[2025 Updated] How to Search for Copyright-Free Images (The Proper Way to Use Google Image Search)
One of the biggest hurdles when starting a blog is getting approved by AdSense. A common reason for rejection is the unauthorized use of copyrighted images.
Today, let’s learn how to properly search and use only copyright-free images.
How to Search for Copyright-Free Images
First, let’s briefly understand what copyright-free images actually are.
What Are Copyright-Free Images?
Copyright-free images refer to those whose original creators have relinquished their copyright or whose copyright protection period has expired, placing them in the public domain. Another case is when the image creator provides the image under a specific license (e.g., Creative Commons) allowing others to freely use it, which also classifies the image as copyright-free.
In other words, these are images that are either very old and no longer protected by copyright or intended for public use from the beginning. The key point here is that images licensed under Creative Commons are considered copyright-free. Let’s take a look at what the Creative Commons license means.
What Is a Creative Commons License?
The Creative Commons license provides a standardized way for creators, ranging from individuals to large organizations, to grant the public permission to use their works under copyright law. These licenses are designed to simplify how creators share their works and how others can use them.
It sounds complicated, but simply put, it’s a license that categorizes how someone else can use a creator’s work into six clear types, making it easier to understand and apply.
As bloggers, we only have to worry about three of them. Memorize them!
- CC BY: Attribution, Creative Commons, Attribution Altered, Commercial Use
- CC BY-ND: Attribution, No Alterations, Commercial Use
- CC0 (CC zero) : The creator has copyright waived.
Among these, CC0 is the best—it allows you to use the image completely freely, without even needing to credit the creator.
But suddenly a question arises: Why are we talking about licenses when searching for copyright-free images? It’s because Google Image Search lets you filter images by license type.
How to Use Google Image Search
Google Image Search is a specialized tool for searching images. For us bloggers, it’s a very handy tool.
How to Activate Google Image Search
First, on the Google homepage, click on the “Images” option at the top right corner to enter Google Image Search.
How to search Google Images on your phone
Enabling Google Image Search on your phone is easy.
When you follow this link, you’ll see an image under the usual Google logo, which means Google Image Search is now enabled.
Google Image Search Results – Filtering for Copyright-Free Images
To give an example, let’s search for “zebra.” Naturally, a bunch of zebra photos will appear, right? Now, let’s follow these three steps to find copyright-free images.
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- Click on the part of the image search results that says Tools
- Select the Permissions menu
- Choose a Creative Commons license
How to Check Detailed Copyright Information
Once you have filtered images with Creative Commons licenses on Google using the previous method, you need to verify the detailed copyright information. When you select an image, an enlarged version appears on the right side, and if you look closely, you’ll see a link labeled “License details.”
If you click that link, you’ll see it leads to the CC0 1.0 Public Domain license page. This confirms that the image is copyright-free. Yes! 🙂
Tips for Searching Copyright-Free Images
Many people know this much but miss the bigger picture. Google is known for showing different search results depending on the regional Google homepage you use. This is because interests and search patterns vary by country.
Also, since people differ by country, you can use this to your advantage when searching for copyright-free images. Try using an o verseas Google link generator, set the country to Japan and the search language to Korean, then check the results.
The image above compares search results for the same keyword on Korean Google and Japanese Google. When searching for “zebra” on Korean Google, about 2.59 million images appear.
On the other hand, when accessing Japanese Google and searching in Korean, you get much more—about 3.13 million images. This means that some images not shown on Korean Google for a specific keyword may appear on Japanese Google! Interesting, right?
Taking it further, using the overseas Google link generator with the country set to the U.S. and search language to English, I found over 524 million results… wow. When setting the country to the U.S. but the search language to Korean, about 3.17 million images showed up. So even with the same Korean search term, results vary depending on the country setting. Of course, different search languages yield different results!
In Conclusion
Today, we covered useful methods for beginner bloggers to search for copyright-free images. If you can’t find the image you want, trying searches from different countries is a great tip! Searching and using copyright-free images properly helps get AdSense approval more smoothly and avoids many headaches. Happy blogging!
