How to Reverse Search Images Stolen on Internet

Written by Pavan Kumar on August 14, 2009

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Everyone know about reverse phone search and reverse search of server. Did you even hear about reverse image search? Recently we discussed about image hotlinking protection and introduced with methods to save bandwidth and protect images. Recently I found a reverse image search engine which help you identify if someone is using your images on their website without permission.

TinEye - Reverse Image Search EngineTinEye is the reverse image search engine which help you identify all copies of original image spread over the entire internet. Till now this is the only image search engine I have seen of its kind. This is lot helpful in many ways especially if you run a photography website / blog. People work hard to capture / design such wonderful designs, wallpapers or photos and few users simply steal them without the knowledge / permission from the owner.

With TinEye, you can up to some extent identify if someone is using your images without permission. Though the database / cache of this is quite small, the way this image search engine work is a step ahead of all other search engines. This not just depend of image name, alt tags or title tags, but compares the exact image based on its characteristics and sorts out the results based on best match. This can identify exact copy of images, varied resolution/ resized images, cropped images, tilted or edited images, but don’t expect it to make face recognition.

Reverse image search results

If you are a webmaster, you may add your website into its database to crawl also you can block its bots by using robots.txt. For more details about the features and detailed information, check out FAQ page. They also have a Firefox addon for interested users.

Also read: Fun photo editors, Create mirror images

       

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5 Readers responded to this post

Very nice share. I have included this in the Friday link party. Check it

@ Nihar

Thanks for the party :)

very useful for me as my images were stolen recently :)

Great tool Mr Kumar. Wish I had it 3 yrs ago. I was checking photos my gf sent me (in a LDR) and found they are all stolen! Big Shock. I was checking all day – i had many pics. Then Tineye blocked me for abuse, but my email wont send to you for some reason. My use is strictly personal, and I Loved your program up to that point. please help.thx in advance.

@ ErwinQ

I cant help you in any way as I am not having any relation with Tineye, hope someone from support should listen to you. Try contacting them.

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About The Author

    Pavan Kumar

    Pavan Kumar completed Engineering in Electronics and Communication in the year 2008. He is very enthusiastic and keen to work on different aspects of computer, internet and mobile related fields. The articles here reflect his creativity. This blog was started as a showcase of solutions for different problems and today it has got a good reputation in the blogosphere. Read More...

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