I'm a bit worried

[2under2blog]

I put up a blog post about potty training that has been very popular. Originally, I included a snap of my daughter brushing her teeth on the potty. There's no real nudity, she's wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt and you can't see anything. But nevertheless, I quickly changed my mind and decided to take it down.

Now I've raked through my WP files and deleted any remote copies of the images, so it no longer resides on my self-hosted website.

But the thing that's worrying me is that I'm getting about 5 hits a day coming through google images (in Brazil and Italy) having thrown up the potty image. The URL of the image is not mine, it begins t3.gstatic.com/images...

I don't know why this is happening but it unnerves me. Any ideas on how I can erase the image from image results altogether?

[katese11]

Hmm, I don't think so - it sounds like someone has used that image on their own site, with a link to yours. Can you follow the link back?
I did a post of potty training and ummed and ahhed over what image to use. In the end, I just took a photo of his pottty and used that. I don't know why, just felt uncomfortable using a picture of him on the toilet...

[2under2blog]

Yeah I totally agree. It was a swift turnaround for me, even though the photo was fine. The link is a weird one, I can't figure out where it's hosted and who's pinched it. Perhaps if I submit the link to Google they can have it removed.

Thank you for taking the time to offer advice xx

[ZombTEE]

Huh, that is a bit worrying.

When I go to just the first part of what you put, without the /images, I get a 'that's not on this server' message.

And there's no Whois info for it. Highly suspicious.

You can try to report to Google but I don't know what they can or will do about it.

Good luck.

[2under2blog]

Thanks Zombtee, has nade me seriously think about using any pics of my girls at all... Food for thought I guess.

Thank you x

[pebbles77]

Oh 2under2blog - I have no advice I'm afraid but just wanted to say how sorry that you are feeling worried. Fingers and toes crossed that link gets taken down and we can all learn something. I would have done exactly the same thing re putting up a picture which i felt was ok and then realising it wasn't. Fingers crossed x

[peekyboo]

Maybe it's just been tracked or linked automatically across Google images or similar? That could be why there's no Whois for it? Just a thought, but I can understand you being worried.

[Gusthetheatrecat]

I understand this must feel a bit creepy. I'm not surprised you feel un-nerved by it. It might be that someone has pinched your image, but not hosted it themselves, so is linking back to your site. My technical knowledge is not great, but I seem to think that one way of putting an image on a website is to just link to where it's hosted elsewhere. This might be what's happened here, and why you're getting hits, from people reading another website and either their browser is trying to download the image from your site and failing, or perhaps they're clicking on 'image not found' and hence getting your link.

Just in case the image is actually posted elsewhere, I haven't done it myself, but I know you can search the web by image. If you did that, and you found it was hosted somewhere, you could find out if where your photo is online now, and contact the website to let them know that they have reproduced your image without permission, and you demand they take it down.
Instructions on how to google search by image rather than by words here:
www.google.com/insidesearch/features/images/searchbyimage.html
Hope that helps a bit?

[MmeLindor]

Oh, that is worrying.

I googled and found this .. productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/B7uDxlndUDQ

which suggests it will fade with time, since there is no image there for it to find. You could contact google for info though.

I don't post identifiable pics of my DC online, and am careful how I tag images. It is horrible to have to take these precautions, but I have seen other bloggers really upset at the search terms that led people to their blogs (have had my fair share of those too cause of the rape awareness campaign).

[2under2blog]

Thank you so much guys, you're all so helpful - and with no judgement. I really appreciate it.

I think I'll take down all pics of my girls. It's a contentious issue and I thought I felt alright about it, but better to be safe than sorry I guess. I like your approach, MmeLindor of using unidentifiable images. I'm sure I could get some images to support my posts that they couldn't be recognised from.

Thank you again for all of your help, I'll have a look at the links posted now.