Did you know that if you post a picture on your blog, it gets indexed under Google Images? I figured it out when I was playing in the referral logs (I know, I know, but it’s like potato chips – I know it’s bad for me, but I can’t help myself) and I kept seeing Google hits like this one. Those are all my pictures from Tristan’s Day Out with Thomas.
It indexes all the pictures posted on Flickr, too. When I key “Tristan and Simon†into Google Images, this picture of the boys with their cousin is the fourth image on the list of search returns.
I dunno why this is so unsettling to me. Maybe because it’s one thing to place the images deliberately in one space, and another to have them added to the giant Rolodex that is Google. I put those images up in context to show you, the people who read my blog, but having them churning out there independently is just wrong. I’ve been getting tonnes of hits from those Thomas images, too. I think it’s the first time a spike in traffic ever freaked me out in a bad way.
As if that weren’t weird enough, a friend recently pointed this out to me. Yes, that’s right, I seem to have my very own official page on Answers.com. How the holy hell that happened, with my full real name no less, is a complete mystery to me. I register for absolutely everything as DaniGirl, so I can’t imagine how blog got hooked up to my real name. I guess I don’t mind so much, but I sure would like to know how it happened.
Who would have guessed it? Even attention-whores and media sluts have boundaries.
When I started writing this blog, I didn’t even use the boys’ real names. I called them Frankie and Luigi (pet names from their middle names, Francis and Louis) but I couldn’t stand writing about them without using their real names. My mother continues to be rather anxious that I post pictures of the boys at all, especially the one in my profile that shows Tristan in nothing but a diaper – to say nothing of the nudie shots I posted this summer of adorable boys running nekkidly rampant through my backyard.
The Internet is such a big place, and I am such a naive girl. What do you think? Is having your personal information out there a bad thing? Would you be as freaked out about the pictures as I was?
Sigh….
I’ll never post my physical address of my phone number on the net, but I’m ok with putting my pictures on the web. If someone figures out where I live from that, then they’d have to be close enough to me to be a danger regardless of whether I posted pictures or not.
Very unsettling indeed. I am too scared to even try it cause I don’t wanna know/find any of my pics also ‘out there’. As you already know, my hubby is very cyber-phobic about those kind of things, which I have to respect, which is sometimes hard for me not to post pics f my beautiful children, along with their given names.
The internet does scare me at times when I think of it as one big-ass global connection from Ottawa – Phildelphia – Rio – Paris – Kenya – Fiji – Iceland and back. All from a few mouse clicks while sitting at a computer. Too easy.
Now I have the heebie-jeebies and Halloween os over. Hmph.
Have a very nice day (still being polite though).
Hi! I found your blog from the Ontario Bloggers list! Not too many other mommies listed out of the 56 blogs…
I’m a mom to a 4.5 year old boy and also to a 22 year old boy.
I think I’ll add your blog to my blogroll, if you don’t mind.
I live in the Toronto area.
My blog is “in line” to be approved or not for the Ontario Bloggers ring. I signed up last night.
I look forward to perusing you blog more.
I wouldn’t worry too much about the pictures…but I wouldn’t give my last name or city I lived in.
I wouldn’t worry about it all, actually too much…
God bless.
I would find it very difficult not to use my child’s true name, and not share his beautiful face…but I would. As you know, my hubby has shared so many unsettling things with me, I feel the need to control that access. Heck, look how long it was before I told you my flippin’ name!
I would be freaked out by the photo indexing thing. I don’t use my younger children’s names on purpose. Julie’s name is “out there” because she’s a writer in her own right. I don’t mention my sisters’ names because one of them works in a field where she is vulnerable to “bad guys” and someone might draw a link between us if they knew my maiden name. (She still uses that name.) So maybe I’m paranoid. (Okay, I am paranoid.)
On Flickr, just use numbers or obscure names for the images. You can also check to see how many times an image has been viewed, (I think they call it “most popular”, and then I’d find out why and change the title if needed. A while ago I agreed with Steve to only show very obscure pictures of Josie’s face, and never any private parts. If you remember, I had to change a post where I dissed a mom for letting her son “make” against a tree near where Josie was playing, and got a zillion Googles image searches and hits for “little boys p*ing”. So now I’m more careful about words, spelling and subjects that might be hit.
As well, I’ve been known for things I’ve done (a CBC Marketplace segment – under my former name), and in my former career was “findable”. So I don’t worry too much about certain identifying info – but I still don’t show my house number because I dont’ want nutty people knocking at my door. Otherwise, it’s no worse than being able to 411 us, I guess.
You’ll be fine.
