How to find where your photo is used online

How reverse image search sees the web

A reverse image search takes a picture instead of words and looks for pages showing the same or similar images. The large services, including Google Lens, Bing Visual Search and TinEye, each keep their own index of images they have crawled, so results differ between them. Running the same photo through two or three is worth the few extra minutes.

What comes back falls into three groups, and it helps to keep them apart:

Identical copies

The same file, often at the same size. Easy to confirm by comparing the two files.

Edited copies

Your photo cropped, resized, recolored, flipped or with text added. Still your photograph, but a different file. Confirm by eye.

Lookalikes

Different photographs with a similar subject, composition or color. Search engines show these because they are visually close. They are not copies of your photo.

Our photo search labels every result by which group it falls into, as far as the files allow: identical file, same distinctive file name, or a lookalike to check yourself.

What searching will not find

• Private accounts and closed groups. Search engines cannot crawl what requires a login.
• Recently posted copies. A page has to be crawled before it can be found, and crawling takes time.
• Heavily altered versions. A photo cut into a collage, painted over or cropped to a small fragment may not match at all.
• Images inside apps and ads. Content shown only inside an app, or in an ad that is not on a public page, is mostly out of reach.

A search that finds nothing is good news, but it is not proof that nobody has used the photo. Search again in a few months.

Search by text as well

Images travel with words. Searching your photo’s original file name in quotes sometimes finds copies that kept it. If you published the photo with a distinctive caption or title, search that too. Product photographers can search their own product names alongside a marketplace’s name to find listings using their images.

Keep a record as you go

For each copy you decide is genuinely yours, write down the page address, the image file address, the date you found it, and which kind of copy it is. Take a screenshot with the address bar visible. Pages change, and a record made on the day is worth more than a recollection later.

Then decide what to do about each copy

Not every copy needs action. A credited share by a fan, a news article discussing your work, or a client’s licensed use may all be fine with you, or lawful regardless. For the rest, the route depends on where the copy is: a website’s host, a social platform’s copyright form, a marketplace’s report, or a request to Google. Our guide to what to do when someone uses your photo walks through the decision.

Making it a routine

A search done once finds what exists today. A routine finds copies while they are still new, before they have spread to other sites or been crawled into more search results. Keep a short list of the photos you check, a note of the date of each search, and the record of what you found last time, so each search only needs to look for what is new.

Text alerts help with the words that travel with images. A search-engine alert on a distinctive caption, a photo series title or your studio name will flag new pages mentioning them, some of which will carry your photos. For product photographers, an alert on product names combined with a marketplace’s name does the same for listings.

Revisit the list when your work changes. A new portfolio piece that does well, a product launch, or a photo of you that becomes widely shared all belong on it, and old images that nobody uses any more can come off.