Five Steps to Checking Free Images for Social Posting

Images bring aesthetic value to social media posts: Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and more. Word of caution: make sure those free web images you used to enhance your posts are really “free to use.” An article by Matt Morgan for Search Engine Watch titled “How to Find Free Images with Google Advanced Image Search” is a must read as he cautions against using “free” images without checking Google Advanced Image Search first.

His simple five step process (with screen shots) can help you avoid or the image deleted from your website or worse copy wright infringement correspondence from the owner!

Image credit: Garry Knight Flickr CC

Here are Matt’s five steps to checking free images: (click on the article above for visual aids).

Step 1 – Enter a search term in Google Images search

Step 2 – Click the Gear icon, then select Advanced search

Step 3 – Scroll down and use the usage rights drop down menu to select free to use or share, even commercially.

Step 4 – Click the Advanced Search button.

Step 5 – Double check the image using TinEye reverse image search. Important note: As Matt points out, this extra step is important as other webmasters and bloggers may have removed the copyright and metadata from the image and re-uploaded without the owner’s permission.

More image sharing resources: Google’s Advanced search images generally provide stock photos, but it can be limited. If you are looking for more variety of free or nearly free images, the following open source and sharing sites should give you a nice selection to choose from. (Check out each site for their terms of use).