screenshot

Each image on my site has a details page, where I have the following link to denote the license:

<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en_US" target="_blank">CC-BY</a>

It's a modified version of the sample code from Creative Commons - Choose a License.

However, I see images that Google has indexed since I added this code do not appear when I select a license filter.

Solution

  • You need to wrap it around a div with an about attribute. Here's an example that Google provides:

    <div about="image.jpg">
  <img src="image.jpg" alt="" />
  <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0</a>
</div>

    So in your case:

    <div about="image.jpg">
  <img src="image.jpg" alt="" />
  <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en_US" target="_blank">CC-BY</a>
</div>

    Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quyhasVn2jw, http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/08/simple-way-to-specify-image-licenses.html