29 April 2005

The evils of Google's Image search on blog bandwidth

No, you won't find any more images of the Bleach anime or manga on this blog.

Not anymore anyway.

So if you got here by one of the various Google image search engines, sorry but I had to strip all references to images from my blog.

Why did I have to do this?

As much as I love google as a search tool, for some reason, two postage stamp size images of the Bleach anime that I used in an article series about anime and manga back in November or 2004 are being zeroed in on by Google.

This month of April, I started seeing a spike in the hits to my blog. Thanks to Typepad that hosts my blog, I have a bunch of neat tools on tap; one of these shows me who has been accessing my blog and from where. When it's a search engine, like google image search, I can see what key words were used to arrive at my site. A handy thing to see if your topics are getting notice on the web.

Anyway, I start seeing 300 to 500 hits A DAY and they are all coming from Google.com's various image search servers from around the world. And they are all pretty much like this.

'Great! ', you say; you are getting people to your website.

Not so.

Google image search is directing everyone to this one archive of my blog which in turn loads the entire J-Pop entry section, images and all.

I did a help ticket with the Typepad staff (awesome folks! They responded in hours and always had something constructive and helpful to add) and they suggested I rename the images or delete them althogether. They suggested that with either of those changes, Google's image servers would update and no longer point to my blog's two tiny thumb stamped sized images of Bleach.

Not so.

I first changed the name for two weeks and the traffic to my site from the image searches INCREASED. Then I panicked as my tiny bandwidth for my basic Typepad blog service for the whole month was eaten up in 5 days! Five days of Google directing searches for Bleach images to my blog.

Then I deleted the images. Still no difference— 85% off all access to my blog are searches for these specific two images of the Bleach anime that WERE 100 by 100 pixels in size.

Amazing isn't it?

Then I go to the Google search engine and type in “Bleach”. My former images are the number three result! ACK!

Now I realize that Bleach is experiencing a rapidly growing fanbase as the anime goes into season two on Japanese TV. It's one of my favorite anime series at the moment. However—

I was forced to upgrade my blog service with Typepad up to their medium service just to accommodate the bandwidth jump (and not get hosed with overage bandwidth fees). SO here I am paying DOUBLE what I used to and two days before the end of the month my bandwidth usage is up to 98%. That's 98% for my NEW increased bandwidth account.

Oh, I did update my blog and put a graphic banner up and change the layout some, but I am still miffed that the Google servers are STILL directing people to my blog for nonexisteant images and STILL sucking away my bandwidth.

The point of a blog is to get visitors. I know this. But what the Google image servers are doing to my blog is akin to hotlinking to the images. People going to my blog this way are only interested in one thing: an image of Bleach. Surely not my pithy analysis of Japan's social problems. If people were coming via normal google search and viewing my site, that would be fantastic. But this is not that.

Not at all.

Yes, Google can be a love/hate thing.

I love Google for research, but when you are the receiving end of a Google raid on a buried image in your blog with their viking longships and pointy swords, that love- well...

I hate you Google image search!

Update your servers! Where is that Google dance you hear about?

Right now, the only dancing Google is doing is on the future grave of my soon to be canceled blog account... if Google keeps this assault on my blog up.

There I've said it.

Here's hoping they have a clue.

Sorry, just feeling a bit ranty today about this.

Apr 29, 2005 10:20:30 AM | Rant

The comments to this entry are closed.

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Michael Dziesinski

I'm a University of Hawaii PhD in Sociology discussing youth issues in Japanese society in this blog.

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