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I do now see where he did also claim visa versa that using originals wont help either. why would matt or rand mention it? they don't work for google they will not know everything. But he also said to the best of his knowledge, at that time, and that in the future that may change and it was 2 years ago. So I would still try to get original images if you can.

Hi Lina What Google wants is unique markup and tagging for that image. It relies on things like image optimization (for SEO), Schema markup, and image sitemaps to assist in understanding the photo better and what it represents so it can be returned in search results. You can learn more about reverse image search here. Hope this helps! Good luck!

Can it be that the traffic from Google are expats? Since it's hard to give people a face solely based on Google Analytics data. Either way you look at it, I think the best solution is the one that services your visitors and is SEO friendly. And if you’re facing the situation you can’t choose between the two, I would always stick with designing for people instead of search engines. Since search engines are getting pretty smart in detecting unnatural “optimalisation” and a good user experience results indirect in good rankings (dwell time for example) as well.

Anytime!