EEK! You have scared me a little! I am weary of posting too much info, but then thought all was going ok. Now that you have me nervous again, I will have to rethink a few more things.
Anna
Think that is odd. check out this headline and link. Remember big brother is watching.
Anonymous sperm donor traced on internet
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18825244.200
UG, saw that this morning and was going to blog about it soon. Wow, eh?
Alexa, welcome! Check out these blogs from my blogroll for other Ontario mothers:
a peek inside the fish bowl
and then there were three
Bacon and Ehs
Beanie Baby
Blog Pourri (okay, she’s transplated to Quebec, but close enough!)
Generation Exhausted
Hello Josephine
Life is Good… At the Beach
MUBAR (T.O. Mama)
Silver Creek Musings (also in Quebec, but just barely)
The Mother of All Blogs
xo Dani
Hey, you are a top Blogger. And yeah, the picture thing is disturbing.
Hi Dani. I would have been here sooner, but Blogger hates me today. I had the same experience a couple of months ago, and I freaked. Took all the pictures of the kids down from the blog (though they are still on Blogger’s server — there’s still no way to delete photos from their server), and hyperventilated in a major way. In the end, my compromise was that identifiable pictures of the kids stay behind a firewall on Flickr, and I add people to my contacts list if they want to see them. I thought about adding code to my site to prevent search engines from indexing me, but eventually decided against it.
I think I’m pretty paranoid, as things go, but since I’m publicly publishing about my kids’ lives without their permission, I figure it behooves me to be paranoid.
I have and I haven’t thought about this. I don’t know what to think after reading all the comments. Kinda scares me. I thought what ever picture I posted was only mine…but I guess not. When I first started I used initals…then I went to our names. NOW I’m not so sure what to do. Although I have kept my Hubbies name a secert.
I try to keep my pictures from being too close and I don’t really think anyone would come looking for me in Rural anywhwere.
I guess I will keep new names to myself.
Not sure what to make of this…maybe we should have a blogger assoication meet, talk and have a drink night?
Oh yeah, I knew. That was how the asshole from a few months back (the one who took Frances’s picture for his LJ) found us–Google images.
ANd yesterday I found another one of Frances’s pictures on someone else’s LJ, although this one was in a very complimentary context (he thought her big blue eyes were really nice) so that doesn’t freak me out so much.
Teh best thing, if you don’t want to be indexed, is (as someone else said) save the pictures with numbers or random titles, not descriptive titles. All of Frances’s photos that have been “found” have descriptive titles. Now I use the same number titles that the digital camera gives them.
Don’t leave them up for too long. It’s been a long time since I’ve done this, and I’m due soon–but basically every once in a while I clear out the old photos, take them right off the net.
That said, any photo that goes on the internet you eventually lose control over. If someone sees it, they can always save it to their own machine–then you can’t get it back. So ultimately, these days, the only pictures I post to publically-accessible areas (the blog) are pictures I don’t mind strangers seeing.
I may end up changing my mind on that, too; but she’s so beautiful that I can’t help but share her with everyone.
I don’t use any real names on my blog. And I don’t use photos that show anyone’s face.
But I tell my real name and send photos to pretty much anyone who emails me about the blog.
I don’t have any rational basis for my guidelines — just sort of a gut instinct about how public I want to be.
Andrea, I didn’t know about the Frances pictures – did you blog it? (Probably a silly question.) I’ll go search your archives, I’m curious.
Well, I posted more pix today, so you can tell the urge to show you how adorable my kids are outweighes my anxiety at this point.
One of these days I guess I’ll have to start grappling with my right to post cute pictures and stories about my kids without their consent. It’s one thing to have “aren’t they adorable” stories about the potty habits of a three year old, but I’m sure they won’t feel the same way when they’re teenagers.
Thanks again for all your insight. You are bloggily brilliant this week, my friends!
PS Welcome to Johan, too, which I should have said earlier.
xo Dani
eeww, spookily weird and disturbing
as you know, my privacy is important to me for many reasons, hence my anonymity
What??? Google indexes Flickr? And you can’t get your photos off Blogger? K, that’s creepy.
On the other hand, if someone’s gonna find you, they’re gonna find you. That article about the boy stacing his anonymuos sprm donor father is a case-in-point.
But your post gives a good wake-up call! I have tons of pictures on my flickr of lots of different people. I suppose I should ask them if they mind being on there, but that’s a near impossible task now. I don’t put pictures of kids up, and if I do, I smudge their faces. It seems kind of wrong to do that, but unless I have their parent’s permission, it’s just what I do.
I’m gonna go try to google some of my photos now. Hmm…