Creative Commons Requires a DoFollow Link?

Posted by Dave Dugdale Published in SEO

So I am on my way home at the airport going thru the parking garage and I see a Tesla charging on a public AC outlet. I thought that was kind of ironic having a $110K car stealing from a public outlet so I took a picture.

I took that picture and placed on Flickr (under a creative commons license) and my SolarDave.com blog.

Later on other sites noticed it and blogged about including the picture and linked back to me which is totally cool.

However one of the sites placed a nofollow link on the link to my site. So I wrote them and politely asked them to make it a do follow link. They actually called me and told me they loved my blog, but when I asked them why not give me full credit for the photo they told me they don’t link out to sites they don’t partner with.

I laughed a little and then bit my lip because what I wanted to say was, “Hey shithead if you feel that way then I don’t give you permission to use my photo on your site.” But I was nice and just left it at that and got off the phone as quick as I could before I went off on the dude.

What are your thoughts on this? Shouldn’t a creative commons license require a dofollow link?

You can also follow the discussion on Flickr discussion groups.

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5 users responded in this post

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Dave said in February 4th, 2010 at 10:12 pm

You think too much

Dave Dugdale said in February 4th, 2010 at 10:15 pm

Yea, I thinkin’ I am a little bitter about that call I had today. So you don’t have an opinion on this?

Maksym said in February 5th, 2010 at 2:05 am

A lot of shit because of one link. Yur are greedy as a pig.

Dave Dugdale said in February 5th, 2010 at 8:33 am

Wow not the replies that I was expecting.

OK, I am new to CC and how attribution works on Flickr so perhaps I don’t know what I am talking about, but to me CC with attribution means that you are getting credit for your photos even in the eyes of Google.

Even if I am wrong on this I think it makes for an interesting discussion.

I am a terrible photographer so it is actually amusing that anyone would want to use my photos anyway.