Using images for your website (or for any other purpose) can be a touchy issue. It can even be a legal issue, especially so if you are not the rightful owner of the image. In this case, you have to ask permission from the owner, or pay the necessary fees which can be expensive at times (or most of the time).

With that in mind, Google has launched a feature on Image Search that helps in finding images that can be use for free, while respecting the rightful owners. With the new feature, searching can be restricted to images that have been tagged with licenses like Creative Commons.

“To enable this feature, go to our advanced image search page. Under the “Usage rights” section, you can select the type of license you’d like to search for, such as those marked for reuse or even for commercial reuse with modification. Your results will be restricted to images marked with CC or other licenses. Once you confirm the license of the image and make sure that your use will comply with the terms of the license (such as proper attribution to the image’s owner), you can reuse the image,” Google’s official blog announced.