Free photos! (Maybe.....)

It's been a while getting around to it but at last I've set up my fight back against the relentless march of the micro agencies - yes free photos!

Well not quite free of course. It's a pretty restricted list of beneficiaries and anyone using a photo has to provide a link back to this site. That link helps with the Google ranking here and accordingly will help the site get found by people who will be paying for photos.

And what is the point of giving away images to governments and schools? Easy - no link is of more value than one from an educational establishment or government organisation. Links from these sites are a huge spur to online marketing efforts because they are so difficult to get and they are going to be genuine. So links from them give a site credibility and Google regards them as of being of much greater value than other links.

And some photographers object to giving photos to charities. I've always regarded giving money to certain charities as being a waste of money. For example, hospitals. Give £500m to the health service and the government (who will always fund it to the lowest level that is politically acceptable) will give £500m less. But overseas charities are different. No one cares too much how much is given to support people overseas, so they need it more.

And the page itself should of course pull in the punters looking for free photos. With the new watermark (it's not actually on the photo but it will seem it is) and the photo click protection the defences are up. It's not foolproof but it makes it just a bit more difficult.