I used to get annoyed by people hotlinking to my images. Recently I've noticed a correlation between hot linked images and results from image searches. For example a couple of weeks ago VW bus images were hotlinked from a couple of forums, and suddenly my biggest search phrase was VW bus.

I've started not to mind image linking quite so much. Visitors from image searches often stay to have a look around. I really should watermark more photos with the domain name though....

Thanks, this is a great insight. Anyone else seen this?

I did a litle more research and hot linked one of my own images from a few forums. It's nowhere in image search so far.

Also I re-visited the hotlinking forums and it looks like one of them has moderated the pictures into a text link. My image search findings might therefore conform to what everyone else has found - ie surrounding text, inbound text links etc....

Mind you, an image that's interesting enough to be hotlinked might well be a good thing to put at the top of image search. I'd not be surprised if Google were to alter their image search algo to reflect this at some point in the future.

In the mean time I'll keep having fun with hot linkers: http://www.renault4.co.uk/gallery/index.php?cat=10